A Good Neighborhood

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A Good Neighborhood Page 29

by Therese Anne Fowler


  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

 

 

 


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