Finished: The Hunt for Red October (Clancy) How have I never read a Tom Clancy book before?? This was quite a page-turner. :-) I've seen Harrison Ford's two Jack Ryan movies, but I've never seen The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin. I had heard my son and hubby speak of it before, so I knew it involved a Russian submarine captain trying to defect to the U.S. I think the book would have been all the more exciting had I not known that ahead of time. Anyway...it was a great read! It did get a little over-technical for me at times describing all the different navy submarine and ship systems of the U.S. and Russia, but the actual action was great! Renowned Russian submarine captain, Marko Ramius puts an intricate plan into action when he takes out Russia's latest and greatest new submarine, the Red October, for a test run. The upper officers on his crew, all who have been hand-trained by him, are also wanting to defect. Thus begins a call to arms by both the Russians and the U.S. as every ship and submarine in the Russian fleet heads towards the American coast looking for the missing submarine. As it turns out, the arrogant Ramius has written a goodbye letter to the Russian government letting them know he is defecting, and not only that, going to hand over their pride and joy, the Red October, to the United States. CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, has figured the scheme out and is instantly catapulted into the middle of the action. Even though he calls himself "just" a historian and analyst, he becomes the go to man for the U.S. Navy when things with their hand-picked team go wrong. Jack Ryan ends up on the Russian submarine, along with a veteran U.S. submarine captain, Bert Mancuso, as they attempt to fool the Russians by evacuating all of Ramius' unknowing younger crew, and then blowing up an old U.S. submarine and pretending that the Red October blew up due to a radiation leak before all the lead officers and the two Americans could disembark. This way, the Americans could keep the Russian submarine to study. It's a pretty nifty idea, with some last minute thrills at the end. I think I'd really like to see the movie now! :-)

Finished: Conversations With My Father (Gardner) A good play, not what I expected, but still very good. I can see why it ran for over a year on Broadway! It begins in 1976 with a 40 year old Charlie walking into the lower Manhattan bar that his family has owned since his father immigrated  from Russia as a child. Charlie is with his own 20-something year old son who is excited to be going through some of his grandparents old "treasures". Charlie has recently sold the bar and he just wants to get out of there and away from the memories. Suddenly, we are transported back to 1936 where we meet Charlie's father, the 40-something Eddie Ross (formerly Itzik Goldberg, a Russian Jew who witnessed the brutal deaths of his mother and brother in Russia by Russian non-Jews, and the death of his father by the gangs of New York who didn't appreciate his being the only bar owner in New York who stuck to the prohibition laws.) Eddie has taken the name in honor of his favorite American boxer and his favorite American President (Roosevelt). He wants to remove his boys, 10 year old Joseph (formerly Jussel) and 2 year old Charlie (formerly Chaim) from publicly being identified as Jewish, while still privately sending them to Hebrew school. He doesn't want them to be persecuted in the U.S. Eddie's wife, Gusta, and a handful of bar regulars make up the cast as Eddie continually reinvents his bar trying to make it the best thing going. One patron and longtime friend, Anton, an old Russian actor, lives upstairs and comes down every day to read the Jewish news to his friends. He's a great influence on young Joey. There is some great dialogue in the play. Eddie is very vocal about his opinions and has long conversations with 2 year old Charlie because Charlie refuses to speak. Joey tells him not to worry, that Charlie is taking it all in. Sure enough, Charlie does grow up to be extremely literate and becomes a best-selling author. Flash to 1944 and Joey is now 17 going on 18 and Charlie is 10. Joey has become a great young boxer who has been undefeated in over 20 bouts. His bout that night is finally going to be broadcast over the radio, which is a huge deal. The same crowd gathers around the radio to listen in the bar that night. Before going to warm up, though, Anton has come down with his daily paper and exclaims that he can't believe that hundreds of thousands of Jews are being put to their deaths in the Nazi camps and it's buried on page twelve of the New York newspaper. Eddie defends the paper saying it's probably all just propaganda...of course they aren't killing all those Jews. However Joey takes it all in and it really bothers him. As the radio begins to announce his bout that night, the announcers says that Joey is a no show! Eddie is shocked and worried at the same time. Joey comes bounding into the bar to his father's relief, only to tell him that he's decided to sign up for the Navy to go and do his part to fight the Jew-killers. Of course, you can guess that only days before the war ends, Joey is killed on his ship as he steadfastly maintains his gunnery position against the suicide bombing Japanese. The family is devastated, non more so than 10 year old Charlie who idolized Joey. It's 20 more years until we see Eddie and Charlie again and that's because Eddie has had a heart attack and Charlie rushes home to see him. I can't really explain all the nuances of the different conversations that Eddie has with his sons over the years and with Anton, his good friend, but all the scenes are either heartbreaking or humorous or both. Also, the entire time that the story goes back in time, the current 40 year old Charlie is there in the background making little comments to different characters...not obnoxiously so, but poignantly so. I think it was probably a really fine play to see live. So finally, we are brought back to 1976 and we finally understand why Charlie wants to sell the bar and his bad memories along with it. So glad I read this play.  I'm pretty sure I initially bought it because I remember my brother maybe saying he did a monologue from it for an audition once? Anyway, I'm glad to have it floating around in my brain now. :-)

