Same As It Ever Was: A Novel

Homemaker Julia goes a grocery store two towns away for crabmeat when her regular grocery store has none. She lives in a Chicago suburb with her husband of nearly 30 years, Mark, and her 17-year-old daughter, Alma. Her 24-year-old son, Ben, is at university. She plans to make crab cakes for Mark’s 60th birthday party that evening. At the grocery store, she runs into an old friend, Helen Russo, whom she hasn’t seen in 18 years. Helen tells Julia that her husband, Pete, died three years ago. Shaken by the encounter, Julia returns home to prepare for the party.

While preparing food for the party, Julia thinks about her life 20 years ago, when she first met Helen. Julia and Mark lived in a different Chicago suburb then. Ben was three years old, and Julia struggled with the challenges of being a stay-at-home mother with a small child. One day, she started to cry while driving Ben to his preschool. After seeing how upset she was, Ben didn’t want to leave her, so she decided they’d “play hooky” together.