Ashes to Asheville

  “Got it,” Jane says, wiggling the doorknob to make sure it’s really locked. “That ought to hold.” I think about how many times she’s had to say something similar, carefully arranging paperwork in favor of adopting her children, making promises to her fellow parent with no legal weight, and wiggling them to make sure they’ll hold. I think of how her family lacks the protection of a family just now starting a similar journey. I think about how it’s families like Jane’s, quietly living their lives, that have pushed for a more fair circumstance for other families across the nation.

  “Thanks,” I say, not just for fixing the door, but for being one of the families who helped open doors for everyone.

  Acknowledgments

  I’m extremely grateful to a lot of people for their help with the crazy road trip that has been Ashes to Asheville. Stacey Barney, Kate Meltzer, and the folks at Putnam are skilled mechanics wielding an arsenal of tools and talent, and the book starts up and runs thanks to their work. Laura Langlie paints the road signs and makes sure I can find them, pointing out the turns when I’m driving in the dark.

  At the stops for gas or pie or coffee, I’ve met fellow travelers. There are Stacie, Matt, and the kids; Carrie and her girls; Jane and the VanCross kids, particularly the book’s very first kid reader, Ashley; a smattering of Huntington writers; and of course Jill and Caroline, Teri, Michael, Alexis, Bev, Mike, John, Jessica, Shanna, and all the others who are driving different cars in a similar direction. As long as we’re on the road together, we’re all less likely to be lost.

  And in my car, there are two patient parents, Mark and Kate, who manage not to turn the car around despite the shenanigans in the back. A niece and a nephew with map-reading and time-budgeting skills that surpass the lot of us, in charge of the itinerary. And two sisters, Heather and Jennifer, who have grown up to be confident, witty, and wise sources of strength and inspiration . . . no matter what shape I thought their heads were when I was six. (For the record, their heads were flat rocks. Also, it’s their fault I can’t spell encyclopedia.) I love you both to absolute bits.

  John McCoy

  Sarah Dooley is the critically acclaimed author of Free Verse. She has lived in an assortment of small West Virginia towns, each of which she grew to love. Winner of the 2012 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, she has written two additional novels for middle-grade readers, Body of Water and Livvie Owen Lived Here. Sarah is a former special education teacher who now provides treatment to children with autism. She lives in Huntington, West Virginia, where she inadvertently collects cats. She’s a 2006 graduate of Marshall University.

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