Sleepwalking in Daylight. Elizabeth Flock

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       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      For Jill Brack

       Acknowledgments

      The writing of this novel took place during perhaps the most wrenching two years of my life and would not have been possible without the loving support of friends and family. To say they held me up and put me back together during a nearly unbearable time would be an understatement—they did so much more. For a multitude of reasons, both personal and professional, I will be forever grateful to Mary Jane Clark, Joan Drummond Olson, Bruce Fine, Mary Chase-Ziolek, Jodie Chase, Dotty Sonnemaker, Catherine DiBenedetto, Kat Mosteller and Kim Merenkov.

      My heartfelt thanks to my editor, Susan Swinwood, and to my agent, Larry Kirshbaum, both of whom patiently and brilliantly guided and shaped this novel through its many incarnations. I am deeply grateful, too, to Margaret Marbury, to Kathleen Carter at Goldberg McDuffie, to John and Fauzia Burke and the team at FSB Associates.

      There is nothing like the bond between siblings, who know you best and keep you anyway. I hope Peter, Katherine, Regi and Jill know how much I love them and appreciate them daily. My girls, Emily and Lizzie, fill me with pride and happiness. I love and adore them beyond measure. As I do their father, Jeffrey. That will never change. Ever.

      My parents are without question the strongest, most generous and loving human beings I have ever encountered. Their arms and hearts are open to all their children and grandchildren, but I fear I may have tested this more than the rest. My one hope is that they know how deep and profound my love is for both of them. Their marriage has lasted more than four decades and is the gold standard for how to do it right. Because of them, I believe in love.

      And in the end that is what this book is about: love. Plain and simple.

      Samantha

      We haven’t had sex in eleven months. Just shy of a year. More time than it takes to grow a human being. I know it was eleven months ago for two reasons: one, it was on our wedding anniversary and on wedding anniversaries sex is a given and two, the next night was the incident with the family room light. I was reading a book about a missionary family in Africa I ordered after Oprah plugged it. I keep track of what I read on my calendar and plus I remember wishing it weren’t our wedding anniversary because I was at the good part but instead I had to pretend I didn’t know Bob was simply going through the motions required of husbands celebrating their wedding anniversaries.

      So there we were the following night, in the second floor room that is, after the kitchen, the nerve center of our house. Bob was at the computer in the corner searching eBay for tennis rackets even though it’d end up costing more for one on eBay when you factor in the shipping and handling.

      “Why don’t you just go to Sportmart?” I’d asked earlier in the evening.

      “I’m looking for the old wooden ones,” he said without looking up. “The old Wilsons.”

      I shrugged and went back to my book. I became so engrossed I remember looking up and feeling shock that no, I wasn’t in a civil war in the Congo, I was actually in my tidy three-story house on Chicago’s North Side. I remember smiling and thinking I love it when that happens. When a book’s so good you forget who and where you are.

      I’d heard Bob sighing and pushing back from the family desk littered with half-finished homework, field-trip permission slips and school reminders on brightly colored paper. He crossed the room and flicked off the light as he left and it took me calling “hey” for him to come back, switch it back on with an “oh, sorry, I forgot you were there.” The worst part was he wasn’t doing it to prove some point. He truly forgot I was in the room with him. Which is exactly the point. We haven’t had sex since.

      I know it seems like a silly thing, the light incident. But everyone has that final straw, that moment of clarity when you can’t put your finger on it, you just know there’s been a shift, a ripple in the atmosphere. The little things have added up and finally you can’t take it anymore. We’ve been quietly drifting into our own worlds for a while, Bob and I. I’ve just been ignoring it. Up until now. And I can’t take it anymore.

      Just last week I got buttermilk for the pancakes I decided to make for no real reason. A special treat. I felt like making an effort for once. I got the buttermilk because I know СКАЧАТЬ