Contents

One: Recovery Isn’t as Easy as It Looks

Two: Junior High Stinks in More Ways Than One

Three: Meanwhile, Back on the Farm

Four: A Sunday Like No Other

Five: Grandma Underneath It All

Six: A Kid Knows When Something Is Wrong

Seven: The Pittiest Pit of Your Stomach

Eight: Mama Reveals Her Secret at Last

Nine: How Myra Sue Spells Humiliation

Ten: Dirty Details of a Rotten, Horrendous Day

Eleven: The Longest Night of My Whole Entire Life, and Then Some

Twelve: When the Good Lord Has a Happy Grin

Thirteen: Some Ideas Are Better Than Others

Fourteen: One’s Own Personal Space

Fifteen: Farewell, Harvard Beets, and Hello, Peanut Butter and Jelly

Sixteen: When Rivals Arrive

Seventeen: Persuading Isabel

Eighteen: The Preacher Comes to Our House

Nineteen: Ian and Isabel Go to Church

Twenty: These Good Ideas Have to Stop

Twenty-One: How Crazy Does a Two-Edged Sword Have to Be?

Twenty-Two: A Teary, Snotty, Blubbery Mess

Twenty-Three: Not-So-Silent Night

Twenty-Four: There Are No Small Parts

Twenty-Five: Practice Makes Perfect. I Hope

Twenty-Six: Ian and Isabel Go Home

Twenty-Seven: The Show Goes On

Twenty-Eight: Myra Sue in the Spotlight

Twenty-Nine: Alone

Thirty: Waiting Rooms and the Waiting That We Do

Thirty-One: Unto Us a Child Is Born

Thirty-Two: Shake Hands with Michael Eli Reilly

Thirty-Three: Homecoming

Acknowledgments