Invisible Girl. Erica Orloff

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      Also by TESS HUDSON

      DOUBLE DOWN

      And writing as ERICA ORLOFF

      DO THEY WEAR HIGH HEELS IN HEAVEN?

      MAFIA CHIC

      THE ROOFER

      DIVAS DON’T FAKE IT

      DIARY OF A BLUES GODDESS

      SPANISH DISCO

      Invisible Girl

      Tess Hudson

      

www.mirabooks.co.uk

      With great love, to my mother, Maryanne

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      A long time ago I was befriended by a Vietnam-era veteran who taught me a great deal about writing and art and even faith. I was an impressionable twenty years old at the time, and I glimpsed a different side of the war from what I remembered on the evening news when I was a little girl. I owe a great deal of the imagery of this book to Ed. Far away, but still in my thoughts.

      As always, I thank my agent, Jay Poynor, for his support. And I especially must thank, from the bottom of my heart, my editor Margaret Marbury. For some reason, I have never written about the mother-daughter relationship, always choosing in my books to write about fathers and daughters. Margaret urged me to add the character of Mai, and when that happened, it was like a dam bursting. This novel is really the story of mothers and daughters and bonds that are never broken.

      I must thank my own mother, whose friendship is one of my adult life’s most precious gifts. I also pause to remember my grandmother, Irene