That’s my niece Hannah, Ruthie’s daughter, on her 2010 visit to see us in Philly, during which I continued to fill her head with Francophile thoughts, in part to distract her from the sad and scary drama at home, where her mother was dying. I also wanted to show her the possibilities of a world that I had come to love. From The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming, this anecdote about a French restaurant Hannah picked for our big night out on the town:

Hannah chose Parc, an upscale French brasserie on Rittenhouse Square in downtown Philadelphia. Reading about it online Parc struck her as the Frenchiest place in town, the kind of restaurant that would provide a real Boulevard Saint-Germain thrill. As soon as the three of us stepped inside the restaurant that warm Philly evening, I knew she was right. The gleaming zinc bar, the leather banquettes, the tile work, the sepia walls, waiters in white aprons striding by bearing trays laden with crocks of onion soup smothered in gooey Gruyère. Hannah had chosen well: this was as close to Paris as you were going to get this side of the Atlantic. In a giddy figure she had that night her first taste of Champagne, her first raw oysters, her first boeuf bourguignon. Hannah’s conversation bubbled with enthusiasm about why beauty is so important in life, and how she wanted to fall in love with a man who could appreciate a restaurant like this one.

“Just make sure he’s a man who will be just as comfortable at Mam and Paw’s table in Starhill as he is at this one,” Julie cautioned.

And yet, this Francophilification effort was not without controversy back in Starhill, to put it mildly, with the deer-skinning Mama. Does the comic photo above — which we staged — represent the opening of new vistas and perspectives for a curious teenager — or her corruption?

The sibling drama between Ruthie and me everything to do with our clashing orientations toward the world outside of Starhill, and the role desire plays in composing one’s identity. Does love of something other than what you’re born into imply disloyalty to what you’ve been given? Does fidelity to yourself necessarily mean infidelity to your family — or can family make unreasonable demands for self-sacrifice? In terms of personal liberty, what do our families have the right to expect of us, and what do we have the right to expect of them?

It’s by no means a simple set of questions, and as readers will see, it’s something that several generations of my family have grappled with, and do grapple with. I’ve found among early readers of Little Way that this aspect of the story resonates profoundly with many people’s experience within their own families.

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