The Girls From Ames Part 17

In April, an MRI showed that Kelly's tumors were gone, but concern remained that cancer cells were still present. Her oncologist and surgeon both recommended a mastectomy, but Kelly talked them into removing only tissue that had been affected. It would be a two-step process that could preserve her breast.

Kelly was honest with her friends. "I believe there's a strong chance of cancer returning," she said. "It is likely I have cancer cells resistant to treatment that have traveled through my body and are tucked in some fertile spot, biding their time until there are enough of them to make their presence known-and wage war." She said she tried not to focus on that possibility-such thoughts are "not helpful," she kept telling herself-and instead tried to think positively.

The other girls understood her reluctance to have a mastectomy, and were supportive. As Jane summed things up: "I think she feels that if the cancer is just going to come back in three years, she might as well have a breast until then."

Kelly posted her profile on the dating site eHarmony.com, explaining that she'd like to be an example of how a woman with breast cancer can remain s.e.xy. Always the writer, she found it cathartic to compile clear-eyed reports of her dating experiences: "I've had two lovers since my lumpectomy. My first was a man I'd been with for 18 months. He'd been with me all through treatment. He was supportive and didn't seem to mind when I lost my hair, including my eyebrows and eyelashes. But the first night I stayed with him after my surgery, he refused to look at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I felt humiliated. I felt ugly. I felt unlovable. Our relations.h.i.+p ended that night.

"My second lover was a man I met through eHarmony. His brother recently died of cancer, and this tenuous connection is why I trusted him. Although he claimed he wasn't bothered by the scars on my chest, I was afraid of his reaction to my breast, so I asked if I could keep my bra on. Although there had been lots of chemistry when we first met, the same pa.s.sion didn't carry into the bedroom. Once again, I blamed my breast, and once again, I felt unattractive."

A year after the reunion at Angela's, the girls ended up getting together in the Berks.h.i.+re Mountains of Ma.s.sachusetts. Jenny's family belonged to a time-share program, and so they were able to stay in two condo units not far from a lake, a spa, a Shaker village and a Norman Rockwell museum. year after the reunion at Angela's, the girls ended up getting together in the Berks.h.i.+re Mountains of Ma.s.sachusetts. Jenny's family belonged to a time-share program, and so they were able to stay in two condo units not far from a lake, a spa, a Shaker village and a Norman Rockwell museum.

Before her cancer, Kelly had wanted to show up at this reunion with long hair, to show everyone how ready she was for a new look and a new life. Now as fate had it, she had a new, unwanted look. Her hair had begun to grow back after the chemo, but it was thin and close to her scalp.

The girls told Kelly that she looked radiantly healthy. They complimented her on her tan. They said she looked more fit than ever before in her life. But Kelly confided in Diana: "When I look at my reflection, it just doesn't feel like me. The person who looks back is so very different than who I was one year ago."

Kelly joked with the other Ames girls about her dating experiences, but resisted telling them too much about her insecurities regarding her body. As she later explained it: "I didn't tell them that I am working hard at getting all parts of my body fit so that a lover might decide that nice legs or a firm bottom will compensate for ugly b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I didn't tell them that I needed to keep my bra on when with a man. I knew they would all say to me that my body is beautiful no matter what shape or size. I wondered if they understand that if I had a longtime partner, I wouldn't be at all ashamed of my breast. Perhaps I would have even agreed to have a mastectomy. But since I'm dating, it feels like I have to market myself, and so b.r.e.a.s.t.s are, I'm ashamed to admit, important.

"Now that my left breast is misshapen from my lumpectomy, I have discovered how difficult it is to walk the talk. It's one thing to intellectually know that b.r.e.a.s.t.s shouldn't be so idealized in our society. But it's quite another thing to present to the world a body that has slightly deformed b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and might someday be without b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

In the Berks.h.i.+res, the girls again did a lot of hiking. (Some would trek to the top of Jiminy Peak Mountain, because that was the only place they could get cell phone service to call home.) At one point, Karla and Kelly were hiking next to each other.

"I think the fresh air is really great for me," Kelly said. "It has to be beneficial for my health."

