go to Hollywood. They each had their own passions and Caroline’s were totally foreign to her sisters. It set her apart from her family, and made her feel like a stranger in their midst from the time she was very young. She learned to read at five and had been a voracious reader ever since. She dreamed of doing and seeing the things she read about, and of writing herself.
Now at thirty-nine, she lived in Marin County outside San Francisco, with her husband, Peter, and their two children. She had met Peter at Berkeley when she was in college and he was in business school. He was five years older, from a family with money. Peter had grown up with all the cultural advantages she had missed. He had made a considerable fortune of his own in venture capital. Caroline and Peter were the typical successful Marin County couple. He drove a Porsche, she drove a Mercedes station wagon. They had a handsome house and two bright, nice kids who went to private schools. Their daughter, Morgan, was fifteen, and Billy was eleven. Caroline loved their life, her work, and their marriage.
She had snuck away while her father wasn’t looking. Gemma, his middle child, had always been the star in his eyes, and Kate, the oldest, was the daughter he counted on to back him, and work with him on the ranch. Caroline never gave him a hard time about anything. He and Gemma fought constantly, but he loved and respected her all the more for it. While he and Gemma were battling, Caroline just quietly slipped away to the life she had fantasized about for years. She had everything she wanted now, a solid marriage, great kids, a pretty house. She was involved with the ballet, the film festival in Marin, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and a career she enjoyed. She was still writing young adult books, and had won the coveted Printz Award, the most prestigious award for books for younger readers.
She had been starving for culture while she lived in the Valley, and all her hopes had come to fruition once she left Santa Ynez. She went back as rarely as possible, and occasionally felt guilty about it. She loved her father and sister, but found visiting the ranch oppressive. Just being there made her feel anxious. It was a déjà vu of her youth, which wasn’t a happy memory for her. She had felt overlooked and out of place for all seventeen years she’d lived there until she left for college.
Peter was from New York and they visited his family more often than hers, although her kids thought it was fun to go to the ranch. Caroline loved going to New York, catching up on the latest museum exhibits, the opera, theater, and everything that the city offered. She took her children with her whenever possible.
They thought their maternal grandfather was a colorful person, full of charm, and a real cowboy. He had ridden in the rodeo when he was younger, and done well. He had even survived being gored by a bull in a roping contest, which fascinated her children. But they saw very little of him. Caroline, Peter, and the children usually had something else to do. She had quietly disconnected from her own family in every significant way over the years. It was just better for her, and Peter didn’t press her about it. He wasn’t fond of the ranch either, and he knew how much she hated going home, which gave him a valid excuse not to go there and to discourage her from going. She hadn’t been back in three years.
In the early days of their relationship, Peter had teased Caroline mercilessly about growing up on a ranch. He called her a cowgirl, and referred to her “redneck origins” until she finally told him how it hurt her and got him to stop. It had taken years to win his parents’ respect, and they made it obvious that they would have preferred it if he had married someone from their world. In time, they came to appreciate her value, and how much she loved their son. Their acceptance had been hard won.
Peter valued her intelligence, good judgment, sound advice, and solid values too. But in heated moments, the difference in how they had grown up still caused them to clash. She wasn’t a New Yorker and didn’t have the sophisticated upbringing he did, but she was