by Jen Waite
Tom continued, “He had problems as a child. And a teenager. I won’t sit here and tell you he was an angel. He was expelled from high school twice. We should have gotten him help, but that wasn’t something you did where we lived. A counselor, therapy . . . That might sound silly to you,” Tom looked at Anne, “being a therapist and all. Quite frankly we were glad when he moved to New York.” He put both hands around his coffee mug. “But—”
“We were just so happy when we met you,” Lynette broke in. “We had no idea what to expect, but when we met you . . . We were just so happy,” she repeated. “We thought about saying something. At the wedding. Not a warning . . . but trying to gauge what you knew about the difficulties he had as a boy, but—” Rose watched Lynette’s cheeks fill with color and felt the blood rising to her own face as well.
“You wanted to believe the worst had passed and the best was yet to come,” Rose said. It was not a question. “And you were protecting yourselves from an uncomfortable truth. I can understand that,” Rose finished quietly.
“When Ethan died, we called and e-mailed and when we got no response . . . ,” Lynette’s voice trembled and Rose looked sharply to Anne. “We thought it was best for everyone if we just stayed out of your lives.” Lynette’s voice caught and she stopped speaking.
Anne sat still for a moment. “I was wrong to blame you. At that point in time, all I knew was that I couldn’t trust anybody. I could barely even trust myself. I thought Thea would be safest if I shut you out, everyone out, really.”
“We can certainly understand that, Anne. We could have pushed back, too, but we didn’t because we wanted to respect your wishes. Or that’s what we said to ourselves. But, truthfully, we didn’t because we couldn’t confront the truth about our son.” Tom let out a breath. “So, where do we go from here?”
The air filled with a heavy silence. Rose thought of Diana. From what Anne had told her, Diana and her husband had each chosen to live in an alternate reality to cope with their son’s issues. She pitied the woman; Rose knew that confronting certain realities could feel nearly impossible—hadn’t they all, in one form or another, tried to erase Ethan from the past?
She cleared her throat, breaking the silence. “Would you like to see my garden?”
Lynette’s face broke into a smile. “I would love that, Rose.” She turned to Thea. “Want to come?”
The three of them walked out through the rear door into the backyard. Rose closed the door behind them and saw Anne throw her head back and laugh at something Tom had said.
“Oh, wow, WOW, this is beautiful,” Lynette’s wows were drawn out and laced with a Midwestern accent. “And that smell. Cilantro! My favorite.”
Thea froze beside Rose.
“Thea.” Rose took in her granddaughter’s stricken face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I’ve always loved the smell of cilantro.” Her voice came out in an awestruck whisper. “Ever since I was a baby. My mom even told me that I used to eat it in handfuls.”
Rose watched Lynette put her arm around Thea. She watched her granddaughter’s mouth curve up in a shy smile as Thea’s grandmother said, “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, first, to my parents, Lisa and Charles Waite; my sister, Lynsey Waite; and my grandparents Barbara and Chuck Waite, as well as the rest of my family. The reason the above members get their names spelled out is because I forced them to read the manuscript in its early stages (if you want unbiased feedback, make sure to ask your parents, sister, and grandparents to read your first draft . . . just kidding).
Next, I’d like to thank my brilliant literary agent, Myrsini Stephanides, who read the next draft and told me to change everything, and my amazing editor, Maya Ziv, who read a further draft and told me to change it all again. All jokes aside, these two women helped to make this novel richer, deeper, and better, and I am immensely grateful to them both.
Other astute readers and feedback-givers I’d like to thank: Suzanne Kingsbury and the women of the Ghost Ranch retreat, Ashley Curless, Kayla Stewart, Grace Gray, Joey Unnold, Evynne Morin, Annie Unnold, Sara Searle, Kristin Patti, Whitney Rockwell, and Angela Krakowska.
From the depths of my being, I must thank the women and men who shared with me their personal stories of having a baby in the NICU and/or a child with epilepsy: Marianne and Steve Hauck, Susan Wexler, Erin Crothers, Randi Weiss, and Pamela Mohr. And to Katie Hauck—you are a fierce goddess and I can’t thank you enough. Any and all errors pertaining to Thea’s epilepsy and NICU details are mine alone.
To Sarah Ketchum, who introduced me to Anand Rughani, and to Anand Rughani, a neurosurgeon at Maine Medical Center, who, as a complete and total favor to a near stranger, read my medical scenes and gave me critical feedback and adjustments. Again, any and all errors in these sections are mine alone.
Thank you to Kayla Stewart, my neighbor and friend who is also an ER nurse, for providing general medical advice and answering my frantic texts about how long Thea could be conceivably knocked unconscious without incurring brain damage.
To Bill Keith for spending three hours with me at the Windham Indoor Shooting Range (word to the wise: don’t wear overalls to your first shooting lesson because the casings WILL fly down the front and sear your stomach and thighs before they drop out the hole at your knee) and reading my shooting/gun scenes. Your instruction was invaluable.
Finally, to my daughter, Vivienne Waite, who is four years old at the time of writing these acknowledgments and just told me I’m making too much noise with my typing (another word to the wise: don’t try to make a deadline on a day that daycare is closed). I love you, Vivi; everything is for you (no matter how annoying I am, and I’m sure we’re just getting started on that front).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JEN WAITE lives on the coast of Maine with her young daughter, Vivienne. She is currently working on her third book, a novel.
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