Sure, it's unusual to have an eighteen-year-old mother when you're twelve. But when you're an orphan and she's your aunt-and the only mother you've ever had-well, as I explained, it had worked out...

Surely a home of their own would satisfy the longings of her heart.... Through the years, Virginia Simpson has learned that Grandma Marty's wisdom was right. When God allows something to be taken...

The yearning deep inside her—to go somewhere, discover something, be a part of the world about her in a new way—would not go away. But what would satisfy it?

In The Tender Years, Virginia...