Our Crooked Hearts(85)

Thanks to Bob Miller, Megan Lynch, Malati Chavali, Sydney Jeon, Nancy Trypuc, Marlena Bittner, Cat Kenney, Erin Kibby, Erin Gordon, Kelly Gatesman, Louis Grilli, Jennifer Gonzalez, Jennifer Edwards, Holly Ruck, Sofrina Hinton, Melanie Sanders, Kim Lewis, Katy Robitzski, Robert Allen, the Macmillan Audio crew, and the entire team at Flatiron for everything you do for me and my books. And this cover! Thank you to creative director and designer Keith Hayes and illustrator Jim Tierney for turning this book into a sinister door, a concept so perfect it still takes my breath away.

Much gratitude goes to Mary Pender, and to all the agents helping this book reach readers around the world: Lora Fountain, Ia Atterholm, Annelie Geissler, Milena Kaplarevic, Gray Tan, Clare Chi, and Eunsoo Joo.

To the generous readers of early drafts, thank you! Emma Chastain, for your wisdom and cheerleading, and for helping me to love the messy version more through your eyes. Tara Sonin, for real talk and for absorbing so much kvetching. Alexa Wejko, for genius insights that made my brain light up. Krystal Sutherland, for being the dream reader of my earliest pages and giving me fortification for the long haul. Kamilla Benko, you had better, cuter things (much better, way cuter) to worry about than reading early this time, but talking and texting with you always gives me joy and clarity.

Thank you to the caregivers at my child’s former daycare. Knowing he was happy and safe even when he wasn’t with me was crucial to the completion of this book.

Thanks to Natalie Hail for the perfect fake-ID shopping list. Thanks to Mike Schiele for the Polaroid wall. Thanks to Eileen Korte for the middle-of-the-night trip through a suburban Super K. Thanks to Amy Abboreno for so many things, including that radiant day when the fields flooded and filled up with teeny frogs. Magic is real, and I’ve always found it with you.

Love always and so much gratitude to Michael for everything, particularly for allowing me to talk at you vaguely for months on end about books you aren’t yet allowed to read or know too much about. Thank you to Miles for making the world infinitely funnier, better, and brighter, and for making me excited every morning to wake up and see your face. Thank you always to my parents, Steve and Diane Albert, for everything, all of it.