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Back Man of the Year Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. 1.
  5. 2.
  6. Jonah
  7. 3.
  8. 4.
  9. Luna
  10. 5.
  11. 6.
  12. 7.
  13. 8.
  14. Emily
  15. 9.
  16. 10.
  17. 11.
  18. 12.
  19. 13.
  20. 14.
  21. 15.
  22. 16.
  23. 17.
  24. 18.
  25. 19.
  26. 20.
  27. Alexis
  28. 21.
  29. 22.
  30. 23.
  31. 24.
  32. Naomi
  33. 25.
  34. 26.
  35. 27.
  36. 28.
  37. 29.
  38. 30.
  39. Simone
  40. 31.
  41. 32.
  42. 33.
  43. 34.
  44. 35.
  45. ONE MONTH LATER
  46. 36.
  47. Elizabeth
  48. Jonah
  49. Acknowledgments
  50. Readers Group Guide
  51. About the Author
  52. Copyright

I try not to imagine what they were thinking that night, just as I so often try to unimagine the entire nightmare. Of course, sometimes I can’t help wondering where Elizabeth goes in that pretty head of hers. I watch her leave the house early for work, or draw a bath right away when she comes home. I pay attention to whether her eyes are open or closed, and how she moves with me, and how she toys with me, and I’ve determined that the worst is behind us. I’m the one with the secret now, and she feels it, and the undeniable weight of her curiosity—sensing, as she does, that I know something damning, and that the thing is too dangerous to speak out loud—lets me know that she’s wondering, too. We’re latched together by our twin secrets, by our twin curiosities, and the little bits of not-knowing fortify the thing that binds us. In our love, the gaps aren’t losses, but endless pools of possibility.

And yes, I wonder too about Jonah, who is lost to me, but still very much alive to me. He’s my son. I’ve asked myself if it’s possible that everything he told me was a lie, a story meant to hurt, but what kind of person goes that far? That’s not the child I raised. That’s not the story I can live with. Besides, Elizabeth’s silence on the matter has all but confirmed its validity in my mind. She does not ask about Jonah or reference him in passing. These are not the omissions of an innocent woman. So then, it is almost impossible to hope that Jonah’s story was a lie. What is possible is that I could forgive him. Not yet or now and maybe not ever. But unlike with Raymond, who may as well be dead to me, there is still possibility with Jonah. There is hope. We are family, after all. In the messes we make, the awakenings, the messes we fix, the lives we choose and the ones we inherit, in the better or worse, the ambiguity and ambivalence, in the things we can never undo and the things undone in effort, and the parts we maintain—in our bodies, in our molecular composition, in our lust and our ambition, and our best attempts at right and wrong—we are family: part of a pack, a school, a pride. It is cruel and it is vital, and at the end of it all, I will know that I did my best for him, my son, my seed. This is my life and my legacy. Heaven knows I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Elizabeth