“It’s been very interesting. I’ve learned so much about writers. You’re a strange kind of beast, aren’t you, with your petty feuds and your fifty shades of narcissism? You act like words don’t belong to everyone. You act like stories don’t have real people attached to them. It’s hurtful, Jake.” She sighed. “But I guess I’ll have a long time to get over it.”

She got to her feet.

“Now, just so you know, I’m going to text you when I get to LaGuardia to tell you how much I love you. And I’m going to text you again when I land in the morning, to say I’ve arrived safely. I’m going to send you pictures of the storage unit I’ll be cleaning out tomorrow, and maybe a few from when I meet up with my friends tomorrow night at one of our old hangouts on the waterfront. And then I’m going to start texting you to please give me a call because you haven’t responded to any of my messages and I’m worried, and that’ll go on for a day or two. And then I’m afraid I might have to give your mom and dad a call, but let’s not think about that now. You just have a good sleep. Good-bye, sweetheart.”

And she leaned over the bed, but she didn’t kiss him. She was kissing the cat, Whidbey, named for the island where she’d had a couple of fun weekends with Randy, her former boss, back when she was his intern. Then she left the room and a moment later he heard the front door lock behind her.

The cat stayed where he was, at least for another couple of minutes, then he climbed up onto Jake’s chest and there he remained, rising with each inhalation, falling with each exhalation, and staring into Jake’s eyes for as long as there was human warmth on offer there. After that he went as far away as he could get, hiding for days under the kilim-covered couch until the neighbor who’d so enjoyed those pralines from New Orleans came at last and managed to coax him out.

EPILOGUE

The late Jacob Finch Bonner, author of the global bestseller Crib, was obviously not present at the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium for an event marking the publication of his posthumous novel, Lapse, but he was represented by his widow, Anna Williams-Bonner, a former Seattle resident. Williams-Bonner, a striking woman with a long silver braid, sat in one of the two armchairs on the stage in front of a massive blow-up of the book’s cover. The other chair was occupied by a local personality named Candy.

“The sad thing, for me,” said Candy, with an expression of profound compassion, “is that I actually interviewed your husband, right here on this stage, about Crib. This was about eighteen months ago.”

“Oh I know,” said the widow. “I was in the audience that night. I was a fan, even before I met Jake.”

“Well! That’s sort of adorable. Did you meet him afterward, at the book signing?”

“No. I was too shy to line up with my book. I met Jake the next morning. I was producing Randy Johnson’s show at KBIK at the time. Jake came on the show and we had coffee afterward.” She smiled.

“And then you left Seattle and moved to New York. We do frown on that, you know.”

“That’s perfectly understandable.” Anna smiled. “But I couldn’t help myself. I was in love. We moved in together only a couple of months after we met. We didn’t have much time together.”

Candy hung her head. The tragedy of it all had overwhelmed her.

“I understand that you’ve agreed to make these appearances not only in support of Jake’s novel but because you feel a responsibility to speak out about some of the issues your husband was dealing with.”

Anna nodded. “He’d been devastated by a series of anonymous attacks. Mainly online, via Twitter and Facebook, but also in messages sent to his publisher and even a few letters actually mailed to our home. The final email actually arrived the day he took his own life. I knew he was distraught about it, and trying to understand who this person was, and what they wanted from him. I think that last message just broke his will, somehow.”

“And what was he being accused of?” said Candy.

“Well, it never made much sense. The person said he’d stolen the story of Crib, but there were no details, really. It was an empty accusation, but in Jake’s world even the accusation felt ruinous. He was devastated, and having to defend himself to his agent and the people at his publisher, and worrying about how it would impact him in the eyes of his readers if more people became aware of it, it just destroyed him. Eventually, I could see he was becoming depressed. I was worried, but you know, I thought about depression the way most people do. I looked at my husband and thought, He has a hugely successful career, we’ve just gotten married, surely that’s more important than this ridiculous thing, so how can he be depressed? I’d flown back here to Seattle for a couple of days, to deal with my old storage unit and see friends, and that’s when Jake took his own life. I felt so guilty because I’d left him alone, and also because he used the medication I’d been prescribed for an old condition of my own. We had dinner together at our apartment before I went to the airport, and he seemed absolutely fine. But over the next day or so he didn’t respond to any of my texts, or answer his phone. I started to get worried. Finally, I called his mother to ask if she’d heard from him. That was awful, having to do that to his mother. I’m not a mother, so I can only imagine the pain of losing a child, but it was terrible to witness that.”

