The stories of the Mikkelson siblings round out as the fullness of each of their lives and partnerships comes to fruition. Line and Stephen return home and settle into their Santa Cruz community, welcoming their wayward kids. "But where is the progeny?" Stephen's father asks plaintively. Paul and Marie enter into a desperate pact to fight her cancer, but when she slips away, Paul must come to terms with his own journey.Marty, by contrast, is thrust into a family of six, which wholly absorbs her. At last feeling complete, she becomes the chatelaine of a large house and wine-making operation in the Santa Cruz mountains. Ellie and her husband rebuild the lake cabin in Minnesota, putting it into trust for the family as a whole. And everyone is relieved when a decade which begins with an imperialistic war is closed with the election of a gentleman, America's first African American president.