These fourteen stories, each opening to the brightly lit room of another life, explore both the joys and limitations of love and attachment. Desire, longing, marriage, adultery, aging, illness, loss, and fresh starts dominate concerns large and small.

A middle-aged social worker has an affair with a man she meets in synagogue and falls in love, uncertain if she will leave her husband. A widower in his late seventies hesitantly embarks on a relationship with a widow he contacts through a personal ad in the local newspaper. A law school teacher facing a contentious divorce tries to create a rapprochement with her ill, frail mother.

Vibrant, deeply human characters wrestle with profound changes in their closest relationships and in their own emotional inner worlds. Marriages are sustained or end as secrets are kept or discovered, and as more is revealed, it becomes evident that the past lies just below the surface of the present. Friendship brings comfort, and love appears in unexpected places. The stories portray familiar relationships—between lovers, spouses, parents and children, and friends––as well as the often surprising choices that we may wait a lifetime for, finally to find on our doorstep.