We Are Gathered
Page 25
“Thank you for coming to get me. We can go now.”
“You can go,” I said. “If you want to. Shh.” I smoothed her hair. “Go.” The cake now had a giant gash in its side. It hadn’t saved her. Cinderella’s shoe was still lying there. There didn’t seem to be a prince coming back for it. Maybe I was the prince. You don’t really know who you are until the end of the story. I picked up the shoe, tried to put it on her foot, but her feet were massively swollen. It would never fit. I crossed her arms over her abdomen and tucked the shoe in her hands. “You go find the prince,” I said. “I think I have to stay here for a while longer.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to agent extraordinaire Rayhané Sanders, who believed in this book before anyone else, to my wise editor, Lauren Wein, who saw the humor and the sorrow in these stories, and to David Hough for his careful and incisive copyediting, as well as all the staff at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who valiantly kept me on task. I am eternally grateful to my parents, Evan and Nancy Weisman, who taught me a love of literature and bought me endless books and paid library fines when I was growing up. Thank you to Tiffany Lorente for reminding that I am a writer and to Marie Edwards for running my practice so well that I can find time to work. Jonathan Weisman and Jennifer Steinhauer helped fine-tune Carla and Steven. My daughters, Shira and Isabelle Balaban, inspire me to greater compassion and bigger dreams. To the moon and back, my darlings. Finally, this book, like everything I write, is a collaborative effort with my husband, Victor Balaban, my Maxwell Perkins. Till China and Africa meet, mi amor.
About the Author
Jamie Weisman is the author of the memoir As I Live and Breathe: Notes of a Patient-Doctor. She runs her own dermatology practice just outside Atlanta, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and their dogs.
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