3. The .22 handgun. The cops had confiscated it, at Mom’s request.
4. The Tree. Cameron decided to forget this place he loved to go, even though the dirt and sticks had formed a pattern and that pattern was imprinted in his brain.
He hoped it would rain.
Cameron missed his friend, the night janitor. He had put an end to his late-night wanderings, and lying in bed with the window locked shut, Cameron often thought about the man in the jumpsuit. If he could go back to Elm Street now, he’d walk right up to the janitor. Press his heavy head to the janitor’s chest and let the big man hold him. He wouldn’t ask why the janitor had never mentioned seeing Cameron on February fifteenth, on the other side of Elm Street. That’s what friends did, and in the night janitor, Cameron had found a real one.
At night, he imagined telling the janitor each day’s small lesson. Today: Untangling wasn’t always the answer. Your insides were a labyrinth, and there was no use trying to unfurl it all. Tangled was a natural way to be, and you could only try to understand that knot inside—how it had formed, and where it was loosest, those inches of slack where you could find some relief.
It was early March now, a rare eighty degrees. Colorado did that—shifted so quickly from winter to summer you could hardly catch your breath. Mom was pulling weeds in the garden, hands on her hips in her beat leather gardening gloves. Upstairs, Mr. O was painting in the studio he’d created in the attic for him and Cameron to share.
“Can we take a trip?” Cameron asked from the patio table.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Somewhere that isn’t so dry.”
“We’ll go to the ocean,” Mom said, peering at him from under her straw sun hat. Cameron thought about salt, how it could sterilize an open wound.
Every day, Mom and Cameron sat down to talk, as the psychiatrist recommended. Some days they had lots to say—others, they simply existed together.
How do you feel when you first wake up in the morning?
Sometimes, Cameron thought of Lucinda. When sunlight splayed across his comforter in angular rays, when he was still hazy from sleep: Lucinda would be sitting on her bedroom floor, the purple diary open in her lap. Swaying and tapping her pen, dancing to a song only she could hear. Cameron felt okay, remembering her like this—lost in some melody, building like a flooding body of water. Someday, Cameron would turn sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and Lucinda would still be there, stuck behind the glass of her window. Fifteen and luminous, moving like a high branch in summer wind.
By the time Cameron brushed his teeth, Lucinda would be gone.
A collection of memory.
A figment of his sleep-sweet mind, smiling even as her face morphed into Cameron’s own reflection in the window’s glass. As if to say: yes, of course, once you knew me.
Acknowledgments
This book would not exist without my parents, Arielle Kukafka and David Kukafka. Mom, thank you for your wisdom and optimism, your certainty about my path. Dad, thank you for your guidance, reasoning, and unbridled pride. Thank you both for your investments in my education, sacrifices, and absolute support. I love you.
Thank you to Dana Murphy for being my dream agent, fairy godmother, confidante, life coach, and outstanding female friend. Your passion for this book beats ferociously at the heart of it. And to the lovely ladies of The Book Group—Brettne Bloom, Elisabeth Weed, Julie Barer, Faye Bender—thank you for raising us both.
Dazzled thanks to Marysue Rucci for your incredible insight, unparalleled enthusiasm, and deep understanding of this book, in shape and in heart. Some days I still pinch myself, I feel so lucky to work with you. Thank you to Zack Knoll for thoughtful, astute edits and tireless work backstage. Thank you to Jenny Meyer for fulfilling my dreams of being published abroad, and to Kris Doyle and his team at Picador UK. Thank you to copy editors Jonathan Evans and Molly Lindley Pisani, to Allison Forner and Alex Merto for the beautiful cover design, and thank you to everyone at Simon & Schuster—Jonathan Karp, Cary Goldstein, Richard Rhorer, Ebony LaDelle, Dana Trocker, Sarah Reidy—for believing in my work.
Thank you to Sarah McGrath, my generous and unflappable mentor, for teaching me how to really read (in turn, how to really write). To Barbara Jones, for being the first person to tell me I was “in the ballpark,” and Stuart Krichevsky, for pushing me out on my metaphorical big-kid bike. Thank you to Geoff Kloske, Jynne Martin and my Riverhead family for cheering me on—sometimes even physically.
Thank you to NYU’s Gallatin Review for publishing excerpts from this book in the short story “Zap.” I’d like to thank the following writers for their work and insight: Lord Byron (She Walks in Beauty), Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera), and Pablo Neruda (Soneto LVII). Credit and thanks to Kevin Oliver for the translation of the Pablo Neruda poem, “Soneto LVII,” found on page 337.
Thank you, of course, to my brothers and sisters—Laurel Kukafka, Joshua Kukafka, Talia Zalesne, and Zachary Zalesne. Thank you to Avi Rocklin and Jim Wright; to Shannon Duffy, Pete Weiland, and Maddy Weiland; to Lisa Kaye and Aiden Kaye.
To some wonderful friends: Steph Bow, Chris DiNardo, Ellen Kobori, Kaitlyn Lundeby (#1 fan!), Emily McDermott, Lauren Milburn, Tae Naqvi, Alissa Newman, and Raka Sen.
A special thank-you to Hannah Neff for growing with me for so many years in so many ways. Thank you to Tory Kamen, for getting it.
And thank you, Liam Weiland, for being exactly the person you are. The softest words I write are always for you.
Lastly, to each and every reader of this book—thank you. You humble me.