{"product_id":"the-art-of-mending-isbn-9780812970982","title":"The Art of Mending","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Revelations about a seemingly ordinary mother force her adult children to reexamine their lives in this “absorbing novel about family secrets” (\u003ci\u003eThe Dallas Morning News\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Laura Bartone anticipates her annual   family reunion in Minnesota with a mixture of excitement and wariness. Yet this year’s   gathering will prove to be much more trying than either she or her siblings imagined.   As soon as she arrives, Laura realizes that something is not right with her sister.   Forever wrapped up in events of long ago, Caroline is the family’s restless black   sheep. When Caroline confronts Laura and their brother, Steve, with devastating allegations   about their mother, the three have a difficult time reconciling their varying experiences   in the same house. But a sudden misfortune will lead them all to face the past, their   own culpability, and their common need for love and forgiveness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Readers have come   to love Elizabeth Berg for the “lucent beauty of [her] prose, the verity of her insights,   and the tenderness of her regard for her fellow human” (\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e). In \u003ci\u003eThe Art of   Mending, \u003c\/i\u003eshe confronts   some of the deepest mysteries of life, as she explores how even the largest sins   can be forgiven by the smallest gestures, and how grace can come to many through   the trials of one.\"Maybe Freud didn’t know the answer to what women want, but Elizabeth Berg certainly does.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Elizabeth Berg writes with humor and a big heart about resilience, loneliness, love, and hope. And the transcendence that redeems.”—Andre Dubus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Berg’s writing is to literature what Chopin’s études are to music—measured, delicate, and impossible to walk away from until they are completed.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Berg knows her characters intimately....She gets under their skin and leaves the reader with an indelible impression of lives challenged and changed.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Elizabeth Berg is one of those rare souls who can play with truths as if swinging across the void from one trapeze to another.”\u003cbr\u003e—Joan Gould\u003cb\u003eELIZABETH BERG\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of twelve previous novels, including the\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestsellers \u003cb\u003eSay When, True to Form, Never Change, \u003c\/b\u003eand\u003cb\u003e Open House\u003c\/b\u003e (an Oprah Book Club selection in 2000). \u003cb\u003eDurable Goods \u003c\/b\u003eand\u003cb\u003e Joy School\u003c\/b\u003e were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and \u003cb\u003eTalk Before Sleep\u003c\/b\u003e was short-listed for the ABBY Award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, Berg is also the author of a nonfiction book, \u003cb\u003eEscaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True\u003c\/b\u003e. She lives in Chicago.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethis is the minnesota state fair i remember most:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was 1960, a Saturday morning when I was eleven years old, and I was  the first one up. I had brought my mayonnaise jar stuffed with dollar  bills and coins into the living room, spilled the money out onto the  carpet, and then stepped over it to turn the television on to a low  volume. I was going to watch The Three Stooges while I sorted my  fortune.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had just finished counting when my father came into the room. He was  wearing a pair of trousers and a T-shirt and his battered old leather  slippers speckled with paint the color of my bedroom walls. His blond  crew cut was damp; you could see the glistening of water in it, making  him look anointed, and he smelled of a citrusy aftershave. He was  headed for the kitchen, where he would make coffee and bacon. This was  his Saturday routine: He'd take a cup of coffee up to my mother in bed,  prepared the way\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshe liked it, with an eighth of a cup of cream and three level  teaspoons of sugar. Then she would come down in one of her silk robes  and make pancakes to go with the bacon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI always hoped she would wear her peach-colored robe. It was my  favorite, for its generous yardage and elaborate ruffled trim. Seeing  what my mother wore was always interesting to me, whether it was the  three-quarter-sleeve blouses she wore with the collars up, or the full  skirts, tightly belted, or the pastel-colored cashmere sweater sets, or  one of her many bathing suits, works of art designed to showcase her  spectacular figure. Those suits came complete with cunning little  skirts and jackets to wear over them, and broad-brimmed sun hats  trimmed with fabric bands in coordinating colors. Before she was  married, my mother worked for several years for an upscale department  store, parading beautiful clothes before rich men's wives. She inspired  more sales than any other model before or after her; everyone wanted to  look like her, though of course no one did. Think Grace Kelly with red  hair and green eyes-that was my mother. But it wasn't just her model's  training that made it so interesting to see what she wore, it was a  quality inside herself. Charisma, my father said, but it seemed to me  to be more than that. Other people had charisma. No one had what my  mother did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe had a large collection of jewelry, too; sometimes she allowed me to  take one necklace at a time over to her bed, where I would lay it out  and turn it this way and that, making it shine hard in the sunlight.  \"Are these real diamonds?\" I once asked, and she said, \"Why have them  if they're not?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat Saturday morning, my father saw me sitting on the floor and came  over to survey my neat stack of dollar bills, my coins piled high. \"How  much have you got there?