Thank you, Ann Mah, for the many, many ways you’ve helped me get here and for the joy of being your friend.

Regina Marler and Renee Swindle, I am dreaming of the long breakfast we will have in the future, and so thankful for all of the kindness, understanding, and confidence you’ve given me over our breakfasts in days past.

Bruce Holsinger, your belief in this book changed me on a cellular level, and I am so grateful.

Michele Larkin, thank you for all the times you’ve picked me up, bolstered my courage, and understood where I’m coming from. It’s such wonderful luck to be in your family.

Thank you to everyone who read drafts and shared your hearts with me, including Therese Walsh, Brenda Kirkwood, Julia Whelan, Brantley Aufill, Rainbow Rowell, Michelle Rubinstein, Cullen Douglas, Dash Hegeman, Melanie Krebs, Sarah Playtis, Neil Gordon, Ben Jackson, Julie Smith, Erica Curtis, Liz Valentine, Evan Dawson, Keith Pedzich, Jennifer Deville Catalano, Julia Claiborne Johnson, and Brunonia Barry. And, of course, Joan Pedzich, who understood the power of kind words to an orphaned soul and talked with me about April as if she were a dear girl we both knew.

Special thanks to Therese Fowler, Jan O’Hara, Sarah Callendar, Jeanne Kisacky, Barbara O’Neal, and Greer McAllister for those beautiful Ithaca moments. Thank you to Jack Hrkach and all the teachers and friends who made Ithaca the place where I started.

Katherine Frances Billingsley, my darling Evergreen! What a joy it was to grow up being weirdly creative with you and to still be yes anding our friendship after all these years.

Thank you to Julie Buxbaum, Amy Franklin-Willis, Ann Marie Nieves, Matthew Andreoli, Savannah Butler, Emmett Tucker, Elizabeth Roberts, and Nikki DeLoach. Whether you know it or not, you’ve come along with the right words of encouragement exactly when I needed them. I appreciate your kindness and perspective so much. Thank you, Ania Szado, for saving me with research! Thank you to Angela Terry, Carrie Medders, and Patrice Hall for helping me feel like I belong by this bay.

Thank you again and always to Linda and Roger Bryant, and the wonderful folks of the Titles Over Tea book group, who have taught me so much about what it means to be a reader. Thank you to the members of The Fiction Writers Coop, WOMBA, and my friends at Untitled, for sharing all the textures of what it means to be a writer.

Thank you to John Cuk, Marty Heresniak, Jan Callner, Joseph Ilardo, Jonathan Klein, Brian Maillard, and Daniel Holabaugh for bringing music into my life. And a huge thank you to Ken Wilcox for being the best darn guitar teacher.