I comprehend all this because I comprise it. Not everyone is constituted this way. I think that I exist for myself in part by existing in the eyes of others, especially those nearest to me. Some people have a robust sense of self independent of parenthood. I don’t. If Stefan died that way—in all honesty, if Stefan died in any way—I would lose my reason. I would want to. I would be diminished, minute by hour by day by week by month by year. I wouldn’t do what Jill did. But I would want to cast a killing frost on the world. Sometimes, I would try to seem brave or enduring—even inspirational. That would all be a show and eventually, I would stop trying.
I sometimes think of Belinda. I think of Belinda and say to myself, I will remember her forever; I will never let her depart; I will keep her locked forever in the round-tower of my heart. But every day, she is further out of reach. I can no longer hear her voice, I can only hear my own voice repeating words I know she said, and my loss is not a hundredth part of Jill’s. Stefan has put it all behind him. He doesn’t want to remember. Youth is programmed to go forward. For him to recover does not make him cruel. It makes him healthy.
One weekend a month, when I’m not with Julie or my family, I drive north, not to Black Creek, but to a place high up on a barren fan of land in Iron County. With my small overnight bag, I check in at the little roadside inn where they now know my name and my errand. I lay myself down on the stiff mattress and try to sleep. Every time I make this journey, I think this could be the last time. Nothing is promised. Nothing is expected. Just after the sun comes up, I drive a couple of miles to a park where a small waterfall froths over a chin of granite and crashes into a little creek with surprising force. One sizzling day, I walked right in and stood under it, still in my linen pants and tee shirt. Afterward I was dry within ten minutes. One brutal winter morning, the waterfall was frozen in flight. Sitting there, I drink my coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Then, I drive one more mile. I park my car outside the gates. Inside, I hand over my big leather purse and submit to the wand and wait while they flip through the books and magazines, the pretty stationery and stamped envelopes that are so important for sending letters out, in the hope that letters will come. There is a list and mine is the only name on it. I fill out a form. On the line that specifies RELATIONSHIP TO INMATE, I write, Friend.
* * *
BREWSTER, MA, 2021
This is a story that I wrote alone but not on my own. I owe a debt of gratitude first to my agent, Jeff Kleinman, who always settles for more, and the kind hearts and sharp minds at Folio Lit, and then to my editor, Kathy Sagan, whom I feel I knew before I met her, and all the team at Mira/HarperCollins. I can never repay The Ragdale Foundation, home of my writer’s heart, where portions of this book were written in 2019, especially Amy Sinclair, Linda Williams, Regin Igloria and Jeff Meeuwsen. I also wish to acknowledge the Turkeyland Cove Foundation on Martha’s Vineyard, where I wrote the first words of this story a year and a month ago today. To my friends and colleagues at Miami University of Ohio, especially Keith Tuma, Laura Van Prooyen and Hoa Nguyen, to my boyfriend, Chris Brent, my beloved sis, Pamela English, my best pal, Ann Wertz Garvin, my true friends Moira McDermott and Holly Robinson, my brother Bobby, all my love for bucking me up when I thought all was lost. Oh brave old world, that has such people in it. Always, there is my own darling crew, Rob Allegretti, Dan Brent-Allegretti, Martin Brent, Francie Brent, Mia Brent, Merit Brent, Will Brent, Marta Brent and Atticus Brent—as well as my fab daughters-in-law Kat Hodge Allegretti and Olivia Brent, and my brand-new grandson, Henry, with a special hug for Merit and Martin for the forty-two times I made them listen to parts of this book, and for my little Marta, who thinks everything I do is really very good. Each one of you is my only. There is one more person I wish to mention. I don’t know her name. Years ago, I was standing in the coffee line at a hotel where I was giving a speech when the woman in front of me dropped her book. I picked it up and asked if she was at the convention but she said, no, she came every week, to visit her son at the nearby prison where he was serving a long sentence. In a drug-induced psychosis, he’d killed the only girl he ever loved. This mom was a lovely person. He was her only child, her only relative on earth. And I wondered, could you still love the one you loved most in the world after he had done the worst thing? Then I realized, you would be the only one who could. How many times I thought of that woman I cannot say, but I put off writing a story so anguishing. Finally, however, it wouldn’t let me alone. But in this story, I exercised the artist’s right to correct history, as I wish, for her, I could correct life. Finally, this is a work of fiction. All the people and places in it, even the ones with real names, are portrayed here not as they actually exist, but as I imagined them. There are certain to be plenty of errors, and all of them are mine.