Where I Lost Her

by T. Greenwood

  He comes over for dinner sometimes. The last time he came, he kissed me. It was the first time I’d been kissed by anyone other than Jake since I was twenty-three. I wonder if this is what appealed to Jake, the simple, marvelous wonder of it. Of a life you didn’t expect, of a life that maybe you’d somehow been denied. And so in the moment when our lips met, I forgave Jake.

  After the sun comes up and fills that little bedroom at the back of the house with light, I put on a pair of overalls and tie my hair back. I dip my paintbrush into the creamy light blue paint, press the bristles against the side of the can, and carefully lift the brush, cupping my hand underneath it as I make my way to the window. The stitches came out last week. The scar is raised, red and fresh still. But it is healed, the skin repaired. The doctor says the scar will fade. It was too late for stitches for Star, but because she’s a child, the doctor says the years will render the scar invisible. It will be as though she was never damaged, never harmed. I need to believe this: to trust in the body’s resilience, in the power of time to erase scars.

  I swipe the brush down the side of the window, carefully angling it so as not to accidentally get paint on the woodwork, which I want to remain white. Through the window, I can see the front yard: the lilac bush that will bloom in the spring, and the sugar maple that my landlord promises will fill the yard with a sea of colored leaves for her to jump in. Devin has hung a wooden swing from the tall branches. Zu-Zu and Plum both came over to try it out. I watched them playing on the lawn, and for the first time, the sorrow I usually felt, that bruise-like longing, was gone.

  My girls, I thought.

  When I am done with all of the edges, I pour the paint into the tray and roll the sponge until it is saturated. It goes onto the wall like a dream, and within only an hour, the room is bright and filled with light.

  When the social worker knocks on the door, I am calm, calm.

  “Come in,” I say.

  And she smiles brightly. “What a lovely little home.”

  Acknowledgments

  First, with enormous love and gratitude to Tricia and Scott for opening your big, big hearts and for your trust. This story would not be the same without your story. Thanks to Neal Griffin for your insight and expertise: for making my cops say the right things and my bad guys sound real instead of like some 1920s zoot suit–wearing gangsters. To my early readers—Jillian Cantor and Amy Hatvany for your willingness to read sloppy drafts and offer your sage advice. To my editor, Peter Senftleben, and the rest of the Kensington team who continue to turn my stories into beautiful books. To my agent, Henry Dunow, for your bottomless well of encouragement and support. To my family for being crazy and funny and always the softest place to fall. Lastly, to Patrick, who has been my biggest fan for more than two decades, and to my girls, Mikaela and Esmée, the real Mermaids of Gormlaith.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  Where I Lost Her

  T. Greenwood

  The following discussion questions are included to enhance your group’s reading of Where I Lost Her.

  Discussion Questions

  1. From the moment Tess finds the little girl in the road, people doubt her. Do you? Is she an unreliable narrator? Why or why not?

  2. Discuss how Tess and Jake differ in how they handle the loss of Esperanza.

  3. Why do you think it is so important to Tess that she find the little girl? What do you think would have happened if she wasn’t able to find her?

  4. Effie has been Tess’s best friend since childhood. Discuss the evolution of their friendship. Do you have a friend like Effie?

  5. The Vermont setting is, on the surface, the same pristine and beautiful place Tess has always loved, but underlying this beauty is something more sinister. How is this a metaphor for other areas of Tess’s life? Are there any places that you have loved that have changed in this way?

  6. Discuss the different mothers in this story: Effie, Tess, Karina Rogers.

  7. Tess repeatedly puts herself at risk in her investigation; would you do the same? How would you have reacted if you had come across a child in the middle of the road in the middle of the night? Do you agree with all of the decisions Tess made trying to find the girl?

  8. Tess wonders while searching for the girl, “I don’t know which is worse: thinking that she is alone out here in the woods or that she isn’t.” Which do you think is worse? Why?

  9. The psychic’s advice resonates throughout the whole story. Tess is skeptical at first, but then later seeks her help. Do you believe in psychics?

  10. Effie thinks she has lost Plum in this novel; do you think that this will affect the way she parents her daughters in the future?

  11. This book is about a lot of different losses: the loss of a child, the loss of a marriage, the loss of a dream. Discuss the losses you have experienced. How have they been tempered by the things you’ve recovered or found?

  12. How do you think Tess’s experiences with adoption and Esperanza affected her reaction regarding the little girl? Do you think she would have been so tireless if she hadn’t gone through that ordeal?

  13. Discuss the police response to Tess’s claims. Do you think they gave up too easily, or that they already put in more effort than they should have?

