“Please.” Clare sighed, relieved to get back to what she was working on before his interruption. It wasn’t just someone else touching her books, although admittedly that was part of it, the physical act for her, the intimacy with this past, the memories that were opening up to her—her mind was going to that place.

That place was where her books had all started. A smorgasbord of thoughts, emotions, images, snippets of dialogue, characters were forming in her head—Roberto was, unintentionally, interrupting that flow. She wanted him to play her songs but didn’t want to get sidetracked from the thoughts that were starting to coalesce in her mind. As soon as she had all the books stacked, she grabbed several new notebooks and her pens from the desk.

Roberto played, and Clare wrote.

With notes and pens and various journals spread out around her on the shag rug, with Donna Mehan’s sharp critique still stinging, and Adam’s ring on her finger, Clare began working out her next book. With a new, acrid black Sharpie, she wrote out her title across the first of the many notebooks she would use for her notes and character sketches: A Perfect Life.

When Roberto finished the set of songs, she lifted her head from the pages. “Do you have time today to play the list one more time?”

He smiled down at her from Her Majesty’s shiny bench and shrugged. “I think I could squeeze you in before my next appointment with my rocker recliner.”

“Thank you, Roberto.” The music he played for her was always transportive, dredging up memories and moments she never wanted to forget, but today it was helping her resurrect more than memories. It was helping her summon the ghosts she needed to craft this book. When he had run through all but the last two songs again, Clare noticed that she had filled most of her first notebook and her hand was cramping.

She flipped through her notes with only a vague sense of what she’d put down. As if she’d barely been conscious while writing and was only now waking up. Charlie shifted on the couch and drew her attention, then she glanced at the computer and remembered—her friend request to Kaylee.