If the relationship between Shira and her teacher is dear, it is perhaps because the relationships I’ve had with my teachers and mentors have been all the dearer: Marilyn Abildskov, you have understood me as a writer from the start, and I am so grateful for your perceptiveness, generosity, and intelligence about life’s ordinary moments; thank you, Lan Samantha Chang, for your keen sense of a story’s pacing and its beating heart; Tony Doerr, for your limitless curiosity about the universe and the sheer beauty of your sentences; David Russell, for your unbounded enthusiasm for music, this project, and your treasure trove of anecdotes; Michelle Wildgen, for your deep understanding of narrative cause and effect; Steven Bauer, for your trustworthy narrative intuitions and your ongoing encouragement; Kevin McIlvoy, for your wisdom about books and life and for your constant faith in my creativity.

Linda Wentworth brought me all the right resources. Catherine Epstein helped me with the history and more. Demetrius Shahmehri taught me how to listen for the stories inside the music. Dusty Miller and Marc Fromm read for a child’s mind, trauma, and dreams. Kent Hicks taught me about tracking—and also built the house where I wrote some of this! Pamela Erens showed me that important changes can be made even to a nearly baked cake. Susan O’Neill shed light on convent life. Martha Scherzer and Jonathan Vatner brainstormed with me at one of my lowest points and brought steady, insightful thinking. This manuscript is better because of Rebecca Gradinger’s great story instincts.

Thank you to many dear, loving friends: for reading for me at the earliest, worst stages and still encouraging me to continue on: Julia Mintz, Brittany Shahmehri, Catherine Newman, Katryna Nields, Sara Just, Missy Wick, Jean Zimmer, Alisa Greenbacher, Tamar Naor, Tracy Camenisch, Gideon Yaffe, Chris Cander, Judith Frank, Naomi Shulman, Carol Edelstein, Robin Barber, Linda Moore, Amanda Roach, Cynthia Gensheimer, and Shelley Nolden. For fortifying visits, walks, meals, and endless tea drinking: Emily Neuburger, Lydia Peterson, Claudia Canale-Parola, Becky Michaels, Judith Inglese, Ariana Inglese, Kristin Rotas, Anne Hulley, Suzanne Forman, Caryn Brause, Steve Breslow, Drew and Cathy Starkweather, Lauren Weinsier, Jennifer Addas, and Nancy Garlock. And further afield but no less dear: Cathy Bendor, Matthew Tarran, Jennine Kirby, Keith and Lisa Lucas, Manuel and Stephanie Vargas, Susan Verducci, Jenny Walter, Lisa McLeod, Vance Ricks, Susan Leeds, Sarah Buss, and Mar Corning.

I am thankful for the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and for uninterrupted writing time at Wellspring House, Patchwork Farm, and Hillside House.

Thank you to my family, the Rosners, Corwins, and Malinas: there is a string connecting us always, and I love you. (Nancy: You helped to keep me healthy. Elisa: You helped to keep me sane!)

Goldie and Rosebud: Our river walks were, perhaps, the key here.