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Back Doctors and Friends
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. TITLES BY KIMMERY MARTIN
  3. NOTE TO THE READER:
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. CHARACTER SPECIALTIES
  7. PART ONE
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. PART TWO
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. PART THREE
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. PART FOUR
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. Epilogue
  36. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  37. BIBLIOGRAPHY
  38. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  39. Readers Guide
  40. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  41. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  42. What’s next onyour reading list?

Once Lawrence had been deposited at the bus stop, Ellis would drop Rose at preschool and put the baby down for his nap, and then he’d make himself a nice foamy latte with their (new) custom espresso machine and settle into the bright, airy playroom/office at his computer terminal to bang out a thousand words or so on his novel. In real life, Ellis had been working on this book for at least five years, and while there were several things you could criticize about his lack of progress in getting it published, sheer output was not among them. Despite his demanding day job, Ellis produced words the way other people produced carbon dioxide.

Even though there was an unfortunate dearth of market interest in a three-hundred-thousand-word magnum opus about a financial wizard with a magical sidekick, Ellis had never given up searching for an agent. Meanwhile the book grew ever longer. Now that he no longer had a day job, who knew what lengths the novel might reach: Five hundred thousand words? A million words? It was not inconceivable.

Once Baby Walter was up, he’d abandon the computer and jog to the preschool with the double stroller—an eight-mile round trip, let’s say—and fetch Rose, and then they’d play outdoors at the park or go on cultural expeditions or do art projects. Somewhere in there he’d manage to tidy up and get the laundry done and plan the wholesome, delicious dinner he’d serve later, at which point Compton would return home from work to find a sparkling home, a fine meal, and four grateful family members, all of them eager to hear about her workday.

Yes, this could work.

6

Team Mother Saints

HANNAH

BARCELONA, SPAIN

It had been two years since she had seen most of the women in their group. Every single month of those two years for Hannah Geier had been difficult, all of them following the same well-worn groove of soaring hope and crashing disappointment, to the point where the innate sunniness of her nature had begun to darken. As she scanned the crowded alley in the El Born district of Barcelona, she wondered if her friends would sense some fundamental change in her and find it off-putting.