This fourth volume in the author's highly novelized autobiography details the events of happy marriage, of bringing up children in the Michigan countryside with later moves to Georgia and Southern California. As the author confides, "This novel lacks a single major crisis: No mystery to be solved, treasure to be unearthed, or adulterous fling to overcome the tedium. The sole challenges are realtors unwilling to grasp a couple's expressed needs, a child with an ear ache just as winter has cut off access to the outside world, and an ice storm that turned the nearby woods into a fairyland but left us without electricity, heat, or running water for more than a week.