I look around the room with watery eyes. Kira is greeting Phoebe, still in Isabel’s arms, kissing her little hands like she’s a queen. Selena is chatting with Louise while also trying to clean blueberry residue off Miles’s face. “Oh, Clara, you’re a mess, too—I’ve got you,” Selena says, and she reaches out to gently wipe my girl’s cheeks for me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you so much to YOU for reading this book! When there are so many enticing books in the world, I am grateful and thrilled beyond measure that you chose to spend some of your time with this one. I hope it gave you what you were craving. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you to my absolutely wonderful agent, Kathy Green, for seeing potential in this book from the beginning, giving me crucial and wise notes, and making me feel like I belonged in the world of writing. I could not have asked for a kinder and more encouraging agent to guide me along. I am so very lucky to be working with you, and I hope this is just the beginning!
Thank you to Jodi Warshaw for believing in this book and in me, and for making my dreams come true! Words can’t describe my debt of gratitude to you. The entire Lake Union team has been a joy to work with and has made the process both organized and fun; thank you, Danielle, Erin, Jen, Gabe, and everyone who has been involved in publication, for giving my book such a warm home.
I can’t sing loudly enough the praises of David Downing, my developmental editor. David, your notes were careful, insightful, elevating, funny, and just . . . right. Always right. I knew from the first page that we got each other, and because of you, the editing process was more enjoyable, addicting, and gratifying than I ever could have imagined. And you were so nice to me . . . even when what I had written was nonsensical. Or when it was yet another f-bomb. Or when I asked inane questions about Track Changes. Thank you. You’re the best.
Thank you so much to Haley, Kellie, and Sarah, for their brilliant copyediting and proofreading. Editors are wizards! Really patient ones. You’d think as an English teacher I would know when to use whom or where to place a modifier, but nope! As it turns out, I absolutely do not! Thank you for your extraordinarily careful eyes and consideration of the intent, and for turning this into a real, actual book.
And Eileen Carey designed a cover that I just can’t stop staring at （and sometimes petting in the manner of Dr. Evil）。 I love it so much. Thank you, Eileen.
Thank you to my parents for making me an enthusiastic and critical reader from a very young age. I’m grateful that you weren’t above occasionally bribing me to read a book, ha! Ultimately, you showed me that a love of reading means rarely being bored or lonely. Thank you, moreover, for your unconditional love and steadfast cheering on throughout my life. I hit the parent jackpot. And an additional thanks to my mom, who frequently babysat my girls while I chipped away at this book. Your devotion to your granddaughters is a bright spot in all our lives.
Thank you to my sister Ellen, beta reader extraordinaire and the best twist predictor in the game （known to finish a thriller and say “I saw that coming from the second paragraph”）。 If you weren’t my sister, I would definitely want to be friends with you. （Kevin: same goes for you—you’re pretty cool, too.）
A big shout-out to all my former Beacon English students: I thought I loved reading when I became an English teacher, but you all made me love it a million times more, by consistently drawing my attention to interesting details I hadn’t noticed myself. I never would have attempted to write a novel had it not been for the time we spent together considering what went into them. Even on its worst day, being an English teacher was a job I loved, and that was entirely because of you. Thank you.
To the collective Magidson/Frankel/Bennett families: Thank you for your love and support, and your excitement about this book. I only wish I could have included Adam’s quote on the back cover: “That’s a lot of pages!” You guys are the best.
I am so lucky to have the loveliest “mom friends” （an earlier title of this book!）， old and new, near and far. I’m inspired daily by your resilience, compassion, creativity, grace, and humor. Even moms I don’t know always offer to help carry a stroller up or down stairs, when their own hands are full, and it just blows my mind. I hope the implicit sisterhood that I feel so strongly with all of you came through in these pages. And to the very few I told I was working on a book: thank you for rooting for me every step of the way. Lauren Quinn, I’m pretty sure I wrote this book only because you told me I should and could （and thanks for letting me borrow Clara’s name）。 And Chrissy Daemi, thank you for reading a very early and unpolished draft, and for being so generous with your enthusiasm and time.