Beginning ~ with a family portrait

Together Alone ~ by Barbara Delinsky, 1995, fiction (Massachusetts)

He wasn't going to like it.  He hated the ritual of the formal family picture, but the time was right.  In four short days, his only child was leaving the nest, breaking out of her chrysalis into an exciting new world.  If ever there was an occasion to mark, this was it.

I've been reading heavy, deep stuff and am ready for something light, so I bought this novel by Barbara Delinsky, knowing it's about women setting off in a new direction.  I've read her books before and know there will probably be a happy ending.  Why is their child leaving?  College, according to the synopsis and the next few lines of the book.  No surprise there, but I'm so ready to read this.  From the back cover:

With their daughters off to college, the time has come for forever best friends Emily, Kay, and Celeste to redefine themselves as women.  Once half of a perfect marriage — still suffering from a terrible loss — Emily hardly knows her workaholic husband, Doug, anymore, and is drawn instead to what is offered by a new neighbor.  A dedicated teacher who loves her job, Kay is confused and troubled by husband John's unfamiliar demands.   And Celeste, long-divorced and ecstatic with freedom, sees her electric new life dimmed when her child is endangered.

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