One of the ways writing a book is better than winning an Academy Award is your thank-yous can go on as long as you like, and no one can play cheesy music to make you stop before you’re ready. My thanks are many and large and from my heart of hearts, so this might take a while.
Thank you to Molly Friedrich, worker of miracles, whose phone call was the best I’ve ever received and whose guidance feels always absolutely right.
Thank you to my editor, Lindsay Sagnette, whose work on behalf of this book has been tremendous and whose enthusiasm for it has rivaled my own mother’s, which is saying something.
Thank you to the lovely Lucy Carson for her guidance and patience and kindness, and to Paul Cirone for all his support and hard work.
Thank you to early readers and cheerleaders Paul Mariz, Susan Frankel, David Frankel, Erin Trendler, Lisa Corr, Sam Chambers, Rebecca Brown, Alicia Goodwin, Jennifer Crouch, Helen Heffer, Paul Capobianco, and especially, Lil Maughan.
Thanks to Barbara Catlin for permission to use her story, to Adrienne Grau-Cooper and Alicia Goodwin for medical advice, and to Mike Everton, with apologies, for the Moby-Dick bit.
Thank you to Daniel for finally coming home.
Thanks to my parents, Susan and David Frankel, whose support of this book started before I could even read books and has never waned. They have been—they have always been—more loving, more warm, more generous, more supportive parents than I can even imagine, and hence Janey’s folks pale in comparison to my own.
About Paul Mariz, I can say only this: 6.8 billion people in the world, and he is the very best one. So much of this book is his—in spirit, in creation, in idea, in will, in love and support, in all the practical ways and all the gushy ones. He read and reread and discussed endlessly, fixed what was broken, cheered up what flagged, and believed from the beginning. I am very very lucky.
And last, I wish there were a way to say thank you to my grandmothers, Doris Hess and Reba Frankel, both of whom are all over this book and both of whom would have been beside themselves with joy to see it in print.