Karla agreed. And that brought a thought into Kelly's head. She wondered aloud how Karla and Christie were able to stay healthy when they were cooped up day after day in the hospital. Karla told her that parents at the hospital had talked of wanting an area where they could go for fresh air. "But we agreed it couldn't be up on the children's floor," Karla said, "because that was eight stories up. If there was an outdoor balcony, the parents would all want to jump."

Karla told the story in an upbeat way with a slight smile, and everyone laughed. But Kelly noticed that when the laughter subsided, it just felt as if everyone wanted to cry.

Karla and her family had moved to Montana as planned, and she spent the year overseeing the building of a new home on a gorgeous piece of land that Bruce's dad generously gave them. Bruce was promoted to general manager of his company, which manufactures equipment for the telecommunications industry. That meant he had to spend part of the week in Minnesota, plus a few weeks a year at the company plant in Costa Rica. Karla missed him when he was gone, and vowed to travel more with him when the kids got older. But for now, she had embraced living in Montana, and had thrown herself into the building of the house.

"I loved our home in Edina so much," she wrote to the girls, "but this one is going to be great. The views alone are incredible, and the architect maximized them in her design." She liked the community and the people she met in Bozeman. She loved being able to go skiing and hiking as a family. Jackie and Ben had enrolled in a new school and were doing wonderfully academically. And Bozeman felt awfully safe, she said. The most noteworthy "crime" in the local police report was someone "mooning" out a car window.

Karla felt great joy in watching her kids riding their horses as they cantered around the property. Ben and Jackie were the fifth generation in the family to live on that land, and Karla also loved to see them walking up and down the gravel roads-beautiful kids set against such natural beauty. When Bruce was home, he'd have coffee with Karla on the deck every morning, after which he'd "commute" to his office right there in the house. It felt pretty romantic sometimes.

Nothing was forgotten, of course. Karla was in Montana on the day that would have been Christie's eighteenth birthday. "It was a hard one," she wrote.

Back in Minnesota, Edina High School remembered Christie at its graduation ceremony by setting out a vacant chair with a single rose on it. "What a kind gesture," Karla wrote to the other girls. "It meant a lot to us."

A few weeks later, Kelly happened to find herself in Edina, meeting a man set up through eHarmony. She and her date were walking to a restaurant for ice cream, and Kelly realized that the last time she had been in this restaurant was on her birthday two years earlier, with Marilyn and Karla. Just then, by coincidence, Karla called.

"Can I call you back?" Kelly asked her.

After the date was over, Kelly drove over to Karla's former house, parked on the street out front and put the top down on her convertible. A memory came into her mind of the day she came by this house to pick up Karla before the fortieth birthday gathering at Jenny's. Christie was out front in her soccer uniform, her hair, short and fine, blowing in the breeze, a smile on her face as she waved good-bye and told her mother to have a great time with her friends.

Kelly pulled out her cell phone and called Karla's house in Montana.

"Guess where I am?" Kelly asked.

The two of them ended up talking about Kelly's health, the other Ames girls, life in Montana, Kelly's date.

"I'm trying to take an intellectual approach," Kelly told her. "I want to be smart about dating. I don't want to be like a man and think with my p.e.n.i.s." To reiterate her point, Kelly found herself speaking loudly into the cell phone: "I'm not going to think with my v.a.g.i.n.a this time!"

At that moment, a man was walking by and heard every word she said.

When he pa.s.sed, Kelly told Karla: "This guy-I'm guessing he's a former neighbor of yours-well, he just gave me the strangest look. Guess that's life with the s.h.i.+t Sisters, huh?"

Both of them laughed. Then things felt more subdued as Kelly found herself looking at Karla's former house and just remembering.

Jenny ended up losing the baby she was carrying at the reunion at Angela's. Especially given her age, the miscarriage was a blow. Would she be able to get pregnant again?

Some of the other Ames girls a.s.sumed she might not try, but she did, and she showed up at the Berks.h.i.+res reunion with a surprise: She was pregnant. Several of the girls were in tears when they saw her. They wanted to plan a shower for her, but Jenny asked them not to jinx anything. She said she wasn't preparing the baby's nursery. She wasn't thinking about names. She wanted no gifts until after the baby was born.

