Acknowledgments

I'd like to thank my brother, Brian, for standing by me when we were growing up and while I wrote this. I'm also grateful to my mother for believing in art and truth and for supporting the idea of the book; to my brilliant and talented older sister, Lori, for coming around to it; and to my younger sister, Maureen, whom I will always love. And to my father, Rex S. Walls, for dreaming all those big dreams.

　　Very special thanks also to my agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, for her compassion, wit, tenacity, and enthusiastic support; to my editor, Nan Graham, for her keen sense of how much is enough and for caring so deeply; and to Alexis Gargagliano for her thoughtful and sensitive readings.

　　My gratitude for their early and constant support goes to Jay and Betsy Taylor, Laurie Peck, Cynthia and David Young, Amy and Jim Scully, Ashley Pearson, Dan Mathews, Susan Watson, and Jessica Taylor and Alex Guerrios.

　　I can never adequately thank my husband, John Taylor, who persuaded me it was time to tell my story and then pulled it out of me.

　　Dark is a way and light is a place,Heaven that never wasNor will be ever is always true Dylan Thomas,"Poem on His Birthday"