Kate

The protagonist Kate is a graduate student whose mother objected to her move from her hometown a year before the action of the story. She applied herself obsessively as an undergraduate student after her brother's failure at a small junior college was upsetting to her mother. Kate has maintained contact with her mother and has sent her a card every Valentine's Day since her father's death because her parents always celebrated that day together.

Mother

Kate's mother is a school superintendent whose husband died six years before the events of the story. Her phone conversation with Kate at the beginning of the story reveals an intelligent and vital woman with a sense of humor and self-possession. She has diabetes, and she is diagnosed with a potentially malignant brain tumor. Kate and her brother agree not tell their mother the full truth about the seriousness of her condition, but...