This is better: they are back at the station in Cape May, boarding the train that will take them back to the rest of their lives. She’s ahead of him. He’s carrying both of their suitcases, struggling up the steps. He stumbles and she turns back and glares at him. She seizes his wrist. She will never let go.

Acknowledgments

I’m indebted to a great many people for helping me bring this book into the world and for paving the way for me to write it. It’s been a long road.

Thank you, first of all, to my amazing agent, Katherine Fausset, who has been and continues to be an incredible advocate and source of reassurance, support, and editorial wisdom. I would trust her with my life (no pressure). I’m immensely grateful as well to all the team at Curtis Brown for their support and belief in this book, especially Holly Frederick, Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, and Olivia Simkins.

To Deb Futter, my wonderful editor at Celadon Books: you changed my life in a single day. Thank you for believing in this book and for taking a chance on it, and thank you for your guidance and unflagging enthusiasm. I’m indebted to everyone on the Celadon team, whose warmth and support have been overwhelming—especially Rachel Chou and Christine Mykityshyn for their marketing and publicity wisdom; Anne Twomey, for a beautiful cover; Alexis Neuville, for her mastery of schedules and logistics; and Randi Kramer, for clearly and kindly explaining things to me.

Thank you to my fabulous U.K. editor, Federico Andornino, and to all the people on the W&N team—and thank you as well to the editors at Blessing Verlag, Einaudi, Editions Stock, Lumen, and Lindhardt & Ringhof: I am honored to be on your lists.

This book would not exist without the support of my writing group, the Chunky Monkeys: Jennifer De Leon, Calvin Hennick, Sonya Larson, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Celeste Ng, Whitney Scharer, Adam Stumacher, Grace Talusan, and Becky Tuch. In addition to being intimidatingly sharp readers, writers, and disciplinarians, they are also some of my closest friends, and I would not have had the guts to see this book through without their encouragement and wildly inappropriate email chains.

Thank you to my teachers—especially Margot Livesey, who is a role model to me; Pamela Painter, my thesis advisor at Emerson College, who worked me to exhaustion; and Frederick Reiken, who among other things opened my eyes to Alice Munro. Thanks also to Andrea Barrett, Maud Casey, Maria Flook, DeWitt Henry, Katia Lief, Randall Kenan, Thomas Mallon, and Jessie Sholl.