Safe as Houses

Contents

Contents Free Ham / 1 Sometimes You Break Their Hearts, Sometimes They Break Yours / 13 The Idea of Marcel / 21 North Of / 33 This Is Your Will to Live / 49 Great, Wondrous / 59 Safe as Houses / 87 Carry Me Home, Sisters of Saint Joseph / 100 acknowledgments When I was a little girl, on birthdays or any holiday on which I received a gift, I would become overwhelmed with gratitude. “Thank you” seemed too puny a phrase. So instead I would flush and stammer to the gift giver, “Happy birthday.” During the nine years I worked on these stories, so many people, schools, and organizations pitched in to help and, in doing so, kept me in love with the world. Again, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. Again, “thank you” seems puny. So to the following people, schools, and organizations, I say a heartfelt happy birthday: Renee Zuckerbrot, who protected and clothed me; my inspiring friends in the Brooklyn Blackout Writers’ Group and the Imitative Fallacies—Amelia Kahaney, Elliott Holt, Adam Brown, Elizabeth Logan Harris, Mohan Sikka, and Helen Phillips, who set me up in Brooklyn’s cutest digs; and Mary Russell Curran and Judy Sternlight, who took such care with my work even when it was weird and raw. Josh Henkin, Lou Asekoff, Ellen Tremper, and Michael Cunningham and Brooklyn College’s unparalleled MFA program; Noreen Tomassi and Kristin Henley at the Center for Fiction and my fellow fellows—Ted Bajek, Mitchell Jackson, Caleb Leisure, Genevieve Mathis, Elizabeth Shah-Hosseini, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, and James Yeh; Mary Austin Speaker, who made a lovely cover; Hedgebrook Writer’s Residency, Jim McCoy, Charlotte M. Wright, and Allison T. Means at the University of Iowa and Jim Shepard, who chose this book and gained a lifelong fan in me. The editors of Mississippi Review, the very first literary magazine to give me a chance. The beautiful tulips I had the honor of working with at One Story, with special thanks to Rebecca Barry, Karen Friedman , Adina Talve-Goodman, Chris Gregory, Pei-Ling Lue, Michael Pollock, Hailey Reissman, and Hannah Tinti and Maribeth Batcha, under whose wise tutelage I received my real-world mfa. r.e.m., with thanks for thirty-one years, and Bob Dylan. My literary soulmates Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Jesse Hassenger , Tanya Rey, and Scott Lindenbaum; my wife, Cristina Moracho; Tom Grattan, David Ellis, and Anne Ray, the family my adult heart chose; the Fantastic Mr. Fox, Sophie, and Scat, who put their little paws on every submission except this one, funny enough, which was charmed by the paw of poet Ted Dodson, who has an important laugh. The Glenside Posse, for whom I would take a bullet: Cindy Augustine, Tim Carr, Jessica Bender, Nicole Cavaliere, Jim Fry, Brendan Gaul, Charles Hagerty, Craig Johnson, PJ and Jenna Franceski Linke, Chris Pistorino, Sadie Nickelson Ray, Diana Waters, and Scott Wein, with special love to Ben Cohen and my sisters from another mister—Laura Halasa, Denise Sandole, Shawn-Aileen Clark, Ginger McHugh, Beth Vasil, and Dana Bertotti, who kept saying it was her turn to buy dinner when we both knew it wasn’t. My brothers, who showed me how to write, with special thanks to Chip Bertino. This book and anything I ever do is indebted to my mother, Helene Theresa Bertino, who has been called an angel walking around in a human’s body and who taught me to have grace, always. Safe as Houses ...