“I’m sure that’s the case,” said Wendy. To Jake’s ears she seemed to be straining for optimism. “And anyway, there’s about to be a brand-new book by Jacob Finch Bonner. What’s this dickwad going to do then? Accuse Jake of stealing every book he writes? The best thing for all of this nonsense is to get the new novel into production as soon as possible.”

Everyone agreed with that, and no one more so than Jake, who hadn’t been able to write a word since what he had privately thought of as the regret-to-inform message had materialized online. But after he got off the phone he pulled himself together. These people were in his corner. Even if they’d known Crib’s comprehensive origin story, they’d probably still be in his corner! After all, people who worked with writers were fully aware of the myriad and frequently bizarre ways in which a work of fiction can take root in an author’s imagination: fragments of overheard conversations, repurposed bits of mythology, Craigslist confessions, rumors at the high school reunion. Maybe the punters out there believed novels followed a visit from the muse—perhaps these same people thought babies followed a visit from the stork—but so what? Writers, editors, people who thought about it for more than a nanosecond understood how books truly begin, and at the end of the day, those were the only people he really cared about. Basta! It was time to turn down the noise and get to the end of his own draft.

And this, somewhat to his own astonishment, he actually managed to do.

Less than a month later he hit Send on a good first draft of his new novel.

A week after that, with requests for only minor revisions, Wendy formally accepted it.

The new book concerned a prosecutor who had once, at a vulnerable moment early in his career, accepted a bribe to sabotage one of his own cases, a seemingly insignificant matter involving a traffic stop and an open glass of rosé being enjoyed in the back seat. That small decision, however, returns to assail the character in his later success and complacency, and brings unanticipated harm to himself and his family. The novel lacked the thunderbolt of Crib’s plot twist, but it did have a number of course corrections that had kept Wendy and her team at Macmillan guessing, and while Jake knew this work could not bring a repeat of the phenomenon Crib had been (it was telling that no one from Wendy on down suggested it would), the book still looked like a viable follow-up. Wendy was happy with it. Matilda was happy with Wendy’s happiness. Both of them were happy with Jake.

Jake was not happy with himself, obviously, but this had been true of his life, always, not just during the long years of professional failure but during the past two years of dizzying success, in which he had merely traded one form of dread and self-castigation for another. Each morning he woke to Anna’s warm and tactile presence, and then, almost instantly, to that other presence: spectral and unwelcome, reminding him that today there might be a new message, entirely capable of destroying everything in his world. Then, all through the hours that followed, he waited for the terrible thing to happen, the one that would force him to explain himself to Anna, to Matilda, to Wendy, to sit in the James Frey–designated spot on Oprah Winfrey’s couch, to “hold for Steven Spielberg, please,” to rescind his Writers’ Advisory Board position at PEN, to hang his head while he walked down the street, desperate not to be recognized. Each night he sank into the exhaustion of subterfuge: another day’s lies coiling around him, pulling him into sleeplessness.

“I wonder,” Anna said to him, one night in May, “if you’re, you know, all right.”

“What? Of course I am.”

It was a worrying note to be striking on that particular evening, the designated observation of the six-month anniversary of Anna’s arrival in New York. They were back at the Brazilian restaurant he’d taken her to that first night, and had just been brought their caipirinhas.

“Well, you’re preoccupied, obviously. I have this feeling, when I get home at night, that you’re making an effort.”

“Making an effort isn’t a bad thing, necessarily,” Jake said. He was going for a light tone.

“I mean, to be happy to see me.”

He felt a small surge of alarm.

“Oh. But that’s wrong. I’m always happy to see you. Just, you know, in the weeds a bit. Wendy asked for some revisions, I think I told you.” This was not untrue, of course, but the revisions were minor, and wouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks.

“Maybe I can help.”

He looked at her. She seemed serious.

“I walk a lonely road,” he said, still trying to make a joke of this. “I mean, not just me. All of us writers.”

