The niece phoned. I’d been a little sore because I hadn’t heard from her all summer, but as soon as the lilting Chelsey voice lit up the line, I was cured.

She has the busy life every 20-year-old should have, full of mostly happy choices—should my minor be art history or French?—and great expectations. Her new roommate is “wonderful”; her history professor is “so cool”; the yard-sale dress I mailed was “perfect.” Life, overall, till the first exam, is brilliant.

Through her voice—its unadulterated enthusiasm laced with a tad of condescension for all of us old, past-prim...

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