\" he asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Forty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents.\" I kept my smile tight to  hold back my pride and stuck all my fingers between all my toes for the  low pull of pleasure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father whistled between his teeth in a falling-bomb way I greatly  admired and could not emulate despite hours of practice. He took his  glasses off to polish them on the bottom of his T-shirt, then held them  up for inspection: still dirty-he never managed to get them completely  clear. \"How'd you get that much?\" He resettled his glasses on his face,  pushing them up snug against his nose, a gesture I associated so  strongly with him that I reflexively took issue with others doing it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said I'd been saving for a long time. I told him about the groceries  I'd carried in for Mrs. Riley, \"Mrs. Five Operations,\" my mother called  her, for her incessant replaying of the laminectomies she'd endured.  I'd pulled weeds for Muriel and Helen Lockerby, the two wild-haired  old-lady sisters who lived around the corner. I'd babysat for little  Rachel Thompson every Thursday after school while her mother went to  run errands, and I'd occasionally walked their dog, an arthritic old  German shepherd named Heintz, who seemed to me to grimace every time he  lifted his leg. I'd made pot holders and sold them around the  neighborhood-once, a man who answered the door in his bathrobe had  bought my entire week's inventory, which made him in my eyes equally  wonderful and weird. Also, though I did not tell my father this, I'd  recently found a ten-dollar bill on the street, and I'd made no effort  whatsoever to find the owner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father told me to wait for just a minute and disappeared. I sat  immobile, my high spirits on hold, because I thought he was going to  consult with my mother about how much I'd have to share with my  eight-year-old sister, Caroline, who had saved little, and my  seven-year-old brother, Steve, who had saved nothing at all. But that's  not what happened. Instead, my father reappeared, holding his wallet.  He took out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me. Mutely, I put it  on the bottom of my pile, so no one would see. But I found out later  that each of us kids had received the same gift.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI still remember what I brought home from the fair that day: a lantern  that glowed Gatsby green in the dark, which I intended to take under  the covers with me to read by; a bag of Tom Thumb doughnuts so redolent  with the scent of cinnamon sugar it nearly levitated me; a poster of a  brown mare and her foal, lying in a field full of daisies. The rest of  the money I'd spent on rides and on chances to win something big on the  midway. Over and over I tried, and over and over the carnies at the  tacky wooden booths smiled and said, \"Sorry. Want to try again?\" They  knew what I'd say. From the time I was quite small, I had about me a  certain air of heedless determination.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen my funds were gone, I went to the blanket my parents had spread  out near the edge of the fairgrounds. This was our meeting place, our  refueling station-our family went to the fair once a year and stayed  there all day. We kept a cooler filled with drinks and sandwiches and  fruit, deli containers of various salads, Oreos and Chips Ahoy!-all  this though we knew we would be gorging on fair food. There were also  pillows and Band-Aids, suntan lotion and insect repellent, aspirin and  a couple of Ace bandages. My parents took turns manning the station,  sitting in a lawn chair and amusing themselves in their own way-my  mother flipping through fashion magazines or crocheting, my father  doing crossword puzzles or reading one of the historical tomes he so  enjoyed. He tried often to interest us kids in history, saying it was  invaluable for putting things into perspective. \"You think something's  really great?\" he'd say. \"A long time ago, there was something just as  good or better. You think something's really bad? Look in the  past-you'll find something worse. Think something can never happen  again? Wrong! History repeats itself-that's what you can be sure of.\"  But we, like most children, did not resonate much to things beyond the  day at hand. History had nothing to do with us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father also liked people-watching-he could sit for hours and stare  at all the fairgoers who passed by him and feel perfectly entertained.  He just got a charge out of people, their frailties and foolishness as  much as their more admirable characteristics. I remember once lying in  bed and overhearing an argument between my parents. This was a rare  thing; they almost never crossed each other. But that night my mother  was yelling: \"Is everything just fine with you, then?\" After a moment,  I heard him say simply, Yes, everything was. An accusatory silence  followed. I rose up on one arm and leaned toward my parents' bedroom  wall. I heard the ticking of my bedside clock; the movement of night  air in the trees outside my window; then, finally, the even, comical  sounds of my father snoring. I lay back down and fingered the buttons  on my nightgown, and contemplated the disturbing possibility that my  parents were not perfect.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn that day at the fair when I came back to the blanket, my mother was  off with my brother and my sister was with a new neighbor her own age  whom we'd brought along in the desperate hope that Caroline and she  would become friends. My father was alone. I sat on the blanket beside  his chair, and he gave my shoulder a little squeeze. Then he moved out  of the chair to sit beside me. He looked at me for a long moment then  asked, \"How are you doing, Laura?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI held my hands out, palms up. \"I spent it all.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes,\" he said. \"But I meant, how are you doing in general? Is there .  . . well, how's life treating you?