They opened presents for what seemed like ages, and Sarah was stunned by the emerald ring Ollie had given her early that morning when he sat at the kitchen table, at the crack of dawn, watching her stuff the turkey. She had given him a sheepskin coat, some tapes she knew he wanted, some ties and socks, and silly things, and a beautiful new black leather briefcase. And as a joke, he'd given her a funny little red “school bag,” to remind her that she was just “a kid to him,” and a gold compass to find her way home, inscribed with the words Come Home Soon. I Love You. Ollie.

“What's that for, Dad?” Sam had inquired, noticing the gift when Sarah opened it. “You and Mom going camping? That's a pretty fancy compass.”

“Your mom's a pretty fancy woman. I just thought it might be useful if she got lost sometime.” He smiled, and Sam laughed, and Sarah gently reached out to touch Ollie. She kissed him tenderly, and afterward he followed her out to the kitchen to help carve the turkey.

The meal itself was an uneventful one, except that halfway through, Grandma Phyllis started to get nervous. She seemed to jump out of her seat every chance she got, helping to carry plates that didn't need to go anywhere, bringing things in from the kitchen that didn't belong, and asking everyone ten times if they were ready for another helping.

“What's the matter with Grandma?” Sam whispered to his father at one point, when Phyllis had scurried after Agnes, insisting that she was going to help her. “She never used to like to help in the kitchen that much.” Oliver had noticed it too, but imagined that she was just ill at ease about something. She seemed unusually agitated.

“I think she just wants to help your mom and Agnes.

Old people get like that sometimes. They want everyone to know that they're still useful.”

“Oh.” Sam nodded, satisfied, but the others had noticed it too. And Mel looked worried as she glanced at her mother. Sarah only shook her head, not wanting the questions to form in words. It was suddenly obvious to her that her mother-in-law had some kind of a problem.

But the meal went smoothly other than that. And everyone ate too many helpings of everything, and then collapsed in the living room, while Sarah, Agnes, and Phyllis tidied up the kitchen. Melissa joined them for a while, but then came to sit with the men and her two brothers.

She looked worriedly at Grandpa George, and sat down next to him when she returned. “What's the matter with Grandma? She seems so nervous.”

“She gets like that sometimes, agitated. It's difficult to calm her down, sometimes it's just better to let her wear herself out as long as she's not doing any harm. Is she okay out there?”

“I think so. She's running around the kitchen like a whirlwind.” But the truth was she wasn't really doing anything, just talking incessantly and moving dirty plates from here to there and back again without getting anything accomplished. Sarah and Agnes had noticed it, too, but no one had said anything, and eventually they had told Mel to go on into the other room. And with that, her grandmother had looked up, at the sound of her name, looking straight at her only female grandchild.

“Mel? Is she here? Oh I'd love to see her, where is she?” Melissa had been stunned into silence and her mother had motioned her to go into the other room, but she was still shaken when she sat down next to her grandfather, and asked for an explanation.

“She's so confused. I've never seen her like that before.”

“It's been happening to her more and more often.” George Watson looked sadly at his son. It was exactly what he had been trying to explain to Ollie. Yet sometimes she was right as rain, and he wondered if he himself was imagining her confusion. It was hard to know what to think. One day she seemed totally out of control, and the next she seemed fine again, and sometimes she changed from hour to hour. It was both frightening and confusing. “I don't know what it is, Mel. I wish I did. Old age, I suppose, but she seems too young for that.” Phyllis Watson was only sixty-nine years old, and her husband was three years older.

And a few minutes later, Phyllis and Sarah walked back into the room, and the older woman seemed much calmer. She sat down quietly in a chair, and chatted with Benjamin, who was telling her about applying to Harvard. He was applying to Princeton, too, Stanford on the West Coast, Brown, Duke, and Georgetown. With his grades and athletic skill, he had a host of great schools to choose from. But he still hoped that he would get into Harvard, and now so did Sarah. It would be exciting to be in school with him. Maybe if that happened, he would forgive her for leaving home eight months before he left for college. Ollie had even suggested that she wait until Benjamin left for school, but she didn't want to postpone anything. She had waited too many years for this to be willing to wait another hour. It was the kind of reaction Phyllis had foretold years before, but now she might not even remember or understand that.

“How soon will you hear from all those schools?” George Watson was excited for his grandson.

“Probably not until late April.”

“That's a long time to wait, for a boy your age.”

“Yes, it is.” Benjamin smiled and looked at his father lovingly. “Dad and I are going to tour the schools this spring while I wait. I know most of them, but I've never been to Duke, or Stanford.”

“That's much too far away. I still think you should go to Princeton.” George's old school, and everyone smiled. George always thought that everyone should go to Princeton.

“I might, if I don't get into Harvard. Maybe you'll get Mel to go there one day.” She groaned and threw a half-eaten cookie at him.

“You know I want to go to UCLA and study drama.”

“Yeah, if you don't get married first.” He usually said “knocked up,” but he wouldn't have dared in front of his parents. She was having a hot romance with a boy in his class, and although he didn't think she had gone “all the way” yet, he suspected that things were getting closer. But she had also recently become aware of his new romance, with a good-looking blond girl with a sensational figure, Sandra Carter.

The evening wore on, and eventually the senior Watsons went home, and just after they did, Oliver looked questioningly at Sarah. She had been oddly quiet for the last half hour, and he knew she was thinking about what she would say to the children. In a way, they were all so tired that it would have been better to wait another day, but she had thought about it for so long that now she wanted to tell them.

