The distance between

the long version

"Mattie Welsh has had some shocking news from her sister in Pennsylvania: her parents have been in a serious automobile accident; she had better get there as soon as possible. She takes off in her car, leaving her husband to follow with the boys by plane, and drives from their home in Massachusetts to an uncertain situation. Mattie always had a difficult relationship with her mother, and unlike her sister, she chose to make a life for herself away from the family home. There are a lot of things still left unsaid and unresolved. But this event sends her thoughts back to an uneasy childhood and a reconsideration of the past to try to make sense of that fierce and complicated bond." "Along the way Mattie meets several women (a pregnant hitchhiker, a gas station owner's mother, a woman who runs a local tavern and her two daughters, and a lost child) who have something to teach her."--BOOK JACKET.