“But you can’t blame yourself,” said Candy, which was of course the correct thing to say.

“I know that, but it’s still hard.” Anna Williams-Bonner was silent for a moment. The audience was silent with her.

“It’s a very difficult journey you’ve been on,” Candy observed. “I think the fact that you’re here tonight, speaking with us about your husband, his struggles as well as his accomplishments, speaks to your own strength.”

“Thank you,” said the widow, sitting up very straight. Her silver braid had slipped forward over her left shoulder, and she was twisting the end around and around her fingers.

“Tell me, do you have plans of your own you can share with us? Are you moving back to Seattle, for example?”

“No.” Anna Williams-Bonner smiled. “I’m sorry to say, I truly do love New York. I want to celebrate my husband’s wonderful new book, and the fact that Macmillan is honoring Jake with the republication of the two novels he wrote before Crib. And when the film adaptation of Crib comes out next year I plan to celebrate that as well. But at the same time I’ve started to feel that maybe it’s time to begin focusing on myself. I had a professor at the University of Washington who used to say: Nobody else gets to live your life.”

“So wise,” said Candy.

“I’ve always thought so. And I’ve had some time now to really think deeply about what I want from my life, and how I want to live it. It’s a little embarrassing under the circumstances, but deep down I realized that what I truly want to do is write.”

“Really!” said Candy, leaning forward. “But that must be intimidating. I mean, as the widow of such a famous writer …”

“I don’t feel that way.” Anna smiled. “It’s true that Jake’s work was known all over the world, but he always insisted he wasn’t special. He used to tell me: Everyone has a unique voice and a story nobody else can tell. And anybody can be a writer.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Seldom have I been so grateful for my chosen career as I was during the spring and summer months of 2020, not just for the opportunity to work at home but for the chance to escape, on a daily basis, into another reality. I am beyond thankful for my wonderful agents at WME, Suzanne Gluck and Anna DeRoy, as well as Andrea Blatt, Tracy Fisher, and Fiona Baird, and for Deb Futter, Jamie Raab, and their extraordinary team at Celadon, including Randi Kramer, Lauren Dooley, Rachel Chou, Christine Mykityshyn, Jennifer Jackson, Jaime Noven, and Anne Twomey. This book was born in Deb’s office. Sorry for the mess.

My parents, under house arrest in New York City, devoured every word of this novel as it was written. My husband brought coffee in the morning and alcoholic beverages promptly at five. My sister and my kids cheered me on. My beloved friends have sustained me during the writing of this book, and I can’t adequately express my appreciation to them, most especially Christina Baker Kline, Jane Green, Elise Paschen, Lisa Eckstrom, Elisa Rosen, Peggy O’Brien, Deborah Michel (and her devious daughters), Janice Kaplan, Helen Eisenbach, Joyce Carol Oates, Sally Singer and Laurie Eustis. Also Leslie Kuenne, but that’s, literally, another story.

The Plot may seem a little hard on writers, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone; we’re hard on ourselves. In fact, you couldn’t hope to meet a more self-flagellating bunch of creatives anywhere. At the end of the day, though, we are the lucky ones. First, because we get to work with language, and language is thrilling. Second, because we love stories and we get to frolic in them. Begged, borrowed, adapted, embroidered … perhaps even stolen: it’s all a part of a grand conversation. “Grasp that and you have the root of the matter. To understand all is to forgive all.” (Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited) This novel is dedicated to Laurie Eustis, with love.