The Forever Bridge Read online

  Outstanding Praise for the Novels of T. Greenwood

  Bodies of Water

  “A complex and compelling portrait of the painful intricacies of love and loyalty. Book clubs will find much to discuss in T. Greenwood’s insightful story of two women caught between their hearts and their families.”

  —Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters

  “A wrenching look at what happens when two people fall in love in the wrong place at the wrong time . . . Beauty and tragedy at the same time, darkness then light—those are Greenwood hallmarks. She’s terrific with characters, with the multiple textures that make someone seem human on the page. She has some interesting things to say here about memory, and the ending is as moving as anything she’s written.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Bodies of Water is no ordinary love story, but a book of astonishing precision, lyrically told, raw in its honesty and gentle in its unfolding. Here is a complex tapestry of lives entwined, a testimony to the fact that a timeless sort of love does exist—one that sustains memory, derails oppression, and with its striking ferocity can cause human beings to relinquish love and yet also to recover it. T. Greenwood has rendered a compassionate story of people who are healed and destroyed by love, by alcoholism, by secrets and betrayal, and yet she offers us a certain shade of hope that while the barriers between people can make a narrow neighborhood street seem as wide as the ocean, soul mates can and do find each other—sometimes more than once in a lifetime. A luminous, fearless, heart-wrenching story about the power of true love.”

  —Ilie Ruby, author of The Salt God’s Daughter

  “Greenwood’s [eighth] novel, a tale of love and loyalty, owes its success to the poetic prose, as well as the compelling chronology she employs . . . This compassionate, insightful look at hope and redemption is a richly textured portrait. This gem of a story is a good choice for those who enjoy family novels.”

  —Library Journal

  “T. Greenwood’s Bodies of Water is a lyrical novel about the inexplicable nature of love, and the power a forbidden affair has to transform one woman’s entire life. By turns beautiful and tragic, haunting and healing, I was captivated from the very first line. And Greenwood’s moving story of love and loss, hope and redemption has stayed with me, long after I turned the last page.”

  —Jillian Cantor, author of Margot

  Breathing Water

  “A poignant, clear-eyed first novel . . . filled with careful poetic description . . . the story is woven skillfully.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A poignant debut . . . Greenwood sensitively and painstakingly unravels her protagonist’s self-loathing and replaces it with a graceful dignity.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A vivid, somberly engaging first book.”

  —Larry McMurtry

  “An impressive first novel.”

  —Booklist

  “Breathing Water is startling and fresh . . . Greenwood’s novel is ripe with originality.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  Grace

  “Grace is a poetic, compelling story that glows in its subtle, yet searing examination of how we attempt to fill the potentially devastating fissures in our lives. Each character is masterfully drawn; each struggles in their own way to find peace amid tumultuous circumstance. With her always crisp imagery and fearless language, Greenwood doesn’t back down from the hard issues or the darker sides of human psyche, managing to create astounding empathy and a balanced view of each player along the way. The story expertly builds to a breathtaking climax, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of how sometimes, only a moment of grace can save us.”

  —Amy Hatvany, author of Best Kept Secret

  “Grace is at once heartbreaking, thrilling and painfully beautiful. From the opening page, to the breathless conclusion, T. Greenwood again shows why she is one of our most gifted and lyrical storytellers.”

  —Jim Kokoris, author of The Pursuit of Other Interests

  “Grace is a masterpiece of small-town realism that is as harrowing as it is heartfelt.”

  —Jim Ruland, author of Big Lonesome

  “This novel will keep readers rapt until the very end . . . Shocking and honest, you’re likely to never forget this book.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Grace amazes. Ultimately so realistically human in its terror and beauty that it may haunt you for days after you finish it. T. Greenwood has another gem here. Greenwood’s mastery of character and her deep empathy for the human condition make you care what happens, especially in the book’s furious final 100 pages.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Exceptionally well-observed. Readers who enjoy insightful and sensitive family drama (Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin; Rosellen Brown’s Before and After) will appreciate discovering Greenwood.”

  —Library Journal

  Nearer Than the Sky

  “Greenwood is an assured guide through this strange territory; she has a lush, evocative style.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “T. Greenwood writes with grace and compassion about loyalty and betrayal, love and redemption in this totally absorbing novel about daughters and mothers.”