Kelly asked if she could put her hand on Jenny's stomach while the baby moved, and Jenny welcomed that. "I did this when you were pregnant with Jack, and we were staying at Marilyn's for Christie's memorial service," Kelly reminded Jenny. Jack turned out to be such a terrific kid, and so Kelly hoped for a similar blessing this time for Jenny.

The pregnancy was indeed uneventful, and at age forty-five, Jenny gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl. The baby was named Jiselle.

In October 2008, Angela in North Carolina had her own unwelcome news. She, too, had breast cancer, and it was a particularly aggressive form. It was the same type of inflammatory breast cancer that took her mother at age fifty-two.

"The cancer has not moved outside of my breast and the lymph node under my arm pit," Angela wrote to the other girls. "My chemo starts next week. My oncology team is also treating Elizabeth Edwards, who could go anywhere in the country for care, but has stayed here. So I do feel as if I have an A-team of professionals, and feel so blessed that somehow I ended up with them. Thanks for your friends.h.i.+p and love."

All the girls responded quickly, with love, advice and humor. (Marilyn joked: "I hope we don't become the Sisterhood of the Traveling Hats.") Kelly made plans to fly to Maryland and stay with Jenny, and then they'd drive down to North Carolina together to be with Angela. They timed the visit for the period-ten to fourteen days after the first treatment-that Angela would need to shave her head. Kelly thought it was important for her daughter, Liesl, and Angela's daughter, Camryn, to see their mothers go through cancer treatment with their friends. "That view of life is certainly a gift we can provide our girls," Kelly told Angela. Jane talked to a nurse she knew in Ma.s.sachusetts, and she suggested that perhaps eight-year-old Camryn could be shown photos of Kelly without hair, so she'd see that the hair will grow back.

On learning of Angela's cancer, Kelly sent an especially heartfelt note to her: I am reaching out to you across miles and miles, and I am holding your hand-both hands. I am proof that you will come out on the other side of treatment and you'll be more vivacious, more healthy and more loving than you have ever been. In the next months, all the colors of the world will become brighter as your life takes on new meaning.

Kelly then alluded to the next Ames girls reunion: I am standing before you and saying with absolute certainty that next summer we will again climb mountains together. And if you become weary, I will carry you. When we both start to stumble, our sisters will be there, walking beside us, ready to catch us and help carry us up that mountain.As you go through this deeply personal journey, there will not be one moment when you are alone; not one moment when you are without unconditional love. We are always with you, Angela, always beside you. Your sister, Kelly.

There's a Spanish proverb: "Tell me who you're with, and I'll tell you who you are."

The story of the girls from Ames will have many more chapters, of course. To end here is arbitrary, because each year will bring new interactions, new reasons for reflection, new insights into who they are. There will be losses ahead, they all know that, but there will be great joys, too. And they have no doubt that they will be there for one another always, whatever happens. That now goes without saying.

There was a photo taken at Jane's house back in Ames in 1981, their senior year of high school. In the snapshot, every one of the eleven girls was smiling. In the back row stood Karla, Cathy, Sally and Karen. In the middle row: Jane, Angela, Marilyn and Sheila. Seated on the floor: Diana, Jenny and Kelly. They had no idea that day where their lives would take them, or that they'd bring twenty-two children into the world, or that they'd all remain so central to each other's life. On their faces, there was no indication that the ride would not always be easy, that they'd have disappointment and great grief. Just full-on smiles. Adult life awaited them.

During the reunion at Angela's in North Carolina, they posed on the back porch steps for a photo replicating that 1981 picture. All of them took the same positions, with only Sheila's spot unfilled. This time, their smiles were even broader. They touched each other even more effortlessly. They looked even happier. And why not?

In this moment, 1,163 miles from Ames and half a lifetime later, not much had really changed. There was much to be grateful for. They still had each other.The Ames girls, 1981 Top row: Karla, Cathy, Sally, Karen Middle row: Jane, Angela, Marilyn, Sheila Bot tom row: Diana, Jenny, KellyThe Ames girls today, in the same pose from the 1981 shot on the previous page Afterword.The week that the hardcover edition of this book was released, in April 2009, the Ames girls were called home.

