She retreated to an isolated farmhouse in Hillsborough, N.H., for three years before hauling herself to New York City to work as a Times reporter. A year later she married painter Steve Bethel, chucked her job and returned to Hillsborough to have babies. Her life—home births, changing diapers, apple pies—became the grist of her column, and to the 4 million readers who followed her every word, Maynard was earth mother of the perfect family.
It wasn't until 1989, when doctors determined Fredelle had a brain tumor, that Maynard saw the cracks in this appealing facade. While spending the summer in Toronto tending to her mother, Maynard came to feel that her life, like Fredelle's, had been too invested in giving her family—and not herself—what they needed. That fall, the week Fredelle died, Maynard and Bethel agreed to divorce. The breakup was documented in Domestic Affairs, prompting several newspapers to drop the column. Last June, Maynard decided to stop writing a public diary.