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Carol and Ralph, the couple from Nashville. I launched into some inane conversation and concentrated on keeping my boots moving, one in front of the other. We crossed beneath a railway line, and the tunnel offered some welcome shade. After skirting another field on another rutted path, we came to a field that was chest high in some kind of plant.
    “Beans,” Tom said with a sigh. “Somewhere in here there's a footpath, but we’ll have to find it.” Eventually he did locate the footpath, but it meant wading through a field of tall, scratchy beanstalks.
    “I hope this is worth it,” I said to Carol over my shoulder.
    She laughed. “Don't trip, or we’ll never find you.”
    We emerged from the field into a farmyard and then walked along a paved road for a bit. Tom came to an abrupt halt at a Y in the road.
    “Where are we?” I asked. Daniel appeared at my side.
    “Steventon, I think,” he said. He was looking at me with a hint of sadness in his eyes that I decided to ignore.
    “Where's the rectory?” I asked.
    “If you’ll gather over here,” Tom was saying, “I’ll give you a brief introduction.”
    The peace of the lush green meadow, the sheltering trees, and the quiet breath of the breeze stole over me as I waited for everyone to gather around Tom. This was where Jane Austen had been born and raised. No more than a wide spot in the road, it put the b in bucolic.
    For the first time in months, I felt my jaw unclench and my muscles loosen, just a touch. I tried to set aside the turmoil of travel, my sister, Daniel—all the things that kept me anxious, even though I never showed it to the world. For a moment I just wanted to enjoy the serenity of the place.
    “Welcome to Steventon,” Tom said with a soft grin. “Not a lot of buildings to look at here, but the village—or what there is of it—lies just up the road.” He pointed off at a right angle. “Where we’re standing now is the site of the rectory from Jane Austen's day.” Through a break in the hedge, he indicated the open field with its lone tree.
    “Unfortunately, Austen's childhood home was built in a rather low spot. As a result, it was always damp. After her father's retirement, the family moved to Bath. Later, the house where she grew up was torn down, and a new rectory was built up there.” He waved toward the rise on the opposite side of the road. “As you might guess, that house didn't have the same kind of problems with flooding and dampness, but eventually it was pulled down as well.”
    The group looked up toward the crest of the hill, and everyone chuckled. Tom continued for a few minutes, talking about Austen's parents, her siblings, and life in a country parsonage at the end of the eighteenth century.
    “Now we’re going to walk up the lane here,” Tom said, “to a spot with an actual building, and we’ll see the church where Austen's father was the rector, and where she worshipped.”
    The group moved off down the lane, and I tried to lag behind, hoping that Daniel would go on without me. My hope was in vain. He quickly fell into step beside me. I could see Mimi twenty feet ahead, still tête-à-tête with Ethan.
    “You haven't come to any of the class reunions,” Daniel said as we walked along. I tried to focus on the sheer greenness of the scenery on either side of me, but I couldn't ignore him altogether.
    “No. I couldn't get away.”
    “Work?”
    “Something like that.” But it hadn't been anything like that at all. The most recent reunion had happened last fall, when I took unpaid family medical leave so that I could drive my mother to radiation and chemo, make endless trips to the pharmacy for her medications, and hold her shoulders while she hunched over the toilet, alternating between sobbing and vomiting. Mimi had spent those months flying to New York. LA. Even Paris once.
    “We missed you,” Daniel said. “I thought we’d have a chance to catch up.”
    “I’m sorry about the divorce.” Not the