THE NEIGHBORS HAD WATCHED with some curiosity as he rehabilitated the house, floor by floor, room by room, over the course of the year, and sometimes waved when they saw him, through an exposed frame, working in his uneven way. He hadn’t hired any help, and often continued after midnight with his work, lit by bare bulbs clamped to paint-splattered ladders and fed by dried apricots and cashews he kept in his corduroy pocket. A careful preservationist, he matched the original colors of the doors precisely, fingering each swatch on a great fan of color samples, and restored the gilded leaves of the stairway wallpaper himself.
Vestiges of the other tenants, diligently dusted and bubble-wrapped, stood in man-sized towers in the foyer. Edward had called to say they’d be arriving in a day or so, and Thomas had busied himself with the last of the cleaning. He got down under the tubs and scrubbed the claw-foot detail, pushed cloth across window glass in even lines, braced himself on the mop as he moved it through the bright spaces.
They had driven for ten months, Edward and Claudia, stopping every few days to sleep off their grief in some nameless small town. On the top floor Thomas dozed in an armchair, both his arms slack, a book tented on his chest. All the rooms were empty, all the windows open. After the car pulled up, battered but polished, it idled a while.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing about a syndrome so unique as Williams was a challenge that kept me up nights, and I will forever be grateful to Jessica Vecchia of the Williams Syndrome Association, who answered my questions and connected me with a family brave enough to tell me their story: Frank, Josephine, and Sara Catalonatto. The insight and anecdotes they shared, and the frankness with which Sara spoke about her condition, were truly invaluable in my creation and understanding of Paulie.
I drew inspiration for the paintings described as Thomas’s from the art of Casey Cripe, whose enormous talent astounds.
Jonathon Atkinson, Victoria Marini, and Eli Horowitz were early readers of what became this novel, and their honesty at that stage was crucial in my perception of the project.
J.B. lent me an important piece, and for that I’m deeply appreciative.
Alexandra Kleeman, skilled writer and reader, provided soul-mending encouragement.
Jin Auh, Megan Lynch, and Laura Perciasepe all served as mothers of this book at different stages in its path away from my anxious grip, and they deserve many thanks for helping it to walk.
John Wray, who is sometimes called John Henderson, put on an impressive series of hats in the service of this novel and its author. For his tireless line notes, afternoon serenades, long dinners, alacrity as hospice nurse, infectious curiosity, willingness to drive five hundred miles last minute to see some fireflies, and perhaps most importantly for giving me a room of my own, I am beholden (and more than a little blessed).