And I had a really great husband and a kid who was lovely and beautiful, and I volunteered twice a week at the elementary school library to read to kids who did not give a shit and just wanted to fight over the pillows they got to lie on, and I visited schools in the neighboring counties to talk to teenagers about writing, and it was an entire life that I’d made. But I guess the other thing is that I had built that life over another life, this secret life, this secret thing, and I had told myself that this would all work as long as I kept my life on top of that secret, if I weighed it down so it stayed deep inside of me. And when something comes back, when it reappears, when it emerges from that place inside of you, it takes up real space in the world that you’ve made. And I wasn’t sure how much space it needed, if it would push me so far outside of that life that I’d have to start over, become someone else.

That night, I had Junie’s babysitter take her out to see a movie, and after Aaron came home from work, I told him that I needed to tell him something. My whole body was kind of vibrating; my skin felt tingly.

“You look a little sick,” Aaron said, frowning. “Are you okay?”

“I just listen—” I said, and he instantly stiffened.

“Did someone die?” he blurted out. “Did your mom die? Wait, did my mom die? Is that why you sent Junie out with Bea?”

“No, god, Aaron, I’m sorry. No, nobody died. No one is dead. No one is dying, either. It’s nothing like that. Jeez, you ran to that so fast.”

“You just had that look,” he said, still suspicious of me. “Like someone had died. You looked like my mom when she told me that our dog got hit by a car.”

“Well, thank god, it’s nothing like that. This is just my face, you know? My normal face.”

“You’re really pale,” he said, inspecting my face. “You’re sweating.”

“Shit, you’re making this worse,” I told him. “Do you want a beer or something? Do you think that would relax you?”

“I think you’d better tell me what it is,” he said, “’cause you’re freaking me out a little bit.”

“Okay, well, I met with this woman today, and she wants to write about me for the New Yorker, and so—”

“Oh, shit, Jesus, Frankie, it’s good news? Why were you acting like that? This is great! Is it about the Evie books? Or your novel?”

“No,” I said, “it’s not about the books.”