Lost in the Vines

When does Middle Age start? The U.S. census states it’s from 45 to 65. But with six teenagers, a husband who travels internationally at least two weeks a month, and with her jobs and volunteer activities Traci feels like it’s started already. A few grey hairs mixed in with her blond and the faint beginnings of laugh lines, add to her feelings of getting older. She’s forty, and her husband Marc is forty-eight. Their oldest is fifteen, the triplets are fourteen, and the twins are thirteen. Things go from bad to worse when she receives an anonymous note saying her husband is cheating on her. She doesn’t believe he’s the cheating kind. But when she calls him at 6:30 one morning and a woman answers his cell and says he’s in the shower, Traci begins to have doubts. Her sons’ take the family car to a pot-smoking football party and return home with beer and reeking of weed. Their explanation is they went to pick up their fourteen-year-old sister who is drunk and in the bedroom with her eighteen-year-old boyfriend. When Traci receives pictures of Marc and another woman in bed, she decides a major shake-up in her family is needed. A move from California’s Central Coast to New York with her wayward daughter forces her husband to come home to care for his five remaining children. However, the bid to save her faltering family has dire results. Marc Hamilton opposes Traci’s plan to take their daughter, Christina, to New York and enroll her in an all girl’s school. But he gives in for the short term positive he can persuade her to come back home. However, health issues, misunderstandings, treachery, sexual abuse, even terrorism, and murder lead to the family’s demise. Other lives and loves intersect with both Marc and Traci, leading them further from any possible reconciliation. Yet they continue to care for each other. Their children wonder if all is forever lost or can their family be put back together better, and stronger than before.