May We Be Forgiven

pumpkin pie in prison? If there is, does it have any flavor at all?
    The children are outside, playing football on the front lawn with Ricardo’s uncle and Cy; there are joyous shouts as the pigskin passes from hand to hand.
    There is talk of an early snow, freezing rain.

    I t is three hundred sixty-five days since the warning, three hundred and sixty-five days since Jane pressed against me in the kitchen: me with my fingers deep in the bird; our wet, greasy kiss.
    It has been a year in full, and still the thought of Jane fills me with heat. I feel myself rise to the occasion.
    May we be forgiven; it is a prayer, an incantation.
    May We Be Forgiven.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    With great thanks for their support, friendship, and editing skills: Marie Sanford, Amy Hempel, Katherine Greenberg, Amy Gross, Elliott Holt, Lisa Randall, Laurie Simmons, and Syd Sidner, who sat next to me for days and weeks, bringing me way too much coffee, and Claudia Slacik, who quite literally gave me a place to write.
    Zadie Smith, who asked the question that got the whole thing going; William Boyd, who picked the first chapter for Granta ’s 100th issue; Salman Rushdie, who later selected the piece for The Best American Short Stories 2008; and Heidi Pilator at Best American Short Stories.
    Agents Andrew Wylie, Sarah Chalfant, Charles Buchan, Jin Auh, and Peter Benedek on the West Coast. And lawyers Marc H. Glick and Stephen F. Breimer.
    Paul Slovak, my editor at Viking, who met me for lunch many times along the way, and Sara Holloway at Granta, UK, who has been a wonderful friend and editor for the last ten years.
    Françoise Nyssen and Marie-Catherine Vacher in France; Carlo Feltrinelli, Fabio Muzi Falconi, and Maria Baiocchi in Italy; Robert Ammerlaan in the Netherlands; and Helge Malchow and Kerstin Gleba in Germany.
    Elaina Richardson, Candace Wait, and the staff of Yaddo, without whom I would never write anything. Special thanks to Catherine Clarke, who retired in 2011 after spending twenty-five years at the front desk saying, “Good afternoon, this is Yaddo,” in her wonderfully calm voice to anyone who called.
    Andre Balaz, Philip Pavel, and the staff of the Chateau Marmont—my West Coast Yaddo.
    My colleagues at the Pen American Center, Poets and Writers, and The Writer’s Room in New York City.
    And my brother and parents—what a long strange trip it’s been.

ALSO BY A.M. HOMES

    The Mistress’s Daughter
    This Book Will Save Your Life
    Los Angeles: People, Places, and the Castle on the Hill
    Things You Should Know
    Music for Torching
    The End of Alice
    Appendix A: An Elaboration on the Novel The End of Alice
    In a Country of Mothers
    The Safety of Objects
    Jack

Copyright

    Granta Publications, 12 Addison Avenue, London W11 4QR

    First published in Great Britain by Granta Books 2012

    First published in the United States in 2012 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York

    Copyright © A. M. Homes, 2012

    A.M. Homes has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

    All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

    ISBN 978 1 84708 625 9