  —Ursula Hegi, author of Stones from the River

  “A lyrical investigation into the unreliability and elusiveness of memory centers Greenwood’s second novel . . . The kaleidoscopic heart of the story is rich with evocative details about its heroine’s inner life.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Doesn’t disappoint. A complicated story of love and abuse told with a directness and intensity that packs a lightning charge.”

  —Booklist

  “Nearer Than the Sky is a remarkable portrait of resilience. With clarity and painful precision, T. Greenwood probes the dark history of Indie’s family.”

  —Rene Steinke, author of The Fires and Holy Skirts

  “Deft handling of a difficult and painful subject . . . compelling.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Potent . . . Greenwood’s clear-eyed prose takes the stuff of tabloid television and lends it humanity.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  This Glittering World

  “In This Glittering World, T. Greenwood demonstrates once again that she is a poet and storyteller of unique gifts, not the least of which is a wise and compassionate heart.”

  —Drusilla Campbell, author of The Good Sister and Blood Orange

  “This Glittering World is swift, stark, calamitous. Her characters, their backs against the wall, confront those difficult moments that will define them and Greenwood paints these troubled lives with attention, compassion and hope.”

  —Jerry Gabriel, author of Drowned Boy and winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction

  “Stark, taut, and superbly written, this dark tale brims with glimpses of the Southwest and scenes of violence, gruesome but not gratuitous. This haunting look at a fractured family is certain to please readers of literary suspense.”

  —Library Journal (starred)

  “Greenwood’s prose is beautiful. Her writing voice is simple but emotional.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Undressing the Moon

  “This beautiful story, eloquently told, demands attention.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Greenwood has skillfully managed to create a novel with unforgettable characters, finely honed descriptions, and beautiful imagery.”

  —Book Street USA

  “A lyrical, delicately affecting tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Rarely has a wri
ter rendered such highly charged topics . . . to so wrenching, yet so beautifully understated, an effect . . . T. Greenwood takes on risky subject matter, handling her volatile topics with admirable restraint . . . Ultimately more about life than death, Undressing the Moon beautifully elucidates the human capacity to maintain grace under unrelenting fire.”

  —The Los Angeles Times

  The Hungry Season

  “This compelling study of a family in need of rescue is very effective, owing to Greenwood’s eloquent, exquisite word artistry and her knack for developing subtle, suspenseful scenes . . . Greenwood’s sensitive and gripping examination of a family in crisis is real, complex, and anything but formulaic.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “A deeply psychological read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Can there be life after tragedy? How do you live with the loss of a child let alone the separation emotionally from all your loved ones? T. Greenwood with beautiful prose poses this question while delving into the psyches of a successful man, his wife, and his son . . . This is a wonderful story, engaging from the beginning, that gets better with every chapter.”

  —The Washington Times

  Two Rivers

  “In Two Rivers, T. Greenwood weaves a haunting story in which the sins of the past threaten to destroy the fragile equilibrium of the present. Ripe with surprising twists and heart-breakingly real characters, Two Rivers is a remarkable and complex look at race and forgiveness in small-town America.”

  —Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Fog and No One You Know

  “Two Rivers is a convergence of tales, a reminder that the past never washes away, and yet, in T. Greenwood’s delicate handling of time gone and time to come, love and forgiveness wait on the other side of what life does to us and what we do to it. This novel is a sensitive and suspenseful portrayal of family and the ties that bind.”

  —Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever and River of Heaven

  “T. Greenwood’s novel is full of love, betrayal, lost hopes, and a burning question: is it ever too late to find redemption?”

  —Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, author of Bittersweet

  “Greenwood is a writer of subtle strength, evoking small-town life beautifully while spreading out the map of Harper’s life, finding light in the darkest of stories.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “T. Greenwood’s writing shimmers and sings as she braids together past, present, and the events of one desperate day. I ached for Harper in all of his longing, guilt, grief, and vast, abiding love, and I rejoiced at his final, hard-won shot at redemption.”

  —Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Belong to Me and Love Walked In

  “Two Rivers is a stark, haunting story of redemption and salvation. T. Greenwood portrays a world of beauty and peace that, once disturbed, reverberates with searing pain and inescapable consequences. A memorable, powerful work.”