First, they were invited to sign copies of The Girls from Ames The Girls from Ames at the local Borders store in Ames. They sat at a long table, a ten-woman a.s.sembly line, scribbling their names beside their childhood photos at the front of the book. The line of townspeople kept backing up, as the girls spotted familiar faces-old teachers, neighbors, cla.s.smates, cousins-and rose to share hugs and memories. They signed a couple hundred books. at the local Borders store in Ames. They sat at a long table, a ten-woman a.s.sembly line, scribbling their names beside their childhood photos at the front of the book. The line of townspeople kept backing up, as the girls spotted familiar faces-old teachers, neighbors, cla.s.smates, cousins-and rose to share hugs and memories. They signed a couple hundred books.

After that, the Ames girls drove across town to a meeting room at Iowa State, where they had been asked to make an appearance. As the author, I was invited, too.

None of us knew what to expect. I figured it might be a small crowd. Maybe most everyone who was interested had already stopped by the bookstore to say h.e.l.lo.

But when we arrived, it was a remarkable sight. More than five hundred people had crowded into the room. It felt as if the entire town had come to wish the Ames girls well and to recognize the power of friends.h.i.+p.

The women took the microphone, one by one, and spoke of how Ames remains in their hearts, and about the values they had absorbed there. They talked about their parents and other adults in town who taught and inspired them. They then gave brief updates on their families and the places they now live. Karla, struggling with her emotions, chose not to mention Christie's death. Many in Ames were aware of Christie's pa.s.sing, and the rest all seemed to have the book in their hands. Soon enough, they'd reach chapter twelve and they'd know.

Sheila's mother and brother had driven up from Kansas City, and were invited to share the stage with the Ames girls. It was an overwhelming and tearful moment for everyone, standing there together, feeling Sheila's presence. Jenny told the audience that the Sheila Walsh Scholars.h.i.+p at Ames High School had been put into place, funded in part by a portion of proceeds from this book. It would be awarded annually to a female graduate nominated by her peers. "The main qualification is that the winner be a good friend to others, just as Sheila was to us," Jenny said.

Kelly didn't say much, but she found herself smiling, soaking it all in. "What an incredible night," she thought, "being here to witness my friends speaking so articulately. I'm so proud of them." On stage, Kelly briefly mentioned her bout with breast cancer-there had been no recurrence, she was feeling good-and then Angela talked about her own cancer journey.

Angela explained that she had the same form of inflammatory breast cancer that had killed her mom in 1995 at age fifty-two. In the back of her mind, she always knew cancer was a possibility because of her family history. "But I thought I'd be in my fifties, not forty-six with a nine-year-old daughter."

She told the crowd that after she began chemotherapy, the other Ames girls rallied to her side with gifts of robes and candles. They ordered a cleaning service for her house, and sent flowers after every treatment. Kelly and Jenny even drove down to North Carolina together. Knowing Angela would be losing her hair due to the chemo, they wanted to be with her for moral support when it was time to shave her head. (It's best to shave before the hairs start falling out in bunches.) Kelly had lost her own hair during chemo, and it had grown back. So she thought it would be helpful for Angela's daughter, Camryn, to see her with a full head of hair. She could be a living, upbeat example that Angela's hair loss would not be forever, that life could return to normal after cancer treatment. "Kelly and Jenny helped me turn something that could have been traumatic into something that was very ceremonial, and even fun," Angela said.

She told this story very lightly to the Ames audience. She didn't talk about the raw emotions everyone was feeling as her head was shaved, or how powerful a moment it was when Jenny and Kelly both leaned forward to kiss her bald head. She didn't describe how her daughter had stood there, soberly watching this lifelong sisterhood in action. Or that Kelly had broken into tears. "Are you sad because you're remembering your own treatments?" Angela asked her. Kelly had nodded her head yes. But actually, Kelly's emotions had swelled for other reasons: She worried that her own fear of dying and leaving behind motherless children would be felt by Angela.

In Ames, Angela skipped these harder memories and spoke with a smile. "So my head was shaved, Kelly and Jenny went home, and they kept calling: 'So did your hair fall out yet?' And I kept telling them, 'No, not yet.'"

