“We’ll take you to your car,” says a man at his arm.
The women are still on the far side of the pool, a wall of gaping faces. He does not see Diana among them. There is no one in a white dress, short or long. She must have run, he thinks. In the roil of his brain, beyond the distant congratulation, is another, more distant thought. Perhaps she hadn’t been there at all.
The men shepherd him over the lawn toward the front of the house. Rosalie comes running in her wobbly heels, her face ashen. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. She takes a few backward steps, then pivots and marches out ahead of them. As they walk in this awkward phalanx, Michael thinks briefly, bizarrely, of Carol’s healer. He hates, for some reason, the idea of that man witnessing this.
Suddenly, as if remembering something, Rosalie halts and spins around.
“He has a stalker,” she announces with sudden force, standing in front of them like a barricade. “That’s why he did it. There’s someone who’s been stalking him, I don’t know who. Ever since the magazine article.”
Michael’s escorts do not respond, and after a moment his wife turns away and continues walking. He is ushered forward again, albeit more slowly, the torque on his arms slightly reduced. He stares at Rosalie as she walks with aristocratic carriage, the back of her dress like a dull mirror. For the first time in their married life, she is entirely opaque to him.
He thinks about the bullet. Where would it have finally landed? He hadn’t absorbed enough of advanced physics class to hazard any estimate of a .40-caliber shot’s degree of curvature, or to reckon the height of its apex. Perhaps just a slight tilt seaward would have placed it on the sliver of beach beyond the house, where it would rest for the duration, commingled with the clutter of gray stones. Or a small cant north might have landed it on the tennis court. Michael pictures the bullet striking the pristine green clay and creating a divot. He sees it bouncing over the painted white lines, coming to rest at the base of the chain-link fence, harmless as a thimble. It may not be discovered for days or weeks or months, or whenever one of the Christensens or their offspring happens to jog to the spot and bend to retrieve a ball.
Or maybe—is it possible?—the bullet hasn’t yet landed. Maybe it is still streaming upward, freewheeling, unchallenged by any impediment in the clear night. He thinks of this last possibility with a kind of wonderment, like a boy releasing a bottle to the waves. He tilts his face briefly to the sky as the men press him on toward the blue-shadowed lawn where the car is.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ENORMOUS THANKS to all at Grove Atlantic who helped bring this book into the world, especially Virginia Barber, Elisabeth Schmitz, Morgan Entrekin, Katie Raissian, Deb Seager, Judy Hottensen, Charles Rue Woods, Gretchen Mergenthaler, Amy Vreeland, Patsy Wagner, and Justina Batchelor.
I’m deeply grateful to Bill Clegg for his abiding faith, wisdom, and guidance, and to Chris Clemans for his always invaluable assistance.
I’m fortunate to have the support of many brilliant friends, and would like to thank Melissa Hile, Anne Fentress Nichols, and Deborah Shapiro in particular for their responses to these stories. For invaluable writing time during playdates, thanks to Karen Ruscica Haitoff, Sara Carbone, and Andrea Jaffee.
Thanks to Irini Spanidou for her inspiration and enduring belief. For solid advice and encouragement, thanks to Susan Choi, Michael Cunningham, Jenny Offill, Jonathan Baumbach, Emily Mitchell, Sara Shepard, Cari Luna, and Bryan Charles.
I am indebted to the MacDowell Colony for the calm before the storm of parenthood and for providing the time and space for my characters to gestate. Thanks to Evelyn Somers Rogers at the Missouri Review for her editorial help. I’m grateful to Dr. Daniel Spitzer and Mike Cho for their help with neurology and neurosurgery details; any inaccuracies in this arena are my own. Thanks also to the Wilton Historical Society for insight into colonial New England and historic home renovations, and to the staff of 02 Living, who allowed me to turn their café into my office.
Loving thanks to my mother, Mary Ann Acampora, for all that she’s given me over the years and for her careful reading of these stories. This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Raymond Acampora, without whose unconditional love and faith I would never find myself writing these words.
To Amity, for brightening my days.
And to Thomas, who is at the heart of everything.