Blessings by Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen's Blessings is a touching story about love, family secrets, coming to terms with them and how life can change through the smallest discoveries.Skip Cuddy lives above the garage at the estate Blessings, owned by Lydia Blessings, an 80 year old society "recluse". Mrs. Blessings knows how things ought to be done, and Skip, being on parole for a crime he did not commit, does what he is being told. He is not sure that life holds anything for him, as well as Mrs. Blessings in her old age tries to come to terms with her own, somewhat "wasted" life. There is not much joy in this book's first pages, where a teenage couple leaves a newborn baby girl to on the steps to the garage. Skip finds the baby girl next morning, and decides to keep her. He also decides to keep it a secret from Mrs. Blessings and the nosy housekeeper Nadine. Mrs. Blessings figures something out by accident, and for some reason she decides to help Skip with the baby. During the book we go back and forth between the present day, Mrs. Blessings past, and we also get a look into Skip's past. The language of this book is masterly done, and the going back and forth in time never becomes confusing. Both Skip's and Mrs. Blessing's lives are described with feelings, and you will feel that you know those people. It is hard not to be touched by this story, although it sometimes seems a tiny bit far-fetched. But then again, this book is fiction, and far-fetched things are supposed to happen in fiction