In the winter of 2009, my husband found me crying over my secondhand IBM ThinkPad. He kneeled in front of me in my “office” (a deep window ledge in our tiny studio apartment that I’d claimed as a desk), and I sobbed to him,
“I have to let Finny die inside my brain now!”
As I first drafted Autumn’s narrative in If He Had Been with Me, I crafted Finn’s side of the story within me, and I could feel all his thoughts and passion. I had even written a page and a half of Finn’s story. When my husband found me crying, it was because I had realized that I needed to delete those pages. I had no agent, no literary prospects; I couldn’t write a whole new novel from his perspective when my energy would be better spent revising the novel that I’d already written from Autumn’s point of view. So I dried my tears and focused on making sure Autumn’s story was the best it could be. I let Finny’s voice fade. I let him die again within me.
Over the years, so many readers have asked for a Finny POV, and I’ve always said, “I’m sorry, he’s dead; I can’t bring him back.” And it was true. I didn’t have that power. But Gina Rogers had that power.
I hadn’t planned to listen to the audiobook. The idea of my words in someone else’s mouth terrified me. But then Gina sent me a message asking that if I ever listened, I provide feedback—even if it was negative—because she too was an artist striving for an ideal. I was so touched by her sentiment and dedication to her craft that I decided to give it a listen.
The moment I heard Gina as Finny say “Hey” to Autumn at the bus stop, I felt him stir within me. Before I was done listening, he was alive and, dear reader, Finny was mad at me. Not for killing him—he understood I had to make If He Had Been with Me the best story that I could—but he had a few things that he wanted to say, some things he needed to clarify. Given his miraculous resurrection, his request seemed reasonable, and I was compelled to let him finally have his say.
So forgive me if I ever swore to you that this book would never exist. At the time, I believed it with my whole artist’s heart.
But life is like that sometimes, and that’s a good thing.