Benjamin was about to ask her for the keys to the car, and Melissa wanted to call a friend, and Sam was already yawning when Agnes appeared in the doorway.

“It's time for Sam to go to bed. I'll take him up if you want, Mrs. Watson.” Everything in the kitchen was put away and she wanted to retire to her room, to enjoy the new television set the Watsons had given her for Christmas.

“I'll take him up in a while. We want to talk first. Thank you, Agnes.” Sarah smiled at her, and for an instant Agnes stopped, there was something odd in her employer's eyes, but she only nodded and wished them all a merry Christmas, before going to her room for the night. Sam looked up at his mother with wide, tired eyes.

“What are we going to talk about?”

“Mom … can I … I was supposed to go out …” Benjamin looked anxious to get out as he glanced at his new watch, and Sarah shook her head this time.

“I'd like you to wait. There's something I want to talk to you all about.”

“Something wrong?” He looked puzzled, and Mel looked down at them, she was already halfway up the stairs, but Sarah waited as they all gathered again and sat down. This seemed like official business now, and Oliver took a chair across the room, near the fire, wondering what she would say to them, and how they would take it.

“I don't quite know where to start.” Sarah felt breathless suddenly, as she looked at all of them, her tall, handsome son, her daughter so grown up now, yet still a child, and Sam cuddled sleepily into the couch beside her. “There's something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I'm going to do it now, but it's not going to be easy for any of us. It's a big change. But the first thing I want you all to know is how much I love you, how much I care … but something I've always believed, and told all of you, is that you have to be true to yourself,” she squeezed Sam's hand, and avoided Oliver's eyes as she went on, “you have to do what you think is right, even if it's hard to do sometimes.” She took another breath and there was dead silence in the room as they waited. They were frightened of what she was going to say. She looked so serious suddenly, and Benjamin noticed that their father looked pale. Maybe they were getting divorced, or having another kid, a baby wouldn't be so bad, a divorce would be the end of the world. None of them could imagine what it was. “I'm going back to school.” She sighed as she said the words.

“You are?” Mel looked stunned.

“Where?” Benjamin asked.

“Why?” Sam wanted to know. It sounded dumb to him. School was for kids, and he couldn't wait to get out. Imagine going back when you were grown up. It sure wasn't something he'd want to do at her age. “Is Dad going back to school too?”

Sarah smiled, but Oliver did not. It would have been easier for all of them if he were. Then they would all have gone to Cambridge. But she was the only one moving on, they were staying right here, with their safe, comfortable lives. Only she needed to sail out of port, out of the safe harbor of their lives, into unknown waters. But the thought exhilarated more than frightened her. One day she would explain that to them, but not now. Now they needed to know how it would affect them. And it would. There was no denying that. Especially Sam, who sat looking up expectantly at her. It tore at her heart, just looking at him. But still, she knew she had to leave them.

“No, Dad's not going back to school. Just me. I'm going back to Harvard in a couple of weeks.”

“Harvard?” Benjamin looked shocked. “You? Why?” He didn't understand. How could she go to school in Boston? And then slowly he understood. He glanced at his father's eyes and saw it all, the loneliness, the pain, the sorrow she had put there, but there was something anguished and sad in her eyes now too.

“I'm going to come home as often as I can. And you'll still have Dad and Agnes to take care of you.”

“You mean you're leaving us?” Sam sat bolt upright next to her, his eyes wide and instantly filled with terror. “Like for good?”

“No, not for good,” she was quick to add. “Just for a while. I can come home for weekends and vacations.” She decided to tell them the truth. She owed them that much. “The program is for two years.”

“Two years? 'Sam started to cry and for a moment no one else spoke as she tried to put her arms around him and he wrenched away, running into the middle of the room, toward his father. “You're going away and leaving us? Why? Don't you love us anymore?” She got up and reached out to him but he wanted none of it, and there were tears bright in her eyes now too. She had expected it to be hard, but not like this, and suddenly she ached at the pain she was causing all of them, yet she still knew it was what she had to do, for her own sake.

“Of course I love you, Sam … all of you … I just need to do this … for myself …” She tried to explain, but he couldn't hear her through his sobs, he had run to Mel and was clinging to her now as she started to cry too. She hung on to her little brother as though they both might drown, and looked up at her mother with accusing eyes.

“Why, Mom?” They were the two most painful words she had ever heard, and she looked to Oliver for help, but he said nothing now. He was as heartbroken over it as their children

“It's hard to explain. It's just something I've wanted to do for a long time.”

“Is it you and Dad?” Mel asked through her tears as she held on to Sam. “Are you getting divorced?”

“No, we're not. Nothing's going to change. I just need to go away for a while, to accomplish something for myself, to be someone on my own, without all of you.” She didn't tell them they were dragging her down, that they kept her from creating anything on her own. It would have been unfair to them, but so was this. It was easy to see that now. In a way Oliver had been right, he always was, but she knew that she was right too. They'd survive, and she'd come back to them a better person. If she stayed, she would die. She knew that for sure now.

“Can't you go to school here?” Benjamin asked her quietly. He looked shocked too. But he was too old to cry. He just kept looking at her, as though wanting to understand, sure that there was another reason for all this. Maybe they were getting divorced and didn't want to tell the kids. But then why didn't she take the kids with her? It just didn't make sense. All he knew was that their family was falling apart, and he wasn't sure why. But he wanted to believe that she had good reasons for this. He loved her so much. He wanted to understand her side, too, but he couldn't.