The rules of inheritance : a memoir
(Book)

Claire Bidwell Smith, a fourteen-year-old only child, learns that both her parents have cancer. The fear of becoming a family of one compels her to make a series of fraught choices, set against the glittering backdrop of New York and Los Angeles - and the pall of regret. When the inevitable happens and Claire is alone in the world, she is inconsolable at the revelation that suddenly she is no one's special person. It is only later, when Claire falls in love, marries and becomes a mother, that she emerges from the fog of grief.