Finished: The Husband's Secret (Moriarty) Well...the secret was not at all what I thought it would be! :-) The book was a good page-turner because of it! The story of three Australian women whose lives coincide at a crucial moment for each of them on Good Friday in 2012. Cecelia is the mother of three young daughters, married to the handsome, successful John Paul. She is the ultimate organized mother...president of their equivalent of the PTA and a Tupperware saleswoman to boot. She's planning a huge pirate party for her 6 year old daughter, Polly's, birthday. Rachel is a grandmother to 2 year old Jacob by her son Rob and his wife Lauren. She gets the disturbing news that they plan to whisk her beloved grandson away and move to New York for two years. That's not even the tip of her emotional iceberg, though. Back in 1984 her 17 year old daughter, Janie, had been strangled to death by an unknown murderer. Rachel has lived with the nightmare all these years and because of it, pretty much closed off her emotions towards Rob, who was 15 at the time. A couple of years after Janie's death, Rachel's husband died of a heart attack. Rachel is the school secretary at the same school that Cecelia's daughter's attend. Also...the good-looking, single P.E. teacher, Connor Whitby, is a thorn in Rachel's emotions. It just so happens that he was the last person to see Janie alive all those years ago because he was Janie's age and was her secret suitor. Rachel is convinced that Connor killed Janie but there was no evidence to back that up so he was never charged. Parents and children alike at the school all love Connor. The third woman is Tess. Tess is a 30-something mother of 6 year old Liam. We first meet her when her husband of 10 years and her cousin and best friend since birth, Felicia, are telling her that they've fallen in love. Tess can't believe what she's hearing and she takes Liam and decides to go home and visit her mother for awhile in, you guessed it, the same town that Cecelia and Rachel live in. Tess and her mother go straight away the next day to register Liam in the same school that Cecelia's daughters attend. While meeting the principal, Connor Whitby strolls in and recognizes Tess! It seems that years ago when Tess was about 19, her first love was the 10 years older Connor Whitby! She doesn't even recognize him, but he does her because he's been in love with her ever since.

