by Sonya Chung
Twenty years.
Vacation, not exactly. He’d written to her, and she’d said yes. Dear Charles: Yes, I will meet you there. She had not been back to the ocean in all these years.
Charles stepped forward, from warm dry sand into cool wet sea. His feet sank down as the current pulled and the tide ebbed. He scanned again, squinted. Where was she, where was she. He waited. Waited.
There she is.
Acknowledgments
Throughout the course of this novel’s making, many gifted and very busy people said Yes, without hesitation, when they could just as easily have said no. I am deeply grateful to:
Tricia Khleif, Gillian Linden, Erin Ehsani, Lisa Peet, Alice Quinn, Amy Williams, Sharon Denson, and the late James Salter, for providing invaluable feedback on drafts at various stages, along with much-needed encouragement.
My agent, Emma Patterson—pillar of calm, empathy, and positivity; tough and firm in all the right ways.
Dallas Hudgens and the Relegation Books team: Lauren Cerand, Steven Bauer, Jules Hucke, Zach Dodson, Nikki Hall, Mark McCoy, and Jeff Waxman. Thank you for believing in this book; for your passion, patience, and focus throughout the process, and for so palpably investing your talents and resources in me.
Robin Holland, for your friendship, and for the generosity with which you’ve shared your amazing ability to see and render beauty.
Ted Hughes for imparting knowledge about camptowns in Korea, and Saretta Morgan for talking me through the basics of military procedures and culture.
My colleagues at Skidmore College for your thoughtful support of many kinds.
The MacDowell Colony for the crucial month that launched me into this book, and Alison Gazarek and Eric Dieffenbach for making DIY residencies possible when I most needed them.
Bob Gray and Martha Wiseman for strategy sessions wrapped in beautiful meals and much kindness.
My mother, Wooza Chung, for family stories that feed my imagination, and for modeling a true survivor’s spirit—ever expanding and evolving.
Paloma Woo and Esther Woo for showing me anew what family is and can be.
In addition, thanks to Max Magee and the gang at The Millions for taking me in and keeping me on through all these years. Ilsa Brink and Jane Hong for working with me to create and launch my new online home. Thanks to Kim Church, Caitlin Hamilton Summie, Shannon Cain, Deanna Fei, Bridgett M. Davis, Nayomi Munaweera, Sanaë Lemoine; and to the Bloom community for the privilege of learning from your wisdom.
There are too many people to thank for helping me sustain the creative life, always seemingly on the brink of extinction in one way or another: these are my bien-aimés, kin and non-kin, whom I thank for your companionship as we all kick down (in times of weariness, kick at) the walls of the damn box we didn’t create or choose.
Thank you, finally, to John C. Woo, partner and love, who inspires and aggravates and nourishes and hassles me like no one else; and who thus reminds me every day what really matters, and what really doesn’t. The adventure continues: what’s next?
Sonya Chung is the author of the novel Long for This World. She was born in Washington, DC, and graduated from Columbia University and the University of Washington. Currently she lives in New York City and teaches fiction writing at Skidmore College.