The Other Family

Chrissie loved her husband for 23 years.  They had three daughters and a good life. But Ritchie would never marry her, in spite of her buying a wedding ring.  When Ritchie dies expectantly his will provides for a son and wife whom he walked away from years earlier.  He was terrible father to his son Scott and in death wanted him remembered.  Chrissie and her two older girls wanted nothing to do with Scott and his mother, yet the youngest daughter wants a relationship with her half-brother.  She defies her mother and goes to spend time with Scott, being very well treated by Margaret, Ritchie's abandoned wife.  Amy paves the way for a connection that her father had been too weak or negligent to create.


This novel is a good read, leaving many questions unanswered.  How could a father and husband be so cold as to ignore his first family?  How could this same father be so loving to the children of his second family? How could Chrissie be so spiteful when she is the one who invaded Ritchie's first life, and how could Margaret be so understanding?