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI smiled. I thought he might be kidding. Sometimes he would ask me  about politics in the same false and jocular way. \"How about that  Eisenhower?\" he would say. And I would shrug and say, \"I don't know.\"  But his expression now was serious; he asked me again how I was, so I  said, \"Good, I guess.\" Then, feeling this was not enough, I described  my excitement at finding out I'd be getting the teacher I wanted that  year at school: Mrs. Lindemeyer, who was old as the hills, and an easy  grader.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father nodded. \"So you're okay, then, are you? You're happy?\" The  question was odd to me-I didn't ever really think about whether or not  I was happy-but I said yes. It seemed he was looking for something he  couldn't name and I couldn't decipher, and the closest I could come to  satisfying us both was for me to say I was fine; I was \"happy.\" He  returned to his chair, and we sat in uneasy silence until the others  returned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy brother, his mouth rimmed with red from a candy apple he'd just  eaten, had spent all his money too. My sister had spent none. I  remember being astounded at this; angry, too, that Caroline would be  left with so much when I now had nothing. \"How can you have fun if you  don't even spend any money?\" I asked her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA pleated caramel-apple wrapper skittered by, and she captured it  beneath her shoe. \"I had fun.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI snorted. \"How?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe looked up at me, an irritating calmness in her eyes. \"I watched.\"  The new neighbor, Linda Carmichael, confirmed this: While Linda rose  high up in the sky on the Ferris wheel, Caroline stood watching and  waving from below.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That's retarded,\" I said. I could tell Linda agreed with me, and I  remember thinking that she and Caroline would never be friends; here  was yet another opportunity Caroline had lost.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You mind your own business, Laura,\" my mother said quietly. That's  what she said when I told Caroline she was stupid not to eat the treats  that were handed out at various classroom celebrations, too. Every time  there was a party at school, Caroline ate nothing. No candy corn at  Halloween, no message hearts on Valentine's Day, no red- and  green-sprinkled spritz cookies at Christmas, no garishly decorated  cupcakes brought in because someone in class was having a birthday.  Instead, anything she ever got she tented with paper towels and then  carefully carried home on the school bus. As soon as she walked in the  door, she presented it to my mother and my mother\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eate it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI never understood this about Caroline. Now I do. It's all clear now:  the times Caroline, as a small child, lay in the hall outside the  bathroom door while my mother bathed. The presents she later bought for  her with babysitting money: barrettes, scarves, lipsticks. Paperback  books and velvet roses. \"Brownnoser!\" I once whispered after she'd  given my mother a bottle of dime-store perfume. Caroline ignored me;  she sat at the kitchen table where I was doing homework and began  pulling books and papers out of her schoolbag. She was in sixth grade  then, and I in eighth. \"Brownnoser!\" I said again, out loud.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Laura,\" my mother said, and I returned to my homework. There was a  tiny smile on Caroline's face, and I kicked her under the table. She  did not kick me back; rather, she moved away to another chair and  straightened with pinched-nose efficiency a stack of notebook paper  that did not need straightening. She cocked her head slightly to the  left and the right as she did it. I hated it. I glared at her between  narrowed lids; I believed I could feel heat coming from my eyeballs.  All this was to no avail; Caroline looked at her schoolwork only.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen came a gift I remember particularly well, something given to my  mother by Caroline the Christmas she was sixteen. It was the last gift  opened that year, and it was a framed photograph, an 8-by-10. My mother  stared at it briefly, murmured a low thanks, and started to put the  picture back in the box.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What is it?\" I said. \"Let me see!\" I snatched it away. The picture was  of Caroline wearing one of my mother's slinky evening gowns, her hand  on her hip. Caroline's auburn hair, the same color as my mother's, was  styled in a twist like the one my mother always wore. Her makeup was  heavily applied in a style exactly my mother's own, and she stared  unsmilingly into the camera. It was chilling, the look on Caroline's  face: the flat eyes, the hard line of mouth, the remove. I had never  seen such a look. \"What is this supposed to be?\" I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy brother took the photo from me and looked at it. He burst into  laughter, the goofy adolescent-boy kind, and Caroline grabbed the  picture from him and threw it onto the floor. \"It isn't for you,\" she  said. She turned to stare at my mother, who did not look back at her,  and then left the room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Caroline!\" my father called after her. \"Come back here!\" But she did  not return. My father rose, as though to go after her. Then he saw the  picture, and he sat back down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis I understand now, too-as well as what my father meant that  long-ago day at the fair, when what he was really asking was if I knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e National bestseller; Author of The Year of Pleasures","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300094005477,"sku":"NP9780812970982","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812970982.jpg?v=1767738172","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-art-of-mending-isbn-9780812970982","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}