“I don’t know.”
“That’s impossible. How can you not know?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always felt that way.”
“Really? That’s exactly the way I feel. I thought I was the only one in the whole world who felt that way.”
“Nope, there are at least two of us.”
And yet,
I chose her name,
Eliana—“My God has answered me.”
I still don’t know which one of us is the “me.”
Maybe “me” is both of us—a symmetry, a palindrome, Eliana and I mirroring each other. “I don’t know if I believe in God, but somehow ...”
My question or hers was answered. What question?
I don’t know if I believe in God.
I didn’t think I wanted this—this being born; this giving birth.
I don’t remember asking to be here with you. But somehow we ended up here on top of the rocks together.
The sky is impossibly blue.
Eliana finishes her hot dog.
She lies down with her head in my lap.
“My God has answered me.”
Acknowledgments
Thanks above all to my editor, Carole DeSanti, for her wise edits and insights, and to my extraordinary agent, Sally Wofford-Girand, for believing in my book and for so quickly finding a wonderful home for it. Much gratitude to Kristin Spang at Viking, and to Melissa Sarver at Brick House Literary Agents, for their invaluable help and great patience.
Deep gratitude and love to my smart, talented friends—Patty McCormick, Melissa Kraft, Kathy Mendeloff, Jackie Reingold, Ricki Rosen, Susan Stephen, and Diane Umansky—who generously read the manuscript when I was still scared to show it to anybody, and who persuaded me that it was a book people would want to read; with special thanks to Patty, whose encouragement gave me the courage to begin writing the story, and who proved herself a brilliant matchmaker by introducing the book to my agent.
I want to thank my New School students, whose beautiful and resonant words I’ve quoted (I’ve changed their names in the book to protect their privacy); with gratitude to and in memory of Dani Athena Nikos.
My tremendous affection and thanks to my sisters and best friends, Madeline Cohen and Jennifer Cohen, and to my father Ira Cohen, for their constant love and encouragement. In fond memory of my mother, Louise Giventer Cohen.
My deepest gratitude to my beloved and loving family, for taking this life journey together and for allowing me to share our story—my husband, Michael, soul mate in joyful times and dark times, as well as my thoughtful literary adviser; and my two beautiful daughters, Julia and Eliana, who never cease to amaze and inspire me, whom I love more than anything in the world.