SPOILERS!!!
In this part of the book we get to know more about Kathleen, Alice's daughter, and Ann Marie, her daughter-in-law.
Kathleen is now living in California with her boyfriend, Arlo, and they run a business which makes fertilizer out of worms' dung. Kathleen has always had a difficult relationship with Alice, and she feels that Alice has a better relationship with Ann Marie than with her or her sister Clare. Her life has been conditioned by her failed marriage. Kathleen admits that she got married and had children because that was the thing to do, and she never thought that she could lead a fulfilled life as a single woman. It is interesting that Kathleen has this thought and at the same time she feels she and her mother are totally different. The thing is that when Alice was young, she didn't want to get married and wanted to remain single. So in the end Kathleen and Alice are more similar that she thinks.
Kathleen married Paul, had her two children, Maggie and Chris, and when she discovered that her husband was cheating on her, she divorced him. It angered her to discover that her brother, Patrick, and his wife, Ann Marie knew about his deceit and covered up for him. Alice wasn't very supportive when she divorced him.
Kathleen was an alcoholic and had to go to AA. It was there where he met Arlo, and they hooked up. Her family think that their business is ridiculous, but the truth is that they are making good money.
Ann Marie is Patrick's wife, and she is bossy and has very inflexible ideas how life is. She has three children: Patty, Little Daniel, and Fiona. Patty is married and has a couple of children; Little Daniel is in a relationship with Regina, who he plans to marry; and Fiona, who is in the peace corps and gay, something that nobody else in the family have. Ann Marie tries to control everything in the family, which angers Kathleen very much. The secret that Anna Marie has is that she is attracted to Steve Brewer. She and Patrick are friends with the Brewers, and they are supposed to spend some time in Maine, so Ann Marie can't wait to spend time with him. We don't know if he feels the same or if her attraction is just one-sided.
In the second chapter about Alice, we get to know more about her past as a teenager and young woman, and about her sister, Mary. We know that Mary died many years ago, and Alice was very fond of her. In this chapter Alice remembers how her sister was very different with her; she didn't care much how she looked and didn't mind about money or clothes. After she finished school, she started working in an office, and it is there that she met Henry and they fell in love. Then Mary changed; she started to wear nicer clothes and make up, but she claimed that all she cared about was Henry. Henry was much older from her, and he walked with a slight limp because he had an accident when he was at Harvard. His family was very well off, and Alice found it strange that after several months Mary still hadn't met his parents.
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