We didn’t get to live multiple lives and then choose the one we wanted at the end. Sorry.
His seven-year-old answer to all of this, staring her straight in the face, in all seriousness, had been, “Then I better do everything right the first time.”
She’d sent him on a fool’s errand.
And now look at him.
She knew there was no going back for a second chance, but worst of all, there was no going forward for one, either. Nick had stopped asking her why long ago; in fact, he’d stopped listening to her altogether.
So she wrote.
It was the only thing she knew how to do.
To: Westholme, Sarah
From: JF Admin
Date: April 23, 11:51 PM
Subject: For want of a catchier subject line: HELP
Hello, my dear,
I hope this email finds you well. Hell, I hope this email finds you. It’s been almost a year since we last wrote, since you retired Sarah Westholme, and I–for the life of me–can’t recall your real name. Perhaps I never knew it? This is my only way of making contact, so I do hope it reaches you.
I’ll get straight to it （you certainly know by now that’s my way）： I have a request. More to the point, a rather embarrassing request.
I will put you immediately at ease, this isn’t a solicitation. （Though you know all you have to do is say the word and I’ll give you as much work as you want.） No, I’m afraid this is a personal matter.
I have a nephew. I was given the chore of raising him. I use the word “chore” because I have never been good at taking care of anyone other than myself. A sad fact I now live with.
He’s a good man （for which I take no credit）。 He has found himself kneed in the balls by life; repeatedly and recently. There are men I have known who deserve that. He is not one of them.
You once shared with me, quite early on, your own horrible circumstance. His return home has brought your accident to the forefront of my mind. Did you find your way back? Are you at peace with it? Have you accepted it? Do you feel whole again? I truly hope so, and if so, I must know how. He must know how.
Now comes the embarrassing request: may I put you in touch with him? I think it would help. Him. You? Please understand, I’m not matchmaking here. Call it writer’s intuition. Hell, call it whatever you want, roll your eyes at my meddling, both of you, I don’t care, so long as you connect with him.
Completely off topic, he might make a good narrator. He has an amusing voice he does in jest which if he ever took half-seriously could be quite good. But that’s not my purpose in writing nor should you consider it relevant. Perhaps just a conversation starter?
I save groveling for my books, but short of that: Please talk to him. Listen to him. I’ve failed at both and here we are.
I realize you may never see this. If I don’t hear back from you, I’ll find another way.
Ciao,
June
Acknowledgments
FIRST, THANK YOU TO THE INHABITANTS OF MY AUDIOBOOK PROFESSION. The storytellers. The storykeepers. The madmen and firewomen. I barely spoke about this book while I was writing it, but some of you were key to the journey for various reasons: Will Damron, Abby West, Andi Arndt, Erin Mallon, Amy Landon, Edoardo Ballerini, Sebastian York, and Sarah Mollo-Christensen.
In my last acknowledgments, I skipped my teachers for the sake of length. In this one, I want to feature them for the sake of rightness. From my fabulous elementary teachers to Mrs. Dewey, who first ignited my love of reading. To Caryl Pine-Crasnick and Barbara “Buzzy” Gogny, my studio teachers. Buzzela, you made me think I could write, and coming from a woman who was also a writer, man, did that mean something.
In college, Mary Ellen Bertolini informed me I was going to be an English major, which was very helpful, and then let me tutor her Jane Austen classes. To Paul Monod, for suggesting I apply to Oxford and making British History so entertaining I didn’t begrudge an 8 A.M. Monday morning class. To my other professors, including but not limited to: John Bertolini, Larry Yarborough, Teo Ruiz, Eric Jager （technically never my professor, but it feels as if you were）， Stephen Gill, and Peter McCullough. To Jeff Dunham for not flunking me in Physics for Poets when you absolutely should have; I enjoyed our chats about Jane Austen.
To my creative writing teachers over the years, in various settings, but especially: Rob Cohen, Summer Block, Chris Noxon, Laura van den Berg, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, Mona Simpson, Don Mitchell, and my fellow students in their workshops, because that’s how workshops work. And from those workshops, I’d like to single out Bri Cavallaro, who–a decade and a half later–not only writes fantastic books for me to narrate, but gave me early consult on the practicalities of Sewanee’s disability. Finally, mostly, to Barbara Ganley, who taught tirelessly at a college that didn’t deserve her （there, I said it） and whose wisdom, encouragement, advice, and sensibilities I think about–no exaggeration–daily. You taught me how to Read Like a Writer and that, more than anything else, has given me not one but two careers.