“I’ll get more,” Rafferty says. “Whatever it takes, we’ll do it. We’ll bring this baby into the world, into this team, in a way that makes him feel welcome.”
Miaow says, “Or her.”
“So starting now,” he says, “you want me to sleep out there so you can’t hear me snore, or you want me in here?”
“You do snore,” she says. “In here. But sometime we’re going to have to talk about this. About that I never told you I had other men’s children inside—”
“We will,” he says. He finds himself sniffling, and for the first time in a little while he smells himself. He reeks. “When we’ve talked about everything that really matters. When Miaow is grown up and gone, and we’re old and looking at each other and wondering where all the time went and trying to find a subject we’re not both sick of, we’ll talk about this, okay?”
“That’s a deal,” she says. “I want a hug.”
He opens his arms, just showing her all of it, all the sodden, filthy mess. “You’re joking.”
“No. We can buy new blankets. Come here and hug me.”
He sits on the edge of the bed and puts an arm gingerly around her shoulders. She makes a choking sound, but when he looks at her, he sees that she’s laughing.
“Miaow?” he says. “You want to get in on this?”
“It’s okay,” Miaow says in the center of the doorway. “I’ll hug you from here.”
Afterword
This story really began with Lutanh, and for her I have to thank a very good friend, Bangkok resident Jerry Hopkins, rock journalist extraordinaire and author of thirty-six books, including worldwide bestselling biographies of Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison. Jerry made it possible for me to meet the person who inspired the character, and I don’t know what the book would have been without her.
Not that this is literally her story. She and I talked three times, about ninety minutes at a time, in the bar where she worked, while I bought drinks for both of us and then tipped her for her time. She told me about her own childhood in Laos, and every night, other girls in the bar were drawn to the discussion and chimed in with pieces of their own stories, some of which got cemented into the mosaic that is Lutanh in the book. And much of it I simply made up as I went along. It’s not meant as an anthropological study and I make no claims for its factual or sociological accuracy.
I had a vague idea when I started writing Fools’ River that it might be fun to bring together three or four simultaneous stories and see whether I could tell them all in a very compressed span of time, perhaps forty-eight hours. I’d never done anything quite like that before, and I wasn’t at all sure I could. As it turned out, things happened even more quickly than I’d anticipated, and it wound up being closer to thirty-six hours. There were times when I literally felt like I should be holding on to my hat.
Much of that energy came from good music. There was lots of it this time around, including repeated listens to The Gin Blossoms, an upbeat band from the 1990s with a very downbeat history. Energy was also supplied by Tegan and Sarah, Rihanna, Alabama Shakes, the Allman Brothers, the immortal Little Feat, Chris Stapleton, Lyle Lovett, Ryan Adams, Paul Simon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Monsieur Perine (thanks, Peter!), The Fratellis, the Hamilton cast album, Pixies, Beth Hart, and many, many others.
Several people made substantial contributions to the book at various stages. Among them (in chronological order) are Dr. William Ledger, the Given Foundation Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornel Medical College, for help with Rose’s troubled pregnancy (all mistakes are obviously mine); beta reader of the gods Everett Kaser; editor par excellence Juliet Grames; copy editor to the stars Maureen Sugden; the ever-patient and all-knowing Rachel Kowal, who sees these doodles into actual book form; and publisher extraordinaire Bronwen Hruska. I’m blessed to work with everyone on the team Bronwen has assembled at Soho. This is my tenth Soho book, and I know just how fortunate I am.
And I also need to thank the real-life Fran Dependahl, who made a generous donation to a youth literacy organization to have a character named after her, Except for her remarkable self-possession, the actual Fran Dependahl is nothing like the character who bears her name.
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