Days went by and then weeks. Her hair wasn't falling out. It was almost comical. Her friends had left town and left her with a shaved head-maybe unnecessarily. "I told them, 'Well, thanks a lot for shaving my head!'" she said.

The crowd in Ames laughed as Angela spoke. There was something joyous in her delivery, despite the obvious pain at the root of her story. She wore a scarf on her head because, eventually, five weeks after her head was shaved, she did lose her hair.

Angela then told the audience about medical studies mentioned in The Girls from Ames. The Girls from Ames. "Research shows that women with advanced stages of breast cancer have better survival rates if they have close friends," she said. "I believe this. My friends have helped me remain hopeful and optimistic. It's their love, actions and prayers that will make me a survivor." "Research shows that women with advanced stages of breast cancer have better survival rates if they have close friends," she said. "I believe this. My friends have helped me remain hopeful and optimistic. It's their love, actions and prayers that will make me a survivor."

The crowd applauded and the evening continued. The Ames girls had become hometown celebrities.

A week later, back home in North Carolina, Angela had a mastectomy. She told the Ames girls that she went into surgery feeling buoyed by her visit to Ames, as if she had been physically strengthened by the embrace of her community and by the love of her friends.

The rest of the Ames girls also returned to their private lives. Meanwhile, around the country, women who'd never been to Ames, who might not even be able to place it on a map, began immersing themselves in this book.

In the weeks and months after the book's release, it was a thrill for the Ames girls to hear from so many readers. In email after email, women wrote that reading the book led them to reflect on their own childhood friends. Hundreds of women visited www.girlsfromames.com to post heartfelt stories about their longtime bonds, offering vivid reminders of the old saying: "You can make a new friend. You can't make an old friend." to post heartfelt stories about their longtime bonds, offering vivid reminders of the old saying: "You can make a new friend. You can't make an old friend."

We heard from a group of fifteen women who call themselves "Las Quinceaneras" (The Chosen Fifteen). They met as first-graders in Cuba, lost boyfriends during the Bay of Pigs incident, later escaped to the United States and have maintained their friends.h.i.+ps for fifty years.

We heard from four Illinois friends in their forties whose favorite activity over the years has been scrounging up tickets to The Oprah Winfrey Show The Oprah Winfrey Show. They've gone together twelve times, and have also made girlfriend pilgrimages to see Dr. Phil, Ellen DeGeneres, Tyra Banks, David Letterman, and Regis and Kelly.

All sorts of groups told us they have their own way of referring to themselves: The SSGs (Same Sweet Girls), The Doo Wha Diddies, The Hens, The Magnificent Seven, The Losers, The Maf (as in Mafia), The Council, The Goula Belles, The Sweet Potato Queens, The Green Pinto Gang, The Fearsome Four, The Zig Zaggers. The DGs wouldn't tell us why they call themselves The DGs. They've vowed to take their secret to the grave.

Book clubs all over the country began inviting various Ames girls to call in to their gatherings via speakerphone. I've joined the calls, too, and have been so impressed by the penetrating questions and intuitive comments. (Our contact information and a book club guide are on the book's Web site.) It also has been great fun to see how these book clubs embrace the spirit of the book. Some have baked and decorated their own brown-blobbed "s.h.i.+t Sisters" cakes to serve during discussions. Two groups made Maxi Pad slippers and sent us photos. One book club made a CD for each member with all the music mentioned in the book. And a great many groups of women have posed for staircase photos, mirroring the Ames girls' photo on the book's front insert. We were even sent a photo of one group of male friends on a staircase.

"I feel as though I take away positive, helpful information from every encounter with a book club," Kelly told me. "I've had some good laughs with all of these women. They've helped make me a more enlightened person." Almost every week, people tell her that they are the "Kelly" in their group of friends. "I'm not exactly sure what that means," Kelly says, "but it makes me smile and feel less alone in the world."

Each Ames girl has discovered how readers relate to their "character." Jane, for instance, as the only Jewish girl in the Ames friends.h.i.+p, hears from women who played that role in their own groups of friends, or were the only Christian in a group of Jewish friends.