“If all of you writers are walking the same lonely road it can’t be all that lonely.”

Now it was impossible not to hear the rebuke. Anna had never been that person, banging on the door, demanding access to his thoughts and worries. From the moment they’d met, in fact, she had quietly offered so many of the things he’d already known were missing—companionship, affection, a better class of furniture and a much improved diet—without ever once asking him that fatal and soul-crushing question: “What are you thinking?” Now, however, even Anna seemed to be reaching the limits of her goodwill.

Or perhaps, at long last, she had entered his name into a search engine during some idle moment at work or gone out for a post-yoga coffee with some acquaintance who’d said: Hey, don’t you live with Jacob Finch Bonner? What a drag, what they’re doing to him.

So far, it still hadn’t happened, but—when it finally happened—because it had to happen at some point—would she accept some version of Matilda’s reassurances (Yep, that’s me: accused plagiarist! Guess I’ve really made it now.) or some pained excuse about sparing her the trauma of it?

He was thinking: no, she would not. And then she would truly see who he was, not just a person who’d been accused of an awful thing, but a person who had hidden the accusation from her. For the entire length of their relationship. And that would be that: off she would go, this loving and beautiful woman, back to the farthest end of the continent from where he was, and she would stay there.

So he’d continued to not tell her, and to justify not telling her:

How could she possibly understand? It wasn’t as if she was a writer.

“You’re right,” Jake told her now. “I should try not to be so much of an artiste. Just, right now, I’m feeling a little bit—”

“Yes. You said. In the weeds.”

“It means—”

“I know what it means.”

The waiter arrived, bringing Jake’s fraldinha and Anna’s mussels. When he departed, she said, “My point is, whatever’s making you feel so in the weeds, would you consider sharing it with me?”

Jake frowned. The answer, of course, was: No fucking way. But there were several excellent reasons not to say this.

He lifted his glass. He was hoping to get back onto a more anniversarial track. “I’d like to thank you.”

“For what?” she asked, a little suspiciously.

“You know. For dropping everything and moving to New York. For being so brave.”

“Well,” she said, “I had a pretty good feeling, from the start.”

“Checking me out at Seattle Arts and Lectures,” he teased. “Deviously arranging for me to come to your radio station.”

“Do you wish I hadn’t?”

“No! I just can’t get over the idea that I warranted so much effort.”

“Well,” Anna smiled, “you did. What’s more, you do. Even if you’re walking a lonely road.”

“I know I can be a bit of a downer sometimes.”

“This is not about you being a downer. It’s about you being down. I can take care of my own moods. But I’ve been a little worried about yours.”

For a very uncomfortable moment, he wondered if he was about to cry. As usual, she saved him.

“Honey, it’s not my intention to pry. It’s clear to me that something’s wrong. All I’m saying is, can I help? Or if I can’t help, can I at least share?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” said Jake, and he picked up his fork and knife, as if this proved his point. “It’s so sweet of you to be concerned. But really, my life is great.”

Anna shook her head. She wasn’t even pretending to want to eat. “Your life should be great. You’re healthy. You have a nice family. You’re secure, financially. And look, you’re successful at the only thing you ever wanted to do! Think of the writers who haven’t accomplished what you’ve accomplished.”

He did. He thought about them all the time, and not in a good way.

“What’s the point of all of this, if you’re not happy?” she asked.

“But I am,” he insisted.

She shook her head. He had a sudden, terrible thought that she was saying something important here. Something along the lines of: I came all this way for someone I thought was a vital, creative, appreciative person, only to find this morose creature undercutting his own happiness at every turn. So I’m going back where I came from. His heart was pounding. What if she really was going back? Here they were together, and he was a fool, failing to appreciate what he so obviously had: success, health, Anna.

“I mean, I’m sorry if it seems I don’t appreciate … all of the wonderful things.”

“And people.”

“Yes.” He nodded fervently. “Because I’d hate to …”