Opening
A pregnancy, a reunion, and a secret name crack open the Sorenson family’s carefully curated story. As past and present braid together, each daughter confronts the messy truth beneath a polished family myth—while a new arrival forces everyone to choose between protection and honesty.
What Happens
Chapter 6: The Announcement and the Beginning
In 2016, Liza Sorenson and her partner Ryan drive to her parents’ to share her pregnancy. Ryan’s depression has returned, muting the joy Liza imagined. When she tells Marilyn Sorenson and David Sorenson, they cheer, but Liza reads their distraction about Violet Sorenson-Lowell and Jonah Bendt. David senses Liza’s distress and can’t reach her; later he lies awake worrying about all four daughters, while Marilyn—exhausted and optimistic—ranks the night a “nine.”
Jonah settles into Wendy Sorenson’s condo and feels safer with her than in any foster home. During a late-night talk, he asks about his father. Wendy says she knows who he is—a “pasty, awkward guy” from Violet’s college years—but insists it isn’t her story to tell, promising they’ll go one step at a time.
A flashback to 1977–78 follows newlywed Marilyn and David in Iowa. While David grinds through medical school, Marilyn stews in isolation, then decides to skip her diaphragm after a blowup—leading to Wendy’s conception. Overwhelmed by classes during pregnancy, she drops out of college without telling David. After Wendy’s birth, Marilyn mourns her lost autonomy—“My body isn’t my own anymore”—and their marriage strains under new parenthood. Just before Wendy’s first birthday, Violet is born.
Chapter 7: The First Meeting
Lonely and hormonally charged, Liza sleeps with her older colleague Marcus Spear. Disgusted with herself and stranded when Ryan cancels dinner by text, she has Marcus drive her to her parents’—and Jonah, on the porch with Wendy, sees them kiss.
Jonah’s first official dinner with the Sorensons is noisy and brittle: Violet goes formal and stiff, Wendy needles, Marilyn overflows, and David works to host. Liza’s late entrance adds pressure. The family lobs tentative questions at Jonah, their rhythm derailed by the sisters’ bickering. The evening lands on a grace note when Marilyn studies Jonah’s face and says he has her father’s nose. For Jonah, the observation feels like belonging.
Chapter 8: Lies, Loss, and Awkward Truths
In Portland, Grace Sorenson drifts alone, lying to the family about law school. She calls David to confess but swallows it when she hears his worry; later, he mails her $100 with a loving note, deepening her shame.
Newly retired, David becomes fixated on a sick ginkgo in the yard. He researches symptoms, eventually diagnosing honey fungus—fatal and contagious—an emblem of hidden rot he fears in the family.
Wendy orchestrates coffee between Violet and Jonah, then sends Jonah in her place. The meeting scrapes along until Jonah asks about his father. Violet punts—“a different time”—but promises they’ll have “plenty of opportunities” to talk, a future-tense comfort that visibly eases Jonah. Wendy’s arrival releases the pressure. A 1978 flashback shows the origin of “Second Thanksgiving” after Violet’s birth, a family tradition that lasts decades. At a faculty party, an exhausted Marilyn tells a professor that motherhood is “the most fun I’ve ever had,” a line she and David carry forward as both mantra and private irony.
Chapter 9: Uncomfortable Dinners and Painful Memories
Violet hosts Jonah so he can meet her husband Matt and their sons. Matt is wary, and little Wyatt chirps, “We won’t tell anyone about you,” innocently twisting the knife. When Jonah does a handstand, Violet panics, then learns he’s lactose intolerant after ordering pizza. The evening underscores the gulf between them. Later, Jonah accidentally walks in on Wendy with a hookup; the man bolts, leaving Wendy raw and embarrassed.
On the porch, Liza asks Marilyn if she ever thought of leaving David. Marilyn says no, then defines marriage as choosing kindness even when it’s hard. Liza immediately texts Marcus to end the affair. Flashing back to 1983–84, Marilyn, overwhelmed by five-year-old Wendy’s nuclear tantrums, feels abandoned when David minimizes the behavior. One night, he comes home, sees the house finally quiet, and notices Marilyn’s slightly swollen belly; he realizes she’s pregnant with their third child and too depleted to know it. After Liza is born—placid and easy—David begins a midnight ritual: holding her while she sleeps, humming in the dark.
Chapter 10: Confessions and Suspicions
Liza suggests baby-furniture shopping; Ryan refuses, citing money and his inadequacy. He sneers at the Sorenson “caste system,” lumping himself with Jonah as outsiders. Devastated, Liza goes to her parents and tells David the truth about Ryan’s depression. She then asks to switch to OB-GYN Dr. Gillian Levin. The name stuns David. Liza explains Levin saved both Marilyn and Grace, and the connection calms her. David agrees but insists on informing Marilyn himself, claiming it may dredge up pain.
At Krav Maga, Jonah’s instructor preaches respect for the body; Jonah worries about Wendy’s drinking and smoking, then relaxes when she plans a simple backyard cookout for him—a small, steadying kindness. At Liza’s first appointment, Dr. Levin is warm and validating; Liza breaks down about motherhood. As Liza leaves, Levin says, “Tell him I said hello,” meaning David—tightening the knot of a past that refuses to stay buried.
Character Development
Across these chapters, the Sorenson sisters buckle under private burdens while the parents’ origin story reframes their “perfect” marriage as a product of endurance, not ease. Jonah shifts from guest to family, asking direct questions and testing new bonds.
- Liza: Spirals from isolation into an affair, then reclaims agency—confessing Ryan’s condition to David, ending the infidelity, and seeking Dr. Levin’s care as a talisman against fear.
- David: Channels post-retirement drift into diagnosing the ginkgo, externalizing his dread of familial decay; his shock at Levin’s name exposes a hidden history.
- Marilyn: Early motherhood’s loneliness and bodily dislocation surface in flashback, deepening her present-day steadiness; her porch counsel steadies Liza.
- Wendy: Careens between hedonism and fierce caretaking; she safeguards Jonah’s boundaries, offers practical comfort, and remains emotionally volatile.
- Violet: Struggles to bridge the gap with Jonah; her halting, future-tense promise becomes a lifeline for him even as she falters in the present.
- Jonah: Finds safety with Wendy, demands truth about his father, and absorbs micro-acceptances (Marilyn’s observation, the cookout) that root him.
- Grace: Lives on a lie in Portland, unable to confess to David; his small kindness heightens her shame and isolation.
Themes & Symbols
The tension between ideal and lived marriage sits at the center. Through flashbacks, The Ideal vs. Reality of Love and Marriage appears in sharp relief: Marilyn and David’s bond forms through fights, exhaustion, and daily recommitment—not effortless romance. Liza’s crisis with Ryan echoes this, suggesting durability often looks unglamorous and requires deliberate kindness.
Secrets drive action and shape identity. In Secrets and Their Consequences, Grace’s law school lie, Liza’s affair, Violet’s silence about Jonah’s father, and the charged name “Gillian Levin” accumulate into a family ecosystem where omissions feel protective but corrode trust. The first hint of David and Levin’s connection functions as a fuse.
The family’s mess—love, rivalry, rescue, sabotage—illustrates The Complexity of Family and Sisterhood. Dinners devolve, then end with tenderness; a coffee ambush becomes a fragile pact; a backyard cookout matters more than speeches.
Symbol: The dying ginkgo, riddled with honey fungus, mirrors the family’s beautiful canopy and diseased roots—problems contagious, subterranean, and ignored at peril.
Key Quotes
“My body isn’t my own anymore.” Marilyn’s postpartum confession converts the abstract cost of motherhood into a visceral loss of autonomy. It reframes the Sorenson matriarch’s later competence as hard-won, not innate.
“We won’t tell anyone about you.” Wyatt’s innocent whisper crystallizes Jonah’s liminal status—present but secret. The line exposes how adults’ shame filters down to children as covert rules.
“We’ll have plenty of opportunities to discuss this in the future.” Violet’s deflection still offers Jonah the promise of continuity. Even imperfect commitment steadies him, showing how hope can come wrapped in avoidance.
“Choosing to be kind even when you may not feel like it.” Marilyn defines love as discipline rather than feeling, countering fantasy with habit. The advice propels Liza to end the affair and attempt repair.
“Caste system.” Ryan’s phrase names the Sorenson hierarchy outsiders sense. It sharpens Liza’s panic: her loyalty to family order might be costing her partner.
“Tell him I said hello.” Dr. Levin’s parting shot detonates the polite surface, confirming an intimate past with David and shifting the novel into mystery mode.
“The most fun I’ve ever had.” Marilyn’s line becomes the family’s ironic refrain—simultaneously sincere and self-mocking—capturing how humor papers over strain while preserving love.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters move Jonah from visitor to kin, pivot Liza’s pregnancy into a crucible for her partnership, and introduce Grace’s secret as a counterpoint to the family’s public competence. Most crucially, invoking Dr. Gillian Levin reframes David and Marilyn’s legend; the name promises revelations that could rewrite the Sorensons’ origin story. Flashbacks supply the scaffolding—Second Thanksgiving, private rituals, private costs—that makes the present legible, proving that the family’s greatest strengths and deepest fractures share the same roots.