Sometimes readers take the Ames girls by surprise. Karen was signing books at a bookstore in Ma.s.sachusetts, and a woman in line complimented her on her necklace. "Thank you," Karen said, then looked into the woman's misting eyes and realized she had read chapter thirteen. As always, Karen was wearing the gold chain with the "mother and child" charm on it, in memory of her daughter lost to spina bifida. The woman showed Karen her own necklace; her charm was also for a child who had died. It was a fleeting encounter, but Karen was taken by the power behind it. They were two strangers, crossing paths briefly, connected by loss.

Some readers became protective of the Ames girls. A woman in Hawaii wrote to take issue with Diana's description in the book's "Guide to the Ames Girls" and on our Web site. I'd written that Diana "works at a Starbucks in Arizona." Given the challenges women face balancing work and motherhood, the reader asked that Diana's description be changed to: "certified public accountant by profession; now works at Starbucks by choice." Good point. For this edition, we've made the change.

Many readers saw parallels to their own lives when they read chapter six, about the night some of the Ames girls turned on Sally at a sleepover. We heard from readers who recalled being "mean girls" themselves; others shared memories of being targeted. They wanted Sally to know how much they admired her for holding her head high, and for finding it in her heart to forgive. "I've forgiven everything," Sally told a crowd at a bookstore in Minnesota. "I mean, it happened such a long time ago. It happened thirty years, six months, five days, six hours and ten minutes ago-not that I'm keeping track . . ."

It was the perfect laugh line, a reminder of the good humor Sally has brought to the Ames girls in the decades since that incident.

The Ames girls have slowly gotten used to the fact that thousands of strangers now know details of their personal lives and embarra.s.sing moments from their childhoods. But people have been so gracious and supportive that the attention rarely feels intrusive.

A few months after the book came out, Jane and Diana amused the other girls by buying T-s.h.i.+rts with the words: "What happens in the cornfields stays in the cornfields."

Nice sentiment. But at least for the Ames girls, it's a directive that came way too late.

Since writing the book, I am often asked about the differences between male and female friends.h.i.+ps.

My answer: Because I now hear every day from groups of women, I am constantly being reminded of the incredible power in female friends.h.i.+ps. I envy the ease with which women share their lives. I envy the vital ways they support each other emotionally, especially as they get older.

I had mentioned in the book's introduction that I play poker with the same guys every Thursday night. We almost never talk about our personal lives. We just talk about the cards.

I found myself telling book clubs that my poker buddies didn't even know my children's names. But then I wondered if I was exaggerating this. So a few months after the book came out, I finally turned to my left at the poker table and casually asked my friend Lance: "Hey, Lance, could you name my children?"

He shrugged, paused to think, and then smiled sheepishly. "I could re rename them," he said.

Though I've heard from some groups of male friends who say their bonds and their conversations are deep and emotional, I've also heard from readers saying that my poker buddies and I are typical. A woman named Carol, who lives in Wisconsin, told me that she and her female friends share the most intimate details of their lives. That's in great contrast to her husband and his friends.

Her husband had recently gone on a week-long fis.h.i.+ng trip to Canada with four longtime friends. They were in a remote cabin with no TV. Carol wondered: What did they talk about for a whole week? She knew one of the men was having problems with his job. Another's daughter was about to get married. A third man had health problems. Carol's husband said none of those issues ever came up. Carol couldn't believe it. She told him: "Two female strangers crossing paths in a public restroom would share more personal information in five minutes than you guys talked about in a week!"

I love the photo on the cover of The Girls from Ames The Girls from Ames. I love how tightly pressed together they all are. It's a magical image. And I realize: You'd almost never see a photo of boys or men squished against each other like that unless it was an action shot taken at a rugby game.

We have heard from a smattering of men who've read the book; some say they were looking for enlightenment about women's lives. Most men, though, explain that the book is not for them. Consider this email from a sixty-year-old Ohio man.

"Unfortunately, I do not have plans to read the book, but please convey to the girls from Ames that I think they are pretty hot."

Thank you, Tom from Ohio.

