Oh, yeah. That’s what it was called.
“Yes.”
“You did know it was called that, right?”
She was testing him, and for some reason, it amused him. “Are you accusing me of not knowing my wife’s books?”
Merritt waited for a long moment before speaking. “No,” she said, still thinking. “No, I don’t think so. I think you’ve read them. I’m sure you’re familiar with them, but I’m not sure you... well, I’m not sure you actuallylikethem.”
Whit couldn’t help it. His half-smirk grew into a full grin. He laughed, took a sip of his beer, and then held it up, as if to tap it against her wineglass.
“That is really funny,” he said, and Merritt looked confused.
“What?”
“You’re the only person who’s ever said that to me.”
“Okay?”
“And you’re absolutely right.”
Merritt’s jaw dropped for the second time that afternoon. “You’re joking.”
He held up his hands. “I am not joking. Or, okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, maybe. I don’tnotenjoy them. They are excellent books, and I am fully aware of their virtues, without any caveats. They’re just... not for me.”
Merritt shook her head, wide-eyed and ready to speak, and Whit held a hand out over the bread to slow her.
“But,” he said, “before you decide I’m a horrible person, I should tell you... Helen truly, genuinely hated everything I ever wrote.”
Merritt, who was raising her wine to drink, set the glass down once more.
“What? What is wrong with you people?”
Whit grinned again. “I know. Trust me, I know. I should be clear that she never said she hated it. She wouldn’t have done that.”
A memory of her face after readingThe Vow of Obedience, the last book he published before she got sick, washed over him, and he paused for a moment to remember it. They were in the living room; it was afternoon. She set the book down beside her and grinned at him proudly. She could be very gentle to him.
“But there was just something about the way she talked about it, I knew. I knew my work wasn’t justnotfor her, but she actively disliked it. And we never spoke of it, not in those terms. We would say, though, on occasion, that we were each other’s biggest fans when it came to our success, and nowhere near each other’s biggest fans when it came to reading our actual books.”
Whit watched Merritt think for a moment as she ate her bread in a protracted, three-chews-a-minute way, and then she asked exactly what he expected her to ask.
“So she knew that about how you felt, but she still asked you to finish the series?”
Whit shook his head, mouth open in bemused agreement. “I know.”
“And you askedmebecause of my pin.”
“And you know the books.”
She narrowed her brown eyes at him, and a single wrinkle appeared at the center of her brow. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “You put on a nice show the other day at the bookstore, but I could tell you were ready to explode from all the pent-up knowledge in your brain. I have a feeling you know every book in the series, frontwards and backwards, and every novella, and I would not be surprised if you had written some fan fiction here and there.”
She let out a scoffing noise and looked away, surveying the wall of orchids. Not, Whit noted, a denial.
“But mostly,” Whit lied, “because of your MFA.”
Merritt exhaled and moved her head around like a limited-edition Major League Baseball bobblehead. “Well.”
