Leaving now is the emotionally candid story of a mother's anguish as she leaves her husband to love a woman. In this book, Arleen Paré masterfully blends aspects of her personal journey with her own version of a well-loved fairy tale. Gudrun, the five-hundred-year-old mother of Hansel and Gretel, appears hazily in the narrator's kitchen--presumed dead, all but written out of her own tale, but very much alive. Gudrun spins a yarn of love, loss, and leaving, offering comfort and wisdom to the conflicted young mother.