And no, you didn’t drive me to this by acting like I was holding you back. I never felt any kind of resentment from you, any hint that you felt ripped off, choosing the one woman in all of McGill, maybe, with a time bomb inside her DNA strand. Quite the opposite—I have felt, for the past four years, that you were willing and able and even cheerful about the thought of caring for me as this progressed. That you would have been more honored than bothered to brush my hair for me, to blend my food and feed it to me from a spoon, to wipe my chin after every bite.
On the subject of getting my own way (you knew this was coming when you found my letter, didn’t you?): I want you to date. I know you’re shaking your head right now. Stop. Listen to me: I mean it. I want you to meet someone wonderful and I want you to fall in love.
If it helps, don’t think you’re doing it for yourself. Do it for me. I am torn apart by guilt at leaving you this way, for you being the one who has to face it, to break it to the others. Knowing you will one day be in love again, with someone strong and healthy and vibrant who can travel with you, run with you, be a real partner to you for the rest of your life, absolves me of some small fraction of my immeasurable guilt. Please, please let me have that absolution.
But most of all, do it for our daughter. She’s too young now to realize how wonderful a husband and partner her father was. She needs to see you in that role again, when she’s old enough to observe and absorb it. She needs to witness how romantic and loving and thoughtful you are. How you remember anniversaries and Valentine’s Day and birthdays. How you bring home flowers for no reason. How generous you are with kisses and compliments.
How else will she know what to hold out for?
What else can I say to you, my love, my heart, my best friend, my lover, my husband, my everything?
Only that I am so profoundly sorry to have left you without warning or the kind of goodbye I longed to give. Please understand I had to. I could never have risked letting you suspect my plan, and having you prevent it, which we both know with certainty you’d have done.
And thank you.
Thank you for your patience and forgiveness over the last several trying years.
Thank you for being my rock.
Thank you for holding me on the nights I howled in rage at being sentenced to such a terrible and premature ending.
Thank you for telling me every day that you loved me more than ever, that this thing hadn’t gotten between us, that you weren’t sorry you had chosen me. That you would stay with me forever, and that it was because you wanted to, not because you felt you should. I believe you, Tom. I know you would have stayed with me. I always knew you would have.
I never thought you should have to.
And thank you for taking my breath away in the foyer of Morrice Hall, all those years ago.
And every day since.
Your Mara
Acknowledgments
My profound gratitude to Amy Einhorn for her brilliant editorial insights, for helping to create a new literary drinking game and for letting me sneak in a reference to a certain UK boy band in honor of my three favorite teenage girls. Thanks also to Elizabeth Stein, Anna Jardine and the rest of the team at Amy Einhorn Books, and to Thomas Dussel of Penguin Group USA.
Thank you to my agent, Victoria Sanders, who took a chance on a new writer and whose magical agenting powers resulted in the most exciting vacation my husband and I have ever had. Thanks also to Bernadette Baker-Baughman for answering my many newbie questions, to Chris Kepner and to everyone else at Victoria Sanders Associates. Also, thank you to Eric Rayman.
It was vitally important to me to portray Huntington’s disease (HD) accurately. I am more thankful than I can adequately express to the experts who so generously took the time to educate me about the condition, especially Bonnie L. Hennig, MSW, LCSW, QCSW, DCSW, who spent hours explaining the medical, emotional and social aspects of HD, and Kelvin Chou, M.D., who listened to me run through every plot point in Mara’s story and advised whether each was medically accurate and, if not, how to make it so. In addition, Barb Heiman, LISW, and Elynore Cucinell, M.D., provided their significant expertise and experience. Any inaccuracies are mine alone.
I am lucky to have smart and helpful friends. Kate Baker, Jeanne Estridge, Jana Timmer Bastian, Terri Eagen-Torkko, Meghan Eagen-Torkko, Mary Beth Bishop, Jennifer Bondurant, Julia Kailing Cooper, Sarah Roach Plum, Ruth Slavin, Anna Cox and Sonja Yoerg read and commented on early drafts, as did Kate Kennedy. The amazing Benee Knauer helped massage a manuscript with potential into something much better. Rina Sahay, Elisha Fink, Lori Nelson Spielman, Linda VanAcker, Pamela Landau and Meghan Eagen-Torkko provided expertise in a variety of areas, from Indian culture, Michigan criminal law and school district policy to the social environment in Detroit and the emotional challenges related to adoption and infertility. Nicole Ross, The Cool Kids, Glenn Katon, The Monday Night Ladies, Nick Kocz, Mike Coffman, Patrick Cauley, Charley Hegarty, Mary Bisbee-Beek and Adam Pelzman offered moral and other support at various times along the way. Thank you, all of you.
My children, Samantha, Jack, Libby and Maddie, have been loud and enthusiastic cheerleaders, and never once complained about hearing, “Just let me finish this chapter,” as an answer to almost every question they asked me for twenty-four straight months. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Finally, I am so grateful to my husband, Dan, who took on all the work of running our hectic household for two years while I hid in a corner, hunched over my laptop. He served as my first-line editorial adviser, too, and has been labeled The Plot Doctor by my writing friends because of his uncanny ability to solve the thorniest plot and character issues. His “reward” for this talent was constant interruption—from reading, working, watching Michigan sports and even sleeping—by my repeated refrain, “Can I ask you one more question about the book?” Always, his answer was, “Sure.”
About the Author
Julie Lawson Timmer grew up in Stratford, Ontario, and earned a bachelor’s degree from McMaster University before heading south of the border. She has a law degree from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law and works as in-house legal counsel for an automotive supplier in Michigan. She lives in Ann Arbor with her husband, Dan, their four children and two badly behaved Labs. This is her first novel.
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