So, now to the secret. While going through some boxes in her attic, Cecelia comes across a letter written to her by John Paul that says for her to open it only in the event of his death. Cecelia struggles with respecting his wishes, especially since he's out of town on business and curiosity is getting the better of her. When he calls that night she tells him she found the letter. After an awkward silence, he begs her not to read it because he says it was just a mushy letter he wrote after their first daughter was born and then he lost it before he could tear it up. He had never intended for her to see it. He begs her not to read it, so she files it away with their wills in the study filing cabinet. The next thing she knows, as she arrives home from giving a Tupperware party that evening, John Paul is climbing out of a cab having come home days early. His adoring daughters are thrilled to see him and he them. Meanwhile, Tess meets Connor for an innocent cup of coffee but they end up having hot sex on his apartment floor! He tells her he's never really gotten over her. She's beginning to think that since her husband is obviously moving on, that it's not so bad having someone who is completely desiring her. Of course....young Liam, while adjusting to the new school and already invited to Polly's pirate party, still longs for his daddy. He's even savvy enough to insist his mommy and Auntie Felicia make up so things can go back to how they were. And then there's Rachel, who finds an old VCR tape with Janie on it that she's never seen! In it Janie is interviewing Connor for a school project and they appear happy, but then things turn serious was Connor asks Janie for real if she will be his girlfriend. She laughs at him and he gets mad and shuts the camera off. This convinces Rachel more than ever that Connor is guilty of Janie's murder. The police don't give it much credence though, and Rachel is crushed. Rachel also feels extreme guilt because on the day that Janie was murdered, Rachel was seven minutes late picking Janie up at the corner where she was supposed to meet her and take her to a doctor's appointment. Janie had not been feeling well, having shortness of breath and a racing heart a few times. What Rachel doesn't realize is that Janie totally forgot about the doctor's appointment anyway, having gone over to Connor's.

Back to Cecelia and John Paul and the secret. At this point, I'm thinking for sure he's got another family somewhere. After they go to bed that night, Cecelia wakes up in the middle of the night to find John Paul out of the bed and she can hear his footsteps up above in the attic, where she told him she'd put the letter back. What the heck, she thinks. He must want that letter back so badly...what could be in it? While John Paul rustles around upstairs, Cecelia goes to the study file cabinets and takes the letter out to read. John Paul comes down the stairs just as Cecelia has finished reading the letter and oh my God...he didn't have another family....HE killed Janie!!! He was also a teenager all those years ago and he and Janie had secretly seen each other a few times because she wasn't allowed to date. They'd met at a couple of movies and at the park. They'd never even kissed yet, but John Paul was head over heels in love with Janie. On Good Friday of 1984, Janie had called John Paul to meet her at the park to tell him she was breaking up with him because she'd fallen in love with Connor! In a burst of anger, John Paul strangled Janie. Realizing what he was doing, he'd quit pretty quickly, but not in time. Janie had perished. John Paul was never suspected and went on to college. He'd lived all those years with incredible guilt, though, even trying to take his own life his first year of college. A few years later, he met Cecelia and they married and had their first daughter. That's when John Paul realized the magnitude of what he'd done...he'd taken away Rachel and Ed Crowley's daughter. He couldn't imagine anything happening to his little baby. He wrote the letter in case anything ever happened to him. He wanted Cecelia to let Rachel know what had happened all those years ago. He claims he would never have let anyone else take the blame...he would have turned himself in then.

