Some Things That Stay

'If Brenda passes her math test, it will definitely be a miracle. On the scale of one to ten, I'll give it an eight. I'm going to add them all up. When they hit a hundred, I'll believe in God. But I'm going to deduct some points for making my mon sick. I figure if there is a god, He'll prove himself, even if I stack the deck' Tamara Anderson's father is a landscape artist who quickly tires of the scenery, so every year her family seeks out new locations for his inspiration. But when the Andersons move to a farmhouse in Sherman, New York, in the spring of 1954, it begins to work a strange magic on fifteen-year-old Tamara. And while the girl-next-door tries to introduce the Anderson children to religion, the boy-next-door is equally keen to introduce Tamara to sex. But then her mother is diagnosed with tuberculosis. Tamara has to struggle with her fear of losing her and her anger at being left in charge of two younger siblings, while her father becomes increasingly distant, escaping into the world of his art.