  14. Reread the portion of Yeats’s “Stolen Child” at the beginning of Where I Lost Her and talk about how it relates to the story and themes of the novel.

  15. Did you notice that the fairy Tess tells Plum and Zu-Zu lives in the forest is also named Star? Talk about the similarities between the little girl and the fairytale Tess created.

  16. At one point, Tess argues that she’s not the one who fell in love with someone else, and Jake counters that she did. Do you think she’s just as much to blame for their marriage problems as he is? Do you think she cheated on him, in a way? Or do you feel that Jake’s infidelity is the cause of their ultimate split? Discuss the devolution of their marriage and how it pertains to Tess’s search for the girl.

  Have you read all of T. Greenwood’s critically acclaimed novels?

  Available in trade paperback and as e-books.

  THE FOREVER BRIDGE

  With eloquent prose and lush imagery, T. Greenwood creates a heartfelt story of reconciliation and forgiveness, and of the deep, often unexpected connections that can bring you home.

  Sylvie can hardly bear to remember how normal her family was two years ago. All of that changed on the night an oncoming vehicle forced their car over the edge of a covered bridge into the river. With horrible swiftness, Sylvie’s young son was gone, her husband lost his legs, and she was left with shattering blame and grief.

  Eleven-year-old Ruby misses her little brother too. But she also misses the mother who has become a recluse in their old home while Ruby and her dad try to piece themselves back together. Amid all the uncertainty in her life, Ruby becomes obsessed with bridges, drawing inspiration from the strength and purpose that underlies their grace. During one momentous week, as Hurricane Irene bears down on their small Vermont town and a pregnant teenager with a devastating secret gradually draws Sylvie back into the world, Ruby and her mother will have a chance to span the gap between them again.

  BODIES OF WATER

  In 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape—from her husband’s demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.

  Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The affair that follows offers a solace Billie has never known, until her secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.

  Fifty years later, Ted and Eva’s son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to
return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers.

  In this deeply tender novel, T. Greenwood weaves deftly between the past and present to create a poignant and wonderfully moving story of friendship, the resonance of memories, and the love that keeps us afloat.

  BREATHING WATER

  Three years after leaving Lake Gormlaith, Vermont, Effie Greer is coming home. The unspoiled lake, surrounded by dense woods and patches of wild blueberries, is the place where she spent idyllic childhood summers at her grandparents’ cottage. And it’s where Effie’s tempestuous relationship with her college boyfriend, Max, culminated in a tragedy she can never forget.

  Effie had hoped to save Max from his troubled past, and in the process became his victim. Since then, she’s wandered from one city to another, living like a fugitive. But now Max is gone, and as Effie paints and restores the ramshackle cottage, she forms new bonds—with an old school friend, with her widowed grandmother, and with Devin, an artist and carpenter summering nearby. Slowly, she’s discovering a resilience and tenderness she didn’t know she possessed, and—buoyed by the lake’s cool, forgiving waters—she may even learn to save herself.

  Wrenching yet ultimately uplifting, here is a novel of survival, hope, and absolution, from a writer of extraordinary insight and depth.

  GRACE

  T. Greenwood’s extraordinary novels deftly combine lyrical prose with heartrending subject matter. Now she explores one year in a family poised to implode, and the imperfect love that may be its only salvation.

  Every family photograph hides a story. Some are suffused with warmth and joy, others reflect the dull ache of disappointed dreams. For thirteen-year-old Trevor Kennedy, taking photos helps make sense of his fractured world. His father, Kurt, struggles to keep a business going while also caring for Trevor’s aging grandfather, whose hoarding has reached dangerous levels. Trevor’s mother, Elsbeth, all but ignores her son while doting on his five-year-old sister, Gracy, and pilfering useless drugstore items.

  Trevor knows he can count on little Gracy’s unconditional love and his art teacher’s encouragement. None of that compensates for the bullying he has endured at school for as long as he can remember. But where Trevor once silently tolerated the jabs and name-calling, now anger surges through him in ways he’s powerless to control.

  Only Crystal, a store clerk dealing with her own loss, sees the deep fissures in the Kennedy family—in the haunting photographs Trevor brings to be developed, and in the palpable distance between Elsbeth and her son. And as their lives become more intertwined, each will be pushed to the breaking point, with shattering, unforeseeable consequences.

  NEARER THAN THE SKY

  In this mesmerizing novel, T. Greenwood draws readers into the

  fascinating and frightening world of Munchausen syndrome by

  proxy—and into one woman’s search for healing.

  When Indie Brown was four years old, she was struck by lightning. In the oft-told version of the story, Indie’s life was heroically saved by her mother. But Indie’s own recollection of the event, while hazy, is very different.

