Valerie found a farmhouse for rent in central Virginia and moved into it in August of last year, entrusting Ellen and a Realtor with the sale of her house. She was in that farmhouse on the wooden front porch the day the couple moved into her Oak Knoll house, and she was out walking a winding country road with Chris on the day the tree service arrived to dismantle the great old oak.
Come December she had bought the house and nineteen acres of land, a lot of it pasture. Over the winter, she read and she wrote and she put logs on a fire and she drank bourbon and she adopted a dog, a mixed breed with strong Catahoula leopard features. She named the dog Grace.
On a raw late February day, Valerie walked down the long gravel drive to her mailbox. The heavy sky spit snow and light icy rain. She opened the box and found just one envelope, from Wilson Everly, Esquire.
I am honoring my promise to act on your behalf and leave you be until I hear from you—save for this note, which I undertake in order to inform you that we’ve made a deposit to the account whose information you provided when we filed suit. The case concluded last month, with KDC and Whitman agreeing to pay a total of $335,000 plus your fees and expenses.
I hope time has laid its consoling hands upon you. You are in our prayers.
With Grace at her feet, Valerie laid out big white sheets of craft paper and drew a map of the pasture over which the house looked, a wide, long, descending field of grasses that had gone from green to gold and now to brown but would be green again. Here in this pasture she would plant one oak tree for each year of Xavier’s life.
And now spring has arrived, and with it, a team of UVA students who have volunteered to dig and plant. On this brisk sunny morning comes the truck with the trees themselves, tall and straight and ready, the way Xavier had been.
ALSO BY THERESE ANNE FOWLER
A Well-Behaved Woman
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THERESE ANNE FOWLER is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and A Well-Behaved Woman. Raised in the Midwest, she moved to North Carolina in 1995. She holds a BA in sociology/cultural anthropology and an MFA in creative writing from North Carolina State University. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
PART I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
PART II
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
PART III
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Also by Therese Anne Fowler
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD. Copyright © 2020 by Therese Anne Fowler. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Olga Grlic
Cover photograph © Westend61 / Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-23727-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-27053-5 (international, sold outside the U.S., subject to rights availability)
ISBN 978-1-250-23728-6 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250237286
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: February 2020
A Good Neighborhood Page 29