Tonight there will be an early holiday party in her building—they put off the condo sale, and no one, except Marianne, even bothered to move out. Still, her neighbors have been gone so much on their own various journeys that they hardly noticed she was away for a whole year. She’ll put off her lesson plans, get dressed up, drink bourbon cocktails that burn her throat pleasantly.

Marianne! Her neighbors will say. What have you been up to?

And she’ll be tempted to tell them everything. She can picture herself making light of it all, exaggerating for effect, portraying herself as the victim or the hero. It’s just the kind of story they’d be into.

But then she’ll think about Janine, and she’ll feel guilty. She’s resolved not to betray anyone again, and not to lie.

Maybe she’ll say she had a teaching job down in Florida.

Maybe, just to mess with them, she’ll tell them she got saved.

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Katie Dublinski, for your vast patience as I worked on this novel, and your wisdom and thoughtfulness as you helped me shape it. Thank you, in fact, to everyone at Graywolf—especially Fiona McCrae, Susannah Sharpless, Marisa Atkinson, Caroline Nitz, and Casey O’Neil. And to Kimberly Glyder for another beautiful cover! I continue to feel so proud and lucky to be a member of the Graywolf family.

And thank you to my other wolfpack—my many friends at North Carolina State University. I’m especially grateful to Wilton Barnhardt for his sharp notes and ideas, and to John Kessel, Shervon Cassim, Dorianne Laux, and Eduardo Corral for being such excellent colleagues. Thanks to my students for asking after the novel, and for being so inspiring in the classroom and beyond.

Thank you to Dan Kois, Meaghan Mulholland, Krista Bremer, and Jon Mozes for your enormously helpful feedback and encouragement.

Thank you to Jill McCorkle, who supported and cheered this book from its beginning.

And to Maria Massie, my wonderful agent.

I’m also grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Durham Arts Council, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference, and the Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference, for support and inspiration while I worked on the book. And also to Edna “Diddie” Parrish, for your Florida hospitality.

Finally, I’m grateful to my family for your steadfast support—to Buttons and Terry Boggs, who have always believed that you can live a good and useful life as an artist.

To Beatrice and Harriet, who each arrived at just the right time.

And to Richard—I’m so lucky to have you as a first, best, and last reader, and a partner in all things.

About the Author