Book excerpt: One moment your school-age son is engaged in a house sale, and everything is serene on a Sunday afternoon in the suburbs. The next morning, you awaken to a 6am phone call from a policeman, who tells you that a childless great-uncle has jumped from the roof, leaving your phone number for notification purposes. Shortly after that, you learn that your best friends are getting a divorce, and you don't know what to tell your children. Midlife brings chaos, laughter and tears. You find women in their 40's having 'last chance' babies, and many people changing careers while they still can. Couples, meanwhile, are fighting about whether to stay together, and many women who have been home are trying to jump-start their careers. Boyfriends, girlfriends, and 'last chance' affairs complicate matters even more. The author takes you with her on a search for order, trying to find patterns in the chaos, travelling the routes of the past, examining the lives of baby-boomer friends, while renewing an earlier commitment to journalism, which had lapsed during a ten-year stint in the business world.