I am constantly asked for updates on the Ames girls. Well, here are some glimpses: am constantly asked for updates on the Ames girls. Well, here are some glimpses: The summer after the book came out, Jane and her family went to Montana to visit Karla and her family. Jane reported back to the other Ames girls: "Karla's new house in Bozeman is just lovely, with its porches and patios for every phase of the day-the front porch for morning coffee, the back patio for happy hour and sunsets, the screened porch with a fireplace for cozy evenings. And each of these s.p.a.ces has such incredible vistas of the valley filled with barley fields and then the surrounding mountains.

"Christie permeates the s.p.a.ce. Her pictures are scattered throughout the house and her name comes up easily in conversation. Christie is still very much a part of the Blackwood family."

The two families took daily hikes on the Blackwoods' property, and also went rock climbing together. Karla's son Ben served as a patient teacher for Jane's family, and they couldn't believe how skilled he was; he did his climbing in his bare feet!

One day, driving back from a hike, Karla asked Jane's fifteen-year-old daughter Hanna if she had ever driven a car before. Hanna explained that she was still too young; she hadn't gotten her permit yet in Ma.s.sachusetts.

"Well, this is private land," Karla said. "So why don't you get in the front seat and drive us home?" Hanna's eyes widened. If it was OK with the landowner, it definitely was OK with her. Jane smiled at how seamlessly Karla orchestrated the event.

"I'm not sure who was more proud, Hanna or Karla," Jane wrote to the others. Having read chapter six in The Girls from Ames The Girls from Ames, Hanna knew that Karla, at age fifteen and with no license, had driven her friends home one night from a cornfield kegger. Now Hanna had her own cool story of taking her first solo drive at age fifteen.

One night, Karla and Bruce took Jane and her family to a cowboy bar, and introduced the visiting New Englanders to "Rocky Mountain oysters." It's a delicacy made from buffalo or bull t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es coated in flour and deep-fried. Jane's daughters weren't told this until after they ate the "oysters," and they were understandably shocked and grossed out.

"Later that evening, we had a rollicking family game night," Jane wrote to the other Ames girls. "We were all howling with laughter on the screened porch. I kept thinking how lucky we were that they didn't have immediate neighbors, as we would have been disruptive in the wee hours of the night.

"The kids got along so well together, which isn't a given with teenagers. Karla and I were so happy about that."

Karla and Jane both were impressed with each other's children. Jane's daughters, Hanna and Sara, have become thoughtful, articulate, beautiful young ladies. And Karla's kids seem to be thriving in Montana. Her daughter Jackie is a cheerleader at Bozeman High School and was selected by her cla.s.smates as "Homecoming Royalty." Ben is a free spirit who loves being on the climbing team. They've both made a lot of friends, though they don't always let other kids know they had an older sister who died. It would be too hard for them. Sometimes, it feels better to just keep Christie in their hearts.

Marilyn did finally meet Elwood, who in 1960 caused the car accident that killed her brother. The get-together happened at a diner in Spirit Lake, Iowa, on the night of a torrential downpour. Marilyn brought Kelly and Sally with her.

At first they were a little nervous about meeting Elwood. They ordered drinks, thinking that might make the conversation easier. But as the three Ames girls and Elwood huddled together at a small table, any jitters pa.s.sed quickly.

Elwood turned out to be a likeable, salt-of-the-earth, sixty-four-year-old man. He said he'd been through a lot in his life-the car accident when he was fifteen was just the first of more challenges to come-and he was warm and engaging. They talked for more than an hour, with Elwood sharing stories of his six grandchildren. Kelly found herself thinking: "I'm glad he survived the accident and went on to be there for those he loves." She later told Marilyn: "He just seemed to have this generous spirit."

Elwood said he has had pain in his leg for forty-nine years, a daily reminder of the accident. Marilyn was sorry to hear that, but she was glad that he felt he hadn't suffered emotionally because of his role in her brother's death. What purpose would that have served, if he had been another victim?

Watching Marilyn and Elwood bantering with each other, taking photos together, and then hugging good-bye, Sally felt like she was witnessing something special. "It was very touching," she emailed the other girls. "Theirs is really a story of good will, forgiveness and grace."