In The End

"Morning, honey, how was your night?"

The pillow beside her never answered. But Annie kept talking to it anyway, because after 24 years of marriage to a man who gave her nothing but silence and anxiety, even a lump in a blue satin pillowcase felt familiar.

Annie is a writer, a photographer, and a woman who has learned to love her own company. Her historic Southern home with its pecan trees and back porch she calls "Annie's Island" is her sanctuary. Her dearest friends, the fiery and unpredict...