SPOILERS!!!
Christmas turns out to be a turning point for Elisabeth. Hell breaks loose when Elisabeth learns that her sister Charlotte is receiving money of their cheating father, and during the argument Andrew discovers that his wife learnt a large amount of money to Charlotte and he was totally in the dark. After Christmas, Elisabeth and Charlotte stop talking, and things are strained between Elisabeth and Andrew.
Something is also awry for Sam. She is friends with the kitchen staff as she worked some hours there the previous year, and she got specially close to Gaby. Sam knows that the women struggle with some conditions, especially a mother like Gaby who cannot use of the mindchild service in college as it is just for professors. Without telling anybody, Sam decides to write a letter to the president, Mrs Washington, who she knows advocates for women, in the university gazette. That proves a mistake as the president replies with a hurtful letter, and then she implements some stricter policy for the kitchen staff. Gaby is angry with Sam, and she tells her that she has decided to leave the job and work in a restaurant, and she has no intention to continue her friendship with Sam.
Then Clive comes visiting. George offers to drive Sam to pick him up, and Sam is embarrassed when Clive treats him as a chauffeur. Elisabeth has offered to take her and Clive to New York to spend the weekend. Elisabeth realises that Clive is not good for Sam, and she even checks him online and discovers that he was married before. The weekend is good for Elisabeth, but because of her deceit with the money, she has to agree to try to get pregnant again even though she has no wisth to do so.
Some weeks later Andrew is invited to an inventors' symposium in Denver, and Sam agrees to come and help Elisabeth with the shots she needs for her fertility treatment. However, when she comes the first tiem, Elisabeth tells her that she won't do it, but she needs to keep this from Andrew, which Sam agrees to. When Andrew returns, he does not have good news. He says that his idea was laughed at and he won't insist on the grill thing, so now they have to figure out where to go from there. Elisabeth does not have the heart to tell him about her decision not to get the shots. So when the next day she is to go to hospital to get the embryos implanted, she follows through even though the doctors tell her that her levels are too low and there will be almost no chance for a pregnancy. Yet, she does it and deceives Andrew.
Elisabeth is worried about Sam and her relationship with Clive, and then she reads about a gallery opening in New York. It is the gallery Sam applied for but was refused because she was not English. Using the forum of mothers she frequents, she asks for someone who has some contact because she wants to prevent her wonderful babysitter from marrying her creepy British boyfriend. One woman has the contact, and the gallery gets in touch with Sam and offers her an interview and eventually a job. Sam is delighted, and Elisabeth makes her see that she needs to take the job and delay her move to England.
Sam is to graduate the day before Gil's birthday, and Elisabeth plans a big party for the two of them on Gil's birthday. Then Sam has an argument with her mother when she asks her not to have Clive in the graduation. Sam tells Elisabeth, and when Elisabeth leaves to answer the telephone, Sam has a peek at the computer, and she notices the post Elisabteth wrote about the gallery and her British boyfriend. After that, Sam and Elisabeth have an argument, and during the argument Elisabeth reveals that Clive may have been married before.
Sam leaves, and that is the last time they talk. When she has to babysit Gil next, Elisabeth is not there because she does not dare to face Sam. After their argument, Sam talked to Clive, and he admitted to having been married before but it meant nothing. Yet, the more he explained, the more Sam realised that this was not a simple matter. Sam tells him that she is going to work and live in New York, and they need to delay the wedding, and see what happens.
Sam leaves after graduation without seeing Elisabeth or receiving a text from her. Elisabeth went to the graduation and saw her from afar, but she did not dare to contact her. Sam goes to live in New York, and Elisabeth realises that she is okay with living in town. And she decides to write a book about the subject that her father-in-law is interested in.
Ten years later, in the epilogue, Sam and Isabella come back for the reunion. Isabella is married and has three children, and Sam is married but has opened her own gallery. When she is walking in town, she sees Elisabeth and approaches. The conversation is stilted, and she sees Gil, who is now ten, and she discovers that Elisabeth also has a daughter, who is about eight. Elisabeth tells her that Andrew works in the university, and George is okay. The conversation ends and Sam feels sad that after all they shared, there is nothing between them.
I enjoyed the book, and it was a good analysis about motherhood, relationships and deceit.
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