Nice to Come Home To

by Rebecca Flowers

  She couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks first and foremost to my beloved husband, Andrew, for defying all reason and common sense and believing in me every step of the way. Thanks to my families, of origin and in-lawism, for their love and encouragement and for being such damn funny people: Jim, Eileen, Paul, Leslie, Stephie, Gerry, and Lisa. I thank my faithful, whip-smart readers: Jamie, Reetie, Paulette, Anita, and Dana; the Worth Our Salt writing group, in Washington, D.C.: Eliza, Carollyne, Paula, and Anne; and the short-lived writing group in my living room: Marc, Frank, Aaron, and Cynthia, who were there to welcome Pru and Whoop into the world. My writing teachers, Lee K. Abbott, Rosellen Brown, and Jim Robison. Thanks to Art Silverman, Larry Massett, and Barrett Golding for getting my work on NPR. Thanks to the inestimable Gail Hochman, and to the patient, lovely, wise Sarah McGrath, and Sarah Stein, inestimable in her own right, at Riverhead. A hearty, caffeine-fueled thanks to Larry, April, and the rest of the crew at my refuge, the Arcadian Shop. Thanks to the best e-mail support group ever: Blobby, Morty, Jon San, and Ditto. Thanks to Dave and Lori for dinners and cheerleading, and to Cristina and Alisa, for taking over the love and care of my spawn in my absence; and thanks to the darling spawn themselves, the Peach and the Plum, for sharing their mommy with complete, fictitious strangers during their earliest, most formative years.

  Without Gil, none of this would have happened.