Rich and Pretty(83)

He leaps onto the seat, face pure joy. “Push me,” he says. “Push, push.”

And she does. The grass beneath her bare feet, swollen and fat, she pushes, back and forth, back and forth, stepping aside slightly, to keep the swing from banging into her belly. Henry laughs, such a sweet sound, and she keeps pushing, back and forth, up and down.





Acknowledgments


Thanks to Julie Barer and her colleagues at the Book Group, and to Megan Lynch and Kate Cassaday and their colleagues at Ecco and Harper Canada. Thanks to Dan Chaon, Alexander Chee, Mira Jacob, Edan Lepucki, and Emma Straub. Thank you to Vern Yip and Craig Koch, for their generous hospitality. Thank you to Dr. Bhoomi Brahmbhatt, for her expert insight. Thank you to Jennifer Romolini (for “groupthink”), Kristina Dechter (my first reader), Emily Hsieh (for the think tank), Samantha Turner (for the mascara), Lauren Whitehouse (for the ice), and Amanda Guttman and David Tamarkin (for everything else). Thank you to the weirdos on Twitter who kept me company while I worked.

I wrote this book mostly between the hours of 8:00 P.M. and 3:00 A.M.; this would have been unthinkable but for David Land, who shouldered the responsibilities (financial, parental, you name it) that I shirked for many months. All people should have a partner so generous; all children should have a parent so devoted. How I got so lucky, I will never know.