Anyway, needless to say, Cecelia is floored. She's shocked. She doesn't know what to do. She alternates between calling the police and wondering what her own daughters would do without their father. She procrastinates for a couple of days and the result is more devastation. As Good Friday arrives, bringing the anniversary of Janie's death, the stories all converge. First, Connor calls Tess to see if she'd like to bring Liam over to the school park for some amazing kite flying. She accepts, but before they can get out the door, Felicia arrives!! She tells Tess that she's going away for a long time....the minute that Tess walked out the door and took Liam, Will was beside himself and realized what he'd done and lost. Will would be over soon and begging for their life back together. Reeling, Tess calls Connor to tell him that her husband is in town and she won't be able to make it. He understands and says goodbye, letting her know that she's broken his heart a second time. (She was the one who left him all those years ago after they dated.) Connor is left standing at the park with his huge kite in hand. At Cecelia's house on Good Friday she's so preoccupied that she's :::gasp::: forgotten to buy butter for her traditional hot cross buns. Cecelia and John Paul keep a united front with the girls and Cecelia says, let's ride our bikes to the school park for some family time and on the way home we'll stop at the one open store to get butter to bring home. So, off they go. And Rachel...well she's gone early in the morning to the other park...the one where Janie lost her life. She goes every year on the anniversary of her death. She's driving home by the school park, despondent and so upset that the police aren't going to pursue Connor Whitby and her little grandson is moving away. Suddenly, Rachel sees Connor Whitby hanging up his phone and looking bummed. He's about to cross the street in front of her and she jams on the accelerator deliberately! At that same instant, though, six year old Polly, riding her bike between Cecelia and John Paul has seen the beloved Mr.Whitby and calls out for him! He doesn't hear her so she shoots off down the hill towards him. Tragically, Rachel misses Connor but hits little Polly. :-( :-( You think, wow, the karma has come back to John Paul in a big way. The police let Rachel off the hook, saying it was obviously an accident. She still goes to the hospital to see if Polly has survived. Polly has indeed survived, but she's going to lose her right arm. Beautiful, vivacious little Polly will lose her arm. Rachel sees the devastated Cecelia and apologizes profusely. She confesses to Cecelia that it wasn't an accident...she was trying to run down the man who killed her daughter, Connor Whitby. Cecelia nearly passes out. She sits down and makes her own confession to Rachel...it wasn't Connor that killed her daughter but her own husband, John Paul! She explains that she'd just discovered the information a few days before but they are both hit with the realization that if Cecelia had said something sooner that Polly wouldn't be in the situation she was in. Interestingly, Rachel decides that she's taken enough from the family with Polly's accident, and that she doesn't want to take their father from the girls, so she does not turn him in. Cecelia and John Paul will be left to put the pieces together for Polly's life. Also interestingly, Rachel for the first time picks up the phone and is warm to her daughter-in-law and expresses actually needing them for once. Can she spend the night? Rob and Lauren jump at that chance and it looks like those familial bonds will be strengthened. In the meantime, Tess and Will talk all night and Will explains that he's not just coming back for Liam. He was at a very low point in his life when he thought he fell for Felicia and he didn't know what he was thinking but he still loves Tess and will she please give him another chance. Will and Felicia had never even slept together, which Tess already knew. She agrees to give their marriage a go until Christmas and if he's still got feelings for Felicia, then they will re-address it then. And...as a little wrap up in the epilogue, we find out that Tess has become pregnant but will not know if the baby is Connor's or Will's! And, Felicia meets a man in Paris and falls and love and marries, so Tess and Will stay together after all. And, we also find out that the reason Janie succumbed so quickly to the strangling was that she had Marfan syndrome and suffered an aortic aneurysm. As a matter of fact, if she'd made her doctor appointment that fateful day, she would have been put in the hospital immediately for an operation to repair it. So, when John Paul had stopped himself, most healthy girls would have lived to run away...but not poor Janie. Interesting...and a quite good page-turner. I think I might read more by Liane Moriarty! :-)

