The Year of the Gadfly

by Jennifer Miller

  I was traveling on the B Line toward Boston College. In the month I’d been here, I’d been terrified that a Globe assignment or personal mission would send me back to Beacon Hill and, worse, to Dalia’s old street. I’d fled death like everyone else: Dalia’s parents, who’d sold their house in the weeks after her funeral; my parents, who’d whisked me off to the mountains; and Lily, who’d vanished from Nye after Justin’s accident. Of course, these migrations accomplished very little; when you left dead people behind, their ghosts simply packed up and followed you out the door.

  The car emptied considerably when it surfaced to street level, and I watched the streets slide by: the monochromatic apartment buildings, rows of parked cars, and occasionally a train moving in the opposite direction. We entered the suburbs, and gray brick gave way to leafy green, thick foliage that presented the illusion of wilderness. Almost exactly a year before, my mother and I had left Boston for Nye, our new home on the nameless mountain. I’d been so many things then that I wasn’t now: frightened, overconfident, dependent, grief-stricken. Well, maybe the grief was still lurking inside of me, but I felt differently about it now. Grief never really goes away. It becomes part of you, takes up permanent residence inside your heart. This doesn’t mean you can’t ever be happy again. It just means the space allotted for feeling happy is smaller. Isn’t that right, Murrow? I thought, now more out of habit than conversation. Before coming to Boston for the summer, I’d taken his picture down from Lily’s wall and stowed it away. Its presence had begun to embarrass me, a constant reminder of Hazel’s conviction that a person alone was a person unseen. But Hazel was wrong. To be visible, I didn’t need her, or Mr. Kaplan, or Edward Murrow, or even Dalia.

  My train reached the end of the line and I climbed down, still holding tightly to Marvelous Species. I didn’t want to give it up, but it wasn’t mine to keep. Less than a week before, my parents informed me that Lily and her husband were back from Africa, and that she’d be teaching public health at Boston College in the fall. They suggested it would be “fun” for me to meet the woman whose room I’d been inhabiting, though I suspect they were really looking for an adult in the area to check up on me. They gave me her email, courtesy of Elliott Morgan. I had an awful time composing the message. I felt oddly compelled to present myself as witty and sophisticated, but every draft read like bad high school poetry, which is to say like high school poetry. After an hour of revising, I deleted the pretentious copy and simply told Lily that I would very much like to meet her—and that I had something of hers that I thought she’d want in her new home.

  Her response was prompt, if terse. You’re welcome to visit. I’ll be home this Sunday. So now here I was, walking down Lily’s street, approaching her front door. I pressed the doorbell and swallowed hard, my fingers trembling around the spine of Marvelous Species. I thought I’d extracted myself from Lily’s world, but now, on the verge of meeting her face to face, I realized that Lily—and her complicated past—was also embedded in me. Once she opened that door, we’d become even more closely entwined.

  I heard footsteps and the door before me seemed to shiver, like it, too, was waiting, expectant.

  I hoped that returning Marvelous Species would be more than a painful reminder to Lily of what she’d lost and left behind, so perfectly preserved, in Nye. I hoped it would allow me to share the events of this year and Lily’s inadvertent role in them. One day, I hoped she’d be open to hearing Mr. Kaplan’s side of the story. But not today. Mr. Kaplan was halfway across the world and silent. So I would have to speak up instead. I would report the truths that he could not, tell the facts as I knew them. The story that I clutched to myself, more tightly than the book in my hands, was ugly and strange. But it was also marvelous. It was mine.

  Acknowledgments

  I am indebted to my incredible agent, Mollie Glick, who gave me the confidence to pursue fiction seriously and who pushed me to write the best second and third drafts of this novel that I possibly could write. I am also in awe of my equally talented editor, Jenna Johnson, whose energy and commitment toward this book have been unfailing. Mollie and Jenna, you are amazing ladies.

  Thanks to the team at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, especially Summer Smith and Hannah Harlow, for getting so firmly behind Gadfly. Katya Rice, you are a copyeditor extraordinare. Thank you to my colleagues at the School of the Arts for bringing so much thoughtfulness to our workshops and to my friends and professors at the J-School, without whom there would be no Iris. I owe great thanks to The Outer Reaches of Life by John Postgate, Murrow: His Life and Times by A. M. Sperber, and Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism by Bob Edwards. Politics and Prose Bookstore, thank you for existing.

  Risa Berkower and Marian Makins, your endless support and brainstorming sessions proved invaluable. Emily Day and Laura Jean Moore, I can’t thank you enough for your constant motivation. David Goldberg, Megan Palmer, Dan Sharfman, Jon Cooper, and Jen Last, your memories and insights helped bring Justin Kaplan to life. Danny Miller, if you hadn’t been such a bad-ass in high school, this book would not have existed. Rich Cooper and Judy Areen, I am grateful to have you in my life. This book is especially a tribute to you.

  Of course, I am indebted to my parents for their unquestioning love and support. You stood by me even though I treated this manuscript like a classified government document.

  And, finally, to Jason, my husband, who never suspected that he’d be applying his editing talents to fiction. Working on this book together has been amazing. I am so lucky to have you as my co-scribbler.