Rules for Visiting

May Attaway, a nearly 40-year-old university gardener in the small town of Anneville, opens the story in an airport on her way to visit her oldest friend. She spots a stranger's book bag reading "A best friend is someone who . . ." and tries to read the rest, but the woman disappears into the crowd. The incomplete sentence captures May's central question: what friendship means and whether she is any good at it. She has named her suitcase Grendel, after the friendless monster in the Old English epic Beowulf who stood outside the great hall of Heorot listening to sounds of fellowship he could never join.

In the months before this airport scene, May reached a crisis. The weight of the past left her unable to move forward. Medication helped briefly, granting her clarity: She has no hobbies, is not a good cook, and owns one lonely cat named Hester. She works on the university grounds crew with her coworker Sue Mint and their boss, Blake O'Dell. She lives with her 80-year-old father, Earl, an emeritus professor, in the house he built the year she was born. Her younger brother moved to the West Coast and never visits. Earl is sociable, leaving flowers on neighbors' doorsteps, while May keeps her distance.

The idea to visit friends begins with a memorial website for Amber Dwight, a young writer killed in a plane crash. Reading tributes, May recognizes that Amber had a rare talent for drawing people together. May realizes friendship is something a person can be good at, and she is not. She has friends but no community, and most of her friends do not know one another. Her daily life revolves around routines like twice-weekly burritos at El Puerto, a restaurant at the Wayside strip mall owned by her friend Leo Santos.

A series of events pushes May toward change. She attends a going-away party for the Goulds, departing neighbors, and that night looks up "friend" in the Oxford English Dictionary, finding its first use in Beowulf. A poet wins a prize for a poem about a yew tree May planted on campus from a cutting of the 3,000-year-old Fortingall Yew in Scotland. Blake advocates for her recognition, and the university grants May one month of paid leave. She decides to use the time to visit four old friends, imagining an alternative Odyssey in which Penelope leaves home to stay with friends. She identifies Lindy Ascoli, her oldest friend from seventh grade, now a mother of three in Connecticut; Vanessa Meyers, a friend since eighth grade, recently married with twin stepsons in New York; Neera Khadem, a college friend in Seattle; and Rose Gregory, a younger friend from her Landscape Architecture program, now living in London.

In December, May visits Lindy. Over Saturday morning coffee, Lindy confides that as a teenager she used to drive alone to parking lots at night, troubled by her mother's drinking. May shares that after her own mother stopped getting out of bed, she would clean the room and turn the bed to face the window, hoping for something magical. Lindy returns a glass fawn she stole from May's collection decades earlier, its leg broken. They recall how Vanessa's home was the only one of their three that felt safe.

After May returns home, a reporter interviews Sue and writes a story about the "fortnight friends" concept, coining a hashtag that goes viral. May gains thousands of followers but is uncomfortable with the public packaging of her private visits.

Throughout the novel, May circles the story of her mother's decline. Miranda, a city girl from New York, gradually withdrew from life in her forties, spending more time in bed. May reveals painful family history in fragments: a childhood visit to her cruel maternal grandmother, Miranda's deepening depression, the family's avoidance of grief. Her most treasured memory is the autumn Miranda taught her to drive, evening lessons listening to the radio.

In March, May visits Neera in Seattle and finds her marriage in collapse. Neera and her husband, Adam, are "nesting," rotating in and out of the family home to keep four-year-old Sara's life stable during their divorce. Sara is initially hostile to May but warms over time. On the last day, May tells Neera about a study showing that people estimate a heavy backpack to be lighter when standing next to a friend. Neera pauses, recognizing its significance.

Over Memorial Day weekend, May visits Vanessa in New York. The family's apartment, staged for sale, creates sterile tension. At the Whitney Museum, they contemplate Andrea Zittel's Living Unit, a modular space containing only essentials. On the last night, Vanessa asks why May is still single. May retorts, "Why are you married?" and regrets it when Vanessa hesitates. Vanessa reveals she and her husband, Richard, are trying to have a baby, and May mentions "someone in Anneville," delighting Vanessa with news of Leo.

May flies to London to visit Rose, whose apartment on Clapham Common is filled with mismatched furniture, walls of books, and quiet comfort. The airline loses Grendel, so May borrows Rose's clothes. They visit the house of 18th-century writer Samuel Johnson and spend days reading and talking. Rose insists May visit the Fortingall Yew while she is so close, and they spontaneously book flights to Scotland.

Standing before the ancient yew in its churchyard, May reveals the secret she has told no one except her father: She planted her campus yew with her mother's ashes. Rose offers to say the Lord's Prayer, but May recites lines from a poem by Wendell Berry about a sycamore that has "gathered all accidents into its purpose" (248). Rose asks why May does not leave the house on Todd Lane. May answers that she would rather learn how to live there.

The full story of Miranda's death finally emerges. She developed a massive hernia that distorted her body. The family moved her to a larger bedroom for comfort. Less than a week later, on a dark night, Miranda walked out of the unfamiliar room, followed her old habitual path to the bathroom, and turned right where there were now stairs instead of a hallway. She fell and broke her neck. There was no funeral. May's brother finished high school and left for California. Her father moved to the basement. May cleaned the blood stains. She had begun gardening while caring for Miranda, and the work became her anchor.

Back in Anneville, May plants petunias in Leo's empty restaurant planters late one night, honoring his grandmother's garden. Leo discovers her there, and after she tells him about Miranda's death, they kiss. When Hester escapes through a window screen, neighbor Janine Morton rescues the cat, and Janine and Sue meet on May's doorstep. May's separate circles begin to overlap.

This convergence culminates in a night-blooming cereus party, May's first act of hosting. The cereus, given to Earl by departing neighbor Beth Gould, is about to bloom. Leo brings food, Blake's wife brings cake, Sue and her friend Maria bring glow sticks for the children, and Philip Gould brings a pot of his late wife Beth's favorite asters. As the flower opens, May watches her friends mingle for the first time. She invites neighborhood children inside for cake. Young Henry whispers, "Thank you for inviting me." May reflects that unlike Grendel, shut out from the doors of Heorot, she will keep hers wide open.

For Earl's memorial tree, May chooses the white oak, inspired by "The Tree That Owns Itself" in Athens, Georgia, a specimen deeded its own land circa 1840. She and Earl plan to collect an acorn and grow a sapling. The novel closes with May's 10 practical "Rules for Visiting" and a direct address to the reader. She acknowledges that what they have been reading is her attempt to "settle," both to tell the story of friendship and to stop avoiding the story of her family. Her final words: "May you settle and find good friends."