WHAT LOVE LEAVES BEHIND

A novel focuses on a close friendship and two motherless infants.

Nurses Etta Harris and May Jones have been best friends since May’s first day on the job in the maternity ward at Providence Ridge Hospital in Chicago. Etta is happily married while May lost her husband and little girl 10 years before. Both nurses’ lives are forever changed by the arrival of two motherless babies. First, a young widow dies giving birth to a baby girl she names Storm, leaving nothing but a letter addressed “To my daughter.” Later, another woman dies in childbirth, leaving her son, Isaiah, to be raised by his bereaved father, Darren Johnson. Learning that Storm has been placed in a foster home, Etta decides to adopt her, though her husband, James, is initially reluctant. May empathetically shares her own losses with Darren, encouraging him to care for Isaiah despite his grief. Then the couple fostering Storm also applies to adopt her, but Etta is determined to fight for her anyway. May tells Darren, a successful lawyer, about Etta’s situation, and he offers to help. Meanwhile, May and Darren are drawn to each other, becoming close friends—and more. The tale follows the lives of the four adults during the children’s infancy, then skips forward: first to Storm’s and Isaiah’s high school graduations and then to Storm as a beautiful young woman. In this engaging novel, Thomas’ imagery is often striking, such as shards of broken glass “scattering like falling stars.” But in some places, the prose reads like catalog copy: At a wedding, the bride’s dress “hinted at timeless elegance” and the decorations are “draped fabrics in coordinating shades.” The book’s characters are portrayed clearly and sympathetically yet lack depth; almost everyone is kind and supportive and all are good-looking, well dressed, and well spoken. They often converse in platitudes like “Men are not like women. They have to process things in their own way” and “With the heart, all things are possible.” The sudden plot twists are dramatic almost to the point of melodrama; in addition to births and graduations, there are multiple engagements, weddings, and funerals. Still, the narrative effectively illustrates its epigraph: “You can’t rewrite the past, but you can choose the courage to shape tomorrow into something worth holding onto.”

A sweet, sentimental story about what it means to be a family.