  Most of Indie’s childhood memories are like this—tinged with vague, unsettling images and suspicions. Her mother, Judy, fussed over her pretty youngest daughter, Lily, as much as she ignored Indie. That neglect, coupled with the death of her beloved older brother, is the reason Indie now lives far away in rural Maine. It’s why her relationship with Lily is filled with tension, and why she dreads the thought of flying back to Arizona. But she has no choice. Judy is gravely ill, and Lily, struggling with a challenge of her own, needs her help.

  In Arizona, faced with Lily’s hysteria and their mother’s instability, Indie slowly begins to confront the truth about her half-remembered past and the legacy that still haunts her family. And as she revisits her childhood, with its nightmares and lost innocence, she finds she must reevaluate the choices of her adulthood—including her most precious relationships.

  THIS GLITTERING WORLD

  Acclaimed author T. Greenwood crafts a moving, lyrical story

  of loss, atonement, and promises kept.

  One November morning, Ben Bailey walks out of his Flagstaff, Arizona, home to retrieve the paper. Instead, he finds Ricky Begay, a young Navajo man, beaten and dying in the newly fallen snow.

  Unable to forget the incident, especially once he meets Ricky’s sister, Shadi, Ben begins to question everything, from his job as a part-time history professor to his fiancée, Sara. When Ben first met Sara, he was mesmerized by her optimism and easy confidence. These days, their relationship only reinforces a loneliness that stretches back to his fractured childhood.

  Ben decides to discover the truth about Ricky’s death, both for Shadi’s sake and in hopes of filling in the cracks in his own life. Yet the answers leave him torn—between responsibility and happiness, between his once-certain future and the choices that could liberate him from a delicate web of lies he has spun.

  UNDRESSING THE MOON

  Dark and compassionate, graceful yet raw, Undressing the Moon

  explores the seams between childhood and adulthood,

  between love and loss....

  At thirty, Piper Kincaid feels too young to be dying. Cancer has eaten away her strength; she’d be alone but for a childhood friend who’s come home by chance. Yet with all the questions of her future before her, she’s adrift in the past, remembering the fateful summer she turned fourteen and her life changed forever.

  Her nervous father’s job search seemed stalled for good as he hung around the house watching her mother’s every move. What he and Piper had both dreaded at last came to pass: Her restless, artistic mother, who smelled of lilacs and showed Piper beauty, finally left.

  With no one to rely on, Piper struggled to hold on to what was important. She had a brother who loved her and a teacher enthralled with her potential. But her mother’s absence, her father’s distance, and a volatile secret threatened her delicate balance.

  Now Piper is once again left with the jagged pieces of a shattered life. If she is ever going to put herself back together, she’ll have to begin with the summer that broke them all....

  THE HUNGRY SEASON

  It’s been five years since the Mason family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where prizewinning novelist Samuel Mason grew up. The summers that Sam, his wife, Mena, and their twins, Franny and Finn, spent at Lake Gormlaith were noisy, chaotic, and nearly perfect. But since Franny’s death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. Lake Gormlaith is Sam’s last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what’s left of his family.

  As Sam struggles with grief, writer’s block, and a looming deadline, Mena tries to repair the marital bond she once thought was unbreakable. But even in this secluded place, the unexpected—in the form of an overzealous fan, a surprising friendship, and a second chance—can change everything.

  From the acclaimed author of Two Rivers comes a compelling and beautifully told story of hope, family, and above all, hunger—for food, sex, love, and success—and for a way back to wholeness when a part of oneself has been lost forever.

  TWO RIVERS

  Two Rivers is a powerful, haunting tale of enduring love, destructive

  secrets, and opportunities that arrive in disguise . . .

  In Two Rivers, Vermont, Harper Montgomery is living a life overshadowed by grief and guilt. Since the death of his wife, Betsy, twelve years earlier, Harper has narrowed his world to working at the local railroad and raising his daughter, Shelly, the best way he knows how. Still wracked with sorrow over the loss of his lifelong love and plagued by his role in a brutal, long-ago crime, he wants only to make amends for his past mistakes.

  Then one fall day, a train derails in Two Rivers, and amid the wreckage Harper finds an unexpected chance at atonement. One of the
survivors, a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl with mismatched eyes and skin the color of blackberries, needs a place to stay. Though filled with misgivings, Harper offers to take Maggie in. But it isn’t long before he begins to suspect that Maggie’s appearance in Two Rivers is not the simple case of happenstance it first appeared to be.

  All names, characters, events, and places in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, incidents, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2016 by T. Greenwood

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9056-4

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-9056-X

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: March 2016

  ISBN: 978-0-7582-9055-7