“We can throw them away,” Fern said.
“You don’t want them?”
Fern did not. It was safe to be less loveable now. “The animals are for the children. You all are the ones I’m here to take care of. And myself.”
She took a few steps away from him, let him stand there alone in the house in which they had lived, one of the many attempts they had made at their marriage. She watched her husband, her love, nearly sightless. He looked like a headless flower, just a stem. She forgave him and did not yet. She was more his and less than she had been. Ahead of them were years of pulling closer and years of pushing away and years of pulling closer again. The children would grow up and maybe they would talk every day or maybe years would pass between calls. Will and James would become two men and lead two lives and yet they would always be twins. That was what it was to love someone across the duration, for the entirety.
“Fern?” Edgar asked. She had backed far enough away that he couldn’t see her.
She did not answer him right away. She went to the light switch and flicked it off so that the two of them were standing in the same darkness. She let him ask the question again, until she could tell that it hurt him to say her name, so badly did he want her on the other end of it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My boundless, heartswollen, jumping-up-and-down thanks to:
My teachers, who are never not with me when I write: Michelle Latiolais, Ron Carlson, Geoffrey Wolff, Christine Schutt, Brad Watson, Amy Gerstler, Doug Anderson and Jackie Levering-Sullivan.
My editor, Sarah McGrath, whose insights opened this novel up. Thank you for taking such ridiculously good care of my work.
PJ Mark, who is always exactly the person I want on the other end of a draft (and a question and a joke and an idea, etc., etc.) and to Marya Spence for smarts and welcome.
Matt Sumell, Michael Andreason, Marisa Matarazzo: mighty indeed.
Elliot Holt for being a gatherer of writers, just when I most needed it.
Everyone at Riverhead, especially: Claire McGinnis and Katie Freeman (!!), Geoff Kloske, Danya Kukafka, Kate Stark, Jynne Martin, and Glory Plata.
Glenn Schaeffer, the International Center for Writing and Translation at UC Irvine, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Tin House Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference for generous and much appreciated support.
Jon Davis and the faculty and students at Institute of American Indian Arts for infusing my year with wisdom, humor, stories and conversations about stories.
Several books were especially helpful in the writing of this noveclass="underline" Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell and Old Money by Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr.
The Ragdale Foundation, for continuing to be a place where art is made.
My unimaginably great family: my parents for forever-faith, my dear sister, my amazing in-laws, my uncles and aunts and cousins and cousin-lets.
My friends, especially the lifelong variety: Melissa McNeely, Phoebe Waldendziak, Kari Hennigan, Byron Thayer, Ashby Lankford, Lauren Coleman and Margaux Sanchez.
Teo: for every mega-good thing you do every day forever, whoa.
Clay: for providing gorgeous, unflagging gusto.
Prairie: you were my inside companion while I finished this book and I feel sure that you made magic happen. This one is for and because of you, Miss Lemon Pie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ramona Ausubel is the author of the novel No One Is Here Except All of Us, winner of the PEN Center USA Fiction Award and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. She is also the author of the story collection A Guide to Being Born, and has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, and Best American Fantasy.
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