  —Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

  “A complex tale of guilt, remorse, revenge, and forgiveness . . . Convincing . . . Interesting . . .”

  —Library Journal

  “In the tradition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, T. Greenwood’s Two Rivers is a wonderfully distinctive American novel, abounding with memorable characters, unusual lore and history, dark family secrets, and love of life. Two Rivers is the story that people want to read: the one they have never read before.”

  —Howard Frank Mosher, author of Walking to Gatlinburg

  “Two Rivers is a dark and lovely elegy, filled with heartbreak that turns itself into hope and forgiveness. I felt so moved by this luminous novel.”

  —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author

  “Two Rivers is reminiscent of Thornton Wilder, with its quiet New England town shadowed by tragedy, and of Sherwood Anderson, with its sense of desperate loneliness and regret . . . It’s to Greenwood’s credit that she answers her novel’s mysteries in ways that are believable, that make you feel the sadness that informs her characters’ lives.”

  —Bookpage

  Books by T. Greenwood

  The Forever Bridge

  Bodies of Water

  Grace

  This Glittering World

  The Hungry Season

  Two Rivers

  Undressing the Moon

  Nearer Than the Sky

  Breathing Water

  The FOREVER BRIDGE

  T. GREENWOOD

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Outstanding Praise for the Novels of T. Greenwood

  Books by T. Greenwood

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  SUNDAY

  MONDAY

  TUESDAY

  WEDNESDAY

  THURSDAY

  FRIDAY

  SATURDAY

  SUNDAY

  AFTER THE STORM

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  Discussion Questions

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  For Mikaela

  Acknowledgments

  With gratitude to Peter Senftleben, Vida Engstrand, Henry Dunow, and the rest of my team for their hard work. To my writing friends for their ears and shoulders (especially Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Jillian Cantor, and Amy Hatvany). To my family for believing in me. And, as always, to Patrick and the girls, who give me a zillion reasons to be grateful.

  There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

  —Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

  Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star . . .

  —E. E. Cummings

  Here is the night the world changes, your world changes. The night when certainties are shattered, and you are left with shards of your old truth, hunched over and picking up the broken pieces, wondering that they ever made anything whole. And the pieces are sharp, and the pieces will hurt you again and again and again.

  Here is a bridge. Here is a river. Here is rain and a family and a car: a brown sedan that has seen better days. The leather seats that were a luxury to the original owner are now cracked, tears duct-taped and cold. It is late autumn in Vermont. It is too dark to see this, but you know that the corridor of trees that make a tunnel as you travel down the bumpy dirt road have turned from green to blazing crimson and yellow. That this is the beautiful burst of flames that occurs before everything dies.

  Here, inside the car, the mother, Sylvie, does her lipstick in the greasy mirror in the passenger-side visor. Here is the father, Robert, fiddling with the dial on the radio, attempting to get the game to come in and stay in. The first Celtics game of the season is on and Boston is down by seven against the Cavs after the first quarter. Here are two kids in the backseat. Ruby is nine and Jess is seven. They both have thick mops of brown hair. They both have a pair of startlingly green eyes. They are beautiful children. This is what Sylvie thinks. Robert is more concerned with the boy’s ability to throw balls, with their heights, which he records on the Sheetrock in the unfinished room he is building for Ruby now that she is getting older. They can’t afford the addition, but he also knows that part of his job is to not ask questions. It is to build this room and not complain. His job is to mark the kids’ heights on the wall, to worry about the strength of the boy’s arm. Let their mother be the one to worry about puberty and privacy. Let him just be the father.

  He is preoccupied tonight as he is most nights. When the rain comes, he thinks not about the bald tires, about the bad brakes, but about something his brother said to him while t
hey were snaking a backed-up toilet earlier in the day. You’re your own worst enemy, Bunk said as the electric snake rattled and whirred. What the hell’s that supposed to mean? he’d asked. Nothing. Sorry I said anything. Looks like we got it. Robert’s whole chest was hot with shame and rage, but he just said, Got what? Paper towels, Bunk said. Goddamn people and their goddamn paper towels. It’s like putting cement in the pipes.