Things to Come and Go is a compelling collection of three novellas, each exploring the intricate tapestry of human connection, individual identity, and the relentless passage of time. Bette Howland's keen observation and incisive prose deliver stories that delve into the lives of three women, each confronting the desires, estrangements, and unbreakable bonds forged by family, choice, and circumstance. In 'Birds of a Feather,' we meet the sharp-tongued Esti as she navigates the noisy love and chaotic history of her first-generation family, the Abarbanels. 'The Old Wheeze' presents us with a snapshot of a young single mother's life as she oscillates between a sense of entrapment within her sunless apartment and the liberation she briefly experiences during an outing to the ballet. Finally, 'The Life You Gave Me' offers an elegy to the unsaid and unsayable, as a middle-aged woman reckons with the grief and the lost opportunities at her father's sickbed.