Since 1980 I've entertained scenes for a novel about a Russian teenager who gets swept up in the Revolution and witnesses a beheading, but never did write it, because the research would overwhelm me. Your Zoe sounds much like the heroine who's dwelled in my imagination (perhaps I heard about her in 1980 but didn't remember the name?). The novel I did write (1990-1999) is set in my own familiar world, a farm in the Midwest, but a parent's disappointment in the child who lived must be universal. Expectations, judgments, cloud our vision--and so we fail to see the treasure that we could never have planned or dreamed up ourselves. It's like the best Christmas present ever, let's say a diamond necklace, but you'd asked for a pearl necklace and never got it, so you hate the diamonds. How can people be so unreasonable, so ungrateful? You've set me off in a million directions, @tygertyger, reminding me of story after story. Again, thank you for sharing yours. The burning house, the dying mother, the soldier rescuing the baby girl with the icons - already, you've painted unforgettable images in my head, and everlasting feelings! (I want to forget the Collie they shot--the "last straw," salt in the wound, too horrible to contemplate)