The Stories We Tell (33 page)

To my agent, Kimberly Whalen, who from the very beginning believed and still does.

To my friends: Kerry Madden (and her astounding daughter, Norah), who showed up just when needed and asked all the right questions that made the story more complete. To Lanier Isom, your heart is wide and beautiful and I can't remember what it was like without you. To Cleo O'Neal and Kate Phillips, I don't have room to list what you've done or who you've been for me these past months and how profoundly grateful I am for you both. For the friends who have been there for me in ways I would have never understood until I needed it: Cate and Mark Sommer; Kenneith and Glenn Donald; Brooke and Tyler Wahl; Alison Gorrie; Karen Spears Zacharias; Dorothea Benton Frank, Mary Alice Monroe, Summer Anderson (Oh! Those flowers!!), and Beth Fidler, a sister as much as a friend! To Tara Mahoney, I love you as if you were my own. To Kathy Trocheck, we met all those years ago and still we are here and still you lift me up, make me laugh, and bring me along for the fun. To Diane Chamberlain, for her early words of praise, I am humbled and grateful. To Jamie Allen and Tom Bell, for showing up as if in a dream and taking me away for the day just when I needed it most. I am so lucky to have you in my life. To Susan Rebecca White and Joshilyn Jackson, you are both like some magical apparition turned real—I adore you; your work both inspires me and carries me away.

To Sandee O. Bartkowski, for everything and all things creative, you influence my work. You know you've saved me more times than we'll ever be able to count and I love you more each time. Also, both you and Sara Weinberger infected me with the love for letterpress when you opened a store, 3226, as “Purveyors of Imaginative and Beautiful Things.”

And to Scott Fisk, at Samford University, who offered his time and expertise when I showed up at his office with a list of questions about the art and craft of letterpress, thank you!

To the readers who make this all possible: I wish I could thank every one of you in person, so consider this my personal hug. You come to events; you buy the books; you write to me and you make me want to write a better book every single time. Thank you.

To the bookstores, bloggers, book clubs, reviewers, and Web sites that have supported my work, I am incredibly grateful. What would I do without you? Not much.

Always to my family, all of you: my sisters, Jeannie and Barbi, and their families and kids, life would be so bland and lonesome without you. You fill up my heart to its very edges. You showed up when I didn't ask, surrounded me, and held me up. To Anna, Kirk, Kirk and Sofia, I love you. To Serena Henry, this year has been soaked with your love and support, and I don't know what I would have done without you; it's as if I've known you forever, my whole life. To my parents, George and Bonnie Callahan, who could ask for anything more than you? To Gwen and Chuck Henry, who have treated me as their daughter and loved me the same.

To Pat, Meagan Steele, Patrick Thomas, and George Rusk—You are my heart. It's all for you.

 

ALSO BY PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY

And Then I Found You

Coming Up for Air

The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story

Driftwood Summer

The Art of Keeping Secrets

Between the Tides

When Light Breaks

Where the River Runs

Losing the Moon

 

About the Author

Patti Callahan Henry is a full-time writer, wife, and mother, and the
New York Times
bestselling author of eight novels, including
Between the Tides, Driftwood Summer,
and
The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story
. She lives with her husband and three children in Mountain Brook, Alabama, where she is working on her next novel.

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

 

THE STORIES WE TELL.
Copyright © 2014 by Patti Callahan Henry. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

 

www.stmartins.com

 

Cover design by Sara Wood

 

Cover photograph © Matthieu Spohn/Plainpicture

 

eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].

 

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

 

Henry, Patti Callahan.

        The stories we tell: a novel / Patti Callahan Henry.

                p. cm.

        ISBN 978-1-250-04031-2 (hardcover)

        ISBN 978-1-4668-3554-2 (e-book)

     1.  Family life—Fiction.   2.  Marriage—Fiction.   3.  Domestic fiction.   I.  Title.

        PS3608.E578S76 2014

        813'.6—dc23

2014008539

        e-ISBN 9781466835542

 

First Edition: June 2014