We Are All the Same in the Dark - Julia Heaberlin Page 0,114

me across a table in a hotel lobby even though it was the first time we had met. No one was more honest with me about the harsh realities, daily irritations, the complications and love of family after a trauma, what it is like to be a beautiful woman with a secret. Her ocular prosthesis, a perfect match to her real eye, is something she has hidden for years in a profession that reveres perfection.

My youngest consultant, a lovely teenage girl, spoke to me one morning with her parents. She was born without one eye and has worn an ocular prosthesis almost her entire life. Only her closest friends are aware that one of her eyes isn’t real. At the end of the interview, I asked her, “Is there something I should know that I didn’t ask?” She replied, “It isn’t that hard.” The list of words that appears in this book—tender, resilient, strong, resourceful, kind, empathetic—is the verbatim list recited by her mother when I asked: “How would you describe your daughter?”

The third young woman is Maddie Garbarz, the daughter of loving parents Janet and Dan Garbarz, who lost her hand and almost her life one night during college when her car slammed into the back of another parked on a dark highway. A woman had abandoned her car on the road and walked away. Maddie remembers her own car flipping—and the terror that she’d never see her family again. Because of that night, Maddie wears a high-tech work of art on one hand. Another beauty, she is just as stunning in her maturity and acceptance of fate. She now works in the prosthetics industry herself.

I would not have been able to tackle this book without the help of Randy Trawnik, a world-renowned ocularist in Dallas, and his wife, Karen (also critical to my research and one of the sweetest persons I’ve met while doing it). People travel from all over the world to have their eyes made by Randy, a brilliant “illusionist” who paints and creates an ocular prosthesis with such detail and depth that it is often impossible to distinguish from a real eye. The ocularist in this book is very much based on him. Google Randy Trawnik. He’s a hero.

So is Michael Witzgall, a military veteran and ex-cop who powers through life without one of his legs. And powers is the right word: He currently trains SWAT teams for a living. He answered every question I had, no matter how intimate or stupid. The same is true of Leslie Gray, the director of the Prosthetics-Orthotics Program at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who introduced me to Michael, gave me a personal tour of her lab, shifted my perspective on many things, including Oscar Pistorius, and even read a very raw copy of this book to catch any mistakes. That said, if there still are any mistakes, they are mine. Odette came to life because of Leslie and Michael.

I’d also like to thank:

—The Rev. Bob Crilley for a very interesting conversation about the randomness of the universe and God’s role in it. It helped me with this book as well as a personal tragedy I was struggling with while writing it.

—Librarian extraordinaire Cecilia Barham and her staff at the North Richland Hills Library for allowing me to hide out among their books to write this one.

—Patricia Hennelly, one of my favorite readers of all time, who added so much joy and energy to the universe before she left it. Mama Pat is named for her.

—Trumanell Maples, who lent me her beautiful and unusual first name.

—Michele Heaberlin, for her line about how taking care of a baby is like dealing with a drunken elf on suicide watch.

—Doug Heaberlin, for the beautiful math.

—My Penguin Random House team in the U.K., especially Maxine Hitchcock for her editing and brilliance at marketing a Texas girl, and Rebecca Hilsdon, who I’m certain was a cowgirl in another life.

—My Penguin Random House team in the United States, especially my editor, Anne Speyer, for her dedication and support in editing a complicated tale.

—Kate Miciak, for changing the course of my history, buying this book and my others, wielding a sharp pen, and sending poems.

—Maddee James (xuni.com), for the beauty of her website design and friendship.

—Laura Dicaro, for being my first call (and always answering).

—My father and mother, Chuck and Sue Heaberlin, who keep the home fires burning at eighty-nine, which means I can still write and dream myself to sleep in my childhood bedroom whenever I want.

—Mark Cocanougher, for painting my soul, past and present, into a picture I see every day and for being the kind of person and brilliant artist the rest of us aspire to. You see houses as full-blown characters, like I do.

—My friends, neighbors, family, librarians, journalists, and readers who have been so supportive during the course of this book. There are too many to name but you know who you are.

—My husband and son, Steve and Sam Kaskovich, for being my arm and leg and everything else.

—My agent, Kim Witherspoon, who is so damn smart. You always catch me when I’m falling. I’m also grateful to both you and Inkwell’s Maria Whelan for your discerning and helpful thoughts on this novel.

—And, finally, to Deya Montemayor Martinez, to whom this book is dedicated. You made such an impact on my life, and I regret every day that I didn’t say it more. When people criticize our imperfect immigration system, I tell them about you—the face and heart of every immigrant who makes America kinder, better, and stronger. But mostly you are someone I loved very much and lost too soon. Te extraño.

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

We Are All the Same in the Dark is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First published in the United States by Ballantine Books 2020

First published in the UK by Michael Joseph 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-1-405-94080-1

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 publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized 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.

We Are All the Same in the Dark - Julia Heaberlin Page 0,114

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