Flowers from the holy land
Ellen Greene’s husband asks for sex one night and scratches a good-bye note on the back of a drugstore receipt the next, so naturally she runs away to spend the summer with distant cousins in Galway, Ireland, and Genoa, Italy. She is on a mission to find peace in the lands and stories of two great-grandmothers whose legacies of suffering have haunted her all her life— she no longer wants to live (or die) by the rules set by generations of matriarchs.
AN EXCERPT…
There was something about being strapped into an Aer Lingus coach seat at thirty-thousand feet that isolated the problem for Ellen. She wasn’t anything to anyone anymore. She’d known Abby and Phil would grow up and move away, but not Saul. Never Saul.
In turbulence somewhere over Newfoundland, the nervous woman wedged into the window seat next to Ellen grabbed her arm. Ellen winced, not over the giant shuddering airliner but about sitting next to a possible chatterbox. She removed her earphones, patted the woman’s hand, and smiled. “It’s okay, really. It will be okay.” She replaced the earphones and closed her eyes just as window-seat woman was about to respond.
Ellen had grave doubts it would ever be okay. Not talking about family secrets seemed to be the only thing they shared right now. The veneer was peeling off in great sheets. Saul had always preached that life was simple. There’s the right way and the wrong way according to you, Saul. Of course, you never out and say it, but yours is always the right way, isn’t it, you...you FRAUD! She seethed silently, then her eyes flew open. Could the truth be as trite as all that? Are you with someone else? Unimaginable.