The puppy started it. The poor thing was cold and trembling, abandoned
on their front doorstep. Dash, impulsive as always, decides on the spot
that they should keep it. But her husband, Andrew, thinks it's the
craziest thing he's ever heard. A fight over a scruffy little dog
doesn't seem like much of a reason to walk out on your husband of twenty
years - but the spat over the puppy is just the last of many straws.
Dash is so tired of the faculty parties at Mason-Dixon College that
Andrew insists they attend even though he won't mingle with his
colleagues, tired of his constant fretting over illnesses he doesn't
have, tired of the glass of warm milk he must have every night before
bed. Why can't he see that with her mother gone and their daughter off
at college, Dash needs something more? Now, living on her own for the
first time in years, Dash can do whatever she wants...if only she could
figure out what that is. But every time she starts making plans for the
future, she finds herself thinking about the past - remembering the
mother she's lost, her daughter's childhood, and the husband she isn't
entirely sure she wants to leave behind...
