The Growing Season, Part 1: A Time to Uproot

The day her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, Ann Maywood put her promising career on hold and raced to Maggie's side. On some level, Ann knew the battle they faced would be a lonely one, and she was right. Other than frequent rants about the injustice of their mother's illness, Ann's younger sister, Cass, stayed on the road and out of sight. While the brilliant baby of the family wanted to help, their mother stubbornly insisted Chuck remain in graduate school at Stanford.

In Part 1 of this three-part serial, Ann expects life to return to some semblance of normal following Maggie's death. But Ann's career is in shambles, her lover has moved on, and her mother's long illness has saddled Ann with monumental debt. To make matters worse, her irresponsible sister barely made it home in time for the funeral, but now her grief spirals out of control. And while her brother might be a genius, he refuses to fulfill the dreams their mother sacrificed everything to achieve. Tasked with holding the family together, Ann questions how the Maywood clan can hope to survive without the one person who always believed in them.