Finished: Antigone (Sophocles). It's been a long time since I've read one of the ancient classics, and my mind just found the language so refreshing. It takes a little bit to adjust to, but then it's just like I was born reading that amazing, flowing, metaphorical, confusing, but beautiful language. :-) I put a couple of snippets of the writing below. The story is pretty simple. Creon is the ruler of the city of Thebes after defeating Oedipus in battle. One of Oedipus' sons, Eteocles, battled on the side of Creon, and one, Polynices, battled on the side of Oedipus. They face each other on the battle field and kill each other at the same time. Creon decrees that Eteocles shall be buried with honors and treated as a hero, but that Polynices shall receive no burial whatsoever. He will be left where he is for the dogs and carrion to tear at his body. In fact, if anyone even openly mourns for him, they will be breaking the law. Antigone is the devastated sister of Eteocles and Polynices and daughter of the deceased Oedipus. She defies Creon's new law and covers Polynices' body with dirt and performs a burial rite over him. Her argument is: how do you defy the gods who require this ceremony upon the death of a mortal? does a law created by a mortal usurp the law of the gods? Antigone is caught and brought to Creon where she shows no remorse for her actions. Even though she is betrothed to his own son, Haemon, Creon refuses to relent on his stance and sentences Antigone to death by being locked in a cavernous tomb until she dies. Haemon appeals to his father, but the words fall on deaf ears. He tells his son that he cannot back down before the people, and he cannot let a woman rule his actions. Haemon leaves his father with his own thoughts. Soon, an old seer comes to visit Creon and tells him that imminent disaster will be a result of his decision, not to mention that the people he's now ruling will turn on him. Creon decides to follow the seer's advice and goes to give the body of Polynices a proper burial. While there, he hears a scream coming from Antigone's vault. He realizes it is the scream of his own son! Creon runs to the vault, but it's too late...there he finds Antigone's body hanging after she committed suicide in her despair, and Haemon dead beside her, having run himself through with his own weapon. Beside himself with grief, Creon makes his way back to his home only to find that his beloved wife, Eurydice, has also just committed suicide, having heard of her only surviving son's death. As he is throughout the story, Creon is then chatted at by the Chorus. Here is what they have to say at the very end of the story:

LEADER OF CHORUS. Wise conduct hath command of happiness Before all else, and piety to Heaven Must be preserved. High boastings of the proud Bring sorrow to the height to punish pride:-- A lesson men shall learn when they are old.

And here's another passage I really liked. It's when Antigone is justifying to Creon why she needed to defy him and bury her brother no matter the consequences:

I heard it not from Heaven, nor came it forth From Justice, where she reigns with Gods below. They too have published to mankind a law. Nor thought I thy commandment of such might That one who is mortal thus could overbear The infallible, unwritten laws of Heaven. Not now or yesterday they have their being, But everlastingly, and none can tell The hour that saw their birth. I would not, I, For any terror of a man's resolve, Incur the God-inflicted penalty Of doing them wrong. That death would come, I knew Without thine edict;--if before the time, I count it gain. Who does not gain by death, That lives, as I do, amid boundless woe? Slight is the sorrow of such doom to me. But had I suffered my own mother's child, Fallen in blood, to be without a grave, That were indeed a sorrow. This is none. And if thou deem'st me foolish for my deed, I am foolish in the judgement of a fool.

A sad, sad story, but one told oh so very well!

Finished: The Dead Zone (King) This was definitely one of those books I just couldn't put down, with a main character that I loved! It's only my third Stephen King book, but knowing it was one of my hubby's favorites, I was anxious to read it. Reading Cujo years ago scared me to death! And, watching The Shining years ago through my fingers held up to my face....well, let's just say King was just too scary for me to read more, lol. Then, this year, per my daughter's recommendation, I read his 11/22/63 and it was soooooo good! Anyway, I'm still in that kind of surreal state after finishing a King book where I'm thinking back to different things that happened in the book and relating them to each other. The Dead Zone is about Johnny Smith, a young man who has the ability to see a future or past event associated with a person by simply touching that person or an object belonging to the person. It doesn't happen with everyone he comes across, but it happens enough to cause him to age before our eyes in incredible angst. It is NOT a power he enjoys having at all. It seems to begin when he's a six-year old boy ice skating on a frozen pond. When his forehead is accidentally slammed to the ice by a hockey playing older boy, Johnny blacks out for several minutes and wakes up muttering some seemingly nonsensical statement about battery acid and an explosion that no one can decipher. Nobody really hears what he says, but a few weeks later, the neighbor who rushed to his aid first on the ice and held him while he was unconscious suffers a battery acid burn to his face when he is charging his dead car battery. Fast forward many years later and Johnny, having finished college, is 23 and teaching high school. He has just begun dating a fellow teacher, Sarah, and he's pretty sure he's in love. Johnny and Sarah go to the fall festival and Johnny has another incident. This one involves the roulette game of chance, The Wheel of Fortune. In front of Sarah and a growing crowd, as Johnny grasps the wood rails of the game, he keeps picking the right numbers until he has won over $500. In a trance for most of the event, Johnny doesn't understand or realize what is enabling him to pick the right numbers. Finally, he and Sarah head home when she becomes ill with food poisoning. This had been the night that she was going to reciprocate Johnny's declaration of love. After a kiss at the top of the ferris wheel, she asks Johnny to come home and spend the night with her. If they had just skipped walking by that wheel of fortune, maybe things would have turned out differently. As it was, Sarah became ill and Johnny drove her home in her own car. Willing to stay the night and take care of her, Sarah doesn't want Johnny to see her so sick, so she allows him to hail a cab for home. As he walks out the door, she does manage to squeak out that she loves him back. On cloud nine, Johnny heads home in the cab not knowing that his life would soon change forever. A horrific head-on crash with a drag racing teenager takes the life of the teenager and the cab driver and puts Johnny in a coma for 4 1/2 years! This has a profound affect on his parents, as well as Sarah. They all wait with hope for months and months, but the doctors indicate that Johnny will probably never come out of the coma. Eventually after about a year, Sarah meets someone new, falls in love (but not like she was with Johnny) and marries. When Johnny miraculously wakes up at the age of 27, life has gone on without him, but his ability to touch someone and know exactly what is going on in their life...or what is about to, has become stronger than ever at quite a cost to his mental and physical well being. However, he does manage to save his therapist's home from burning down, and he helps to catch a horrific serial rapist and killer, and he manages to convince the father of a high school boy he's been tutoring that dozens of recent high school graduates will perish in a fire at the annual grad party held at a local establishment. The father has his son stay home and have whatever friends he wants come to their house instead. About half the graduates come, but the other half still go to the bar and they do, in fact, perish in a horrific fire. Each of these events throws Johnny into the media spotlight, the last place he wants to be. Most people think he's some kind of quack, but they can't explain how he could know these things. His last act of heroism is to try and put a stop to a dangerous politician, Greg Stillson, who has talked his way into the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Upon shaking his hand, Johnny sees the future with this man if he's left unchecked. He sees him as a charismatic president who leads the country and world into a destructive nuclear war. He can't see it quite as clearly as he saw the other visions because there is a blue and yellow filmy shield over the vision...but he knows that Greg Stillson is dangerous and must be stopped. Johnny tries to reason himself out of interfering, but he can't stop himself. He realizes that the only option is for him to try and assassinate the politician. After all...he thinks...if a person could go back in time, knowing what we now know, would that person assassinate Hitler if given the chance? Johnny goes through all the preparations of buying the gun, placing himself in the balcony of Stillson's next speech location and then he waits. When Stillson goes to the podium to begin his speech, Johnny stands up and begins shooting. He misses with the first three shots, giving Stillson's bodyguards enough time to start shooting at Johnny. Then, the unthinkable happens....Stillson, the unprincipled human being that he is, grabs a young boy from the audience and holds him up in front of himself as a shield! The boy's parka is blue and yellow. The whole vision becomes clear to Johnny as he is hit by two bullets causing him to plummet to the floor, breaking his back. As the life slowly ebbs from him, Johnny grabs the ankle of Stillson as he comes over to confront his shooter. Johnny sees none of the destruction any more...just an empty shell of a man. His job is done, though not the way he expected it. Johnny dies knowing that Stillson has ruined his own chances by being despicable and cowardly enough to hold a young boy in front of his body as a human shield. It's such a good book and I loved Johnny Smith. I was so sad to see him die, but life as he knew it was so miserable for him anyway. This is one of those books that I didn't really want to end though because I want there to be more of Johnny Smith!

Finished: Crash and Burn (Gardner) Another good, suspenseful book by one of my favorite current authors. Usually Lisa Gardner makes her detectives the main characters, and the victims and perpetrators fill in the story. This way, we've gotten to know alot of her investigators and police officers that make repeat performances in her books. In this one, we still have three detectives (2 we've known quite well) that we've seen before, however the main character is really the supposed victim, Nicki Frank. In a story that includes little girls being kidnapped and/or sold by their own destitute parents into a house of prostitution 30 years earlier, we meet Nicki...or is she Vero, the six year old who went missing all those years ago...or is she Chelsea pretending to be Vero? The book is pretty predictable, but still has a couple of surprises, and as always entertains. :-)

Finished: Orphan Train (Kline) Book Club Book #8. A moving story about loss, despair, determination, and finally hope as we follow two different orphan girls from two different eras who end up meeting and sharing their like experiences when the first is 91 and the second 17. Nine year old Niamh, pronounced Neev, is a little Irish immigrant girl living in depression-era New York, fresh off the boat from Ireland with her mother, father, six-year old twin brothers and baby sister when a fire takes the life of her entire family except her (or so she believes at the time). Niamh is put on one of the infamous orphan trains in New York, run by the Children's Aid Society, and transported out to Minnesota, where she survives two different foster homes, each deplorable in its own way, but the second far more dangerous than the first. When the father of the second home tries to molest her, Niamh is taken in by the kind, young, and single school teacher, Miss Larsen. Miss Larsen takes Niamh home to meet her landlady, Mrs. Murphy, who runs the single women's home for young working women. Though Mrs. Murphy would love to raise Niamh as her own, she cannot afford to do so either, but she introduces Niamh to a lovely couple who run the town store, the Nielsen's. Having lost their own daughter at a young age, the Nielsen's take to Niamh and she to them. She becomes an astute business woman at a young age and helps make the store a huge success, even through the war years. Having accepted the new name of Vivian, she is thrilled one day at the age of nineteen to run into her old orphan train mate, Dutchy, as he was known to her then...now known as Luke. Spending an entire night catching up and amazed that they ever found each other again after ten years (even though Dutchy had promised Niamh he would one day find her), they fall in love and get married....only to have Dutchy be shipped off to World War II and get killed in action. :-( Pregnant with his child, Vivian is devastated and swears that she can't take another single loss in her life. She names her baby girl after she's born, then gives her up for adoption...then throws herself into running and expanding the store. She remarries Dutchy's best friend and shipmate a year later with the declared intention that she will never have children. She never loves Jim like she loved Dutchy, but her marriage lasts the rest of her life until she finally outlives Jim. Rich beyond her dreams, with the money from the successful store, Vivian is 91 and living alone in a huge mansion in Maine when her maid's son's girlfriend, 17 year old Molly Ayer, is assigned community service hours for stealing a book from the local library. In and out of her own foster care nightmares since her father died when she was 8 and her mother incarcerated a year later for drug use, Molly is now living with a couple who are basically just housing her for the foster care money. There's not really any empathy or love there, which Molly soon finds instead from Vivian! Her community service involves 50 hours of helping Vivian clean out her attic. Of course, everything in the attic relates back to Vivian's past so Molly is treated to the stories of Vivian's past as an orphan train girl. A few twists and turns evolve along the way....like finding out that Vivian's baby sister didn't really die in the fire, but was adopted by the Jewish couple in the next flat...the same couple who told little Niamh that her entire family was dead, even her baby sister, before sending Niamh to the Children's Aid Society. Anyway, by the end of the story, you can tell that Molly has truly found someone in Vivian who cares for her, and vice versa. Molly helps Vivian find the daughter that she gave up for adoption all those years before. It turns out the daughter put in a request fourteen years earlier in hopes of finding her birth mother. The story ends with that daughter arriving to meet her mother with her own 11 year old granddaughter in tow...a little redhead, just like Niamh was all those years ago. A very good story that I'm so glad I read! At first I wasn't sure this book would appeal to me, but it definitely tugged at my heartstrings. So sorry to see Dutchy die though. :-(