I got back on the road and drove by shimmering salt beds. The Owens Lake had once promised a boom of prosperity: railroads and tramways, steamboats, ranches, farmlands full of orchards, and abundant mines. But all of that was gone now. And the gusts of wind and sand were in the process of turning this stretch of land back over to desert, to the kind of nothingness that felt right.

When my phone snapped back into service, I had a voice mail from Bethanny and one from my mother.

And Daniel had texted me.

u ok?

I stared at the message and toggled to my voice mails. I skipped over Bethanny’s and scanned through the ones I had saved from my parents over the last few years.

They varied in length from fifteen to fifty-six seconds, and I listened to them periodically, except the ones that were too harried and upsetting.

I hit Play on the newest message from my mother and let her voice flood into the car. I listened as she sang me happy birthday and told me about the day I was born. How the weather had been clear and beautiful, the sky unusually blue. I heard my father in the background saying he’d known the weather was a sign of good luck.

I thought about what would happen when I stopped hearing their voices. What I would do when the messages ceased to come.

As their voices disappeared, I stared at the sign in front of me pointing south toward Los Angeles. No one was behind me, so I let my blinker tick.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I could not have written this book without the early help of Lee Ellis. Thank you so much for your patience and care in helping me bring this into existence.

Enormous gratitude to my early readers: Anisse Gross, Ali Liebegott, Ellen Fairey, Sara Finnerty, Paul Reyes, Vanessa Veselka, and John McElwee.

Thank you to the Town of Marfa, the Marfa Public Library, and two of its best denizens, Rachel Monroe and Ash Compton.

To my incredible editor, Emily Bell: thank you for walking through it with me. A major thank-you is also in order for Jackson Howard. Kirby Kim, you’re the best in the business. Thank you for everything, always.

This book took shape from conversations, road trips, and life events with a number of people but most especially Anna Rosenblat, Jen Cox, Rosson Crow, Susan Carter Hall, Lisa Mecham, Caroline Wolf, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Wancy Young Cho, Robyn O’Neil, Irina Barlage, Iman Saleh, Diane Cook, James Pogue, and Jon DeRosa.

My family. My parents, whom I will never be able to thank enough for all their love and support, and my brother, Mark, whom I couldn’t do any of this without.