The mechanic at the register laughed. “God, what a nut, huh?”

I ignored him and kept watching, trying not to think about Jackson—where he was, what he might be doing. Maxine was having a birthday party the next weekend, and she’d invited him along as company for Walt. I didn’t like to think about how many times I’d tried on the dress I planned to wear to the party, or the three miles I’d started to run every evening, through the bug-infested woods near the levy.

The news anchor was talking now, listing off facts about the accident, perhaps to deflect from the grandmother’s monologue. But the camera stayed on the grandmother, who kept smiling and twitching her little pink mouth excitedly, as if she was there to receive an award.

Acknowledgments

To my friends and Avalonians, thank you for your continual love and support and for all the days of playing make-believe. To my Kansas teachers: Monica Patino, John Steere, Debra Cole, Judy Goodpasture, Gregg Schwendner, Adam Desnoyers, Laura Moriarty, Megan Kaminski, and Mary Klayder, thank you for believing in me and encouraging my writing when I was just a pipsqueak.

Thank you to Yiyun Li, Annie Liontas, and Lynn Freed for your invaluable guidance, wisdom, and perhaps most importantly, your sense of humor. How lucky am I to have found such a powerhouse team of women? Thanks also to Jacob Garber, Emma Boyce, Christina Turner, and my cohort at UC Davis for helping to inspire and shape these stories. The alternate title will always be The Jacob Stories.

Thank you to Lee K. Abbott and Courtney Denney for your close eye and generous attention, and to the lovely people at the University of Georgia Press, especially Beth Snead and Jon Davies, for working with me despite mountain-related technical difficulties.

To Pam Houston: thank you, for everything. But especially the hikes.

Finally, thank you to my mother, Susan, who would give me the moon if she could, only so I could give it back. This book is for you. Every word is always for you.

THE FLANNERY O’CONNOR AWARD FOR SHORT FICTION

David Walton, Evening Out

Leigh Allison Wilson, From the Bottom Up

Sandra Thompson, Close-Ups

Susan Neville, The Invention of Flight

Mary Hood, How Far She Went

François Camoin, Why Men Are Afraid of Women

Molly Giles, Rough Translations

Daniel Curley, Living with Snakes

Peter Meinke, The Piano Tuner

Tony Ardizzone, The Evening News

Salvatore La Puma, The Boys of Bensonhurst

Melissa Pritchard, Spirit Seizures

Philip F. Deaver, Silent Retreats

Gail Galloway Adams, The Purchase of Order

Carole L. Glickfeld, Useful Gifts

Antonya Nelson, The Expendables

Nancy Zafris, The People I Know

Debra Monroe, The Source of Trouble

Robert H. Abel, Ghost Traps

T. M. McNally, Low Flying Aircraft

Alfred DePew, The Melancholy of Departure

Dennis Hathaway, The Consequences of Desire

Rita Ciresi, Mother Rocket

Dianne Nelson, A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

Christopher McIlroy, All My Relations

Alyce Miller, The Nature of Longing

Carol Lee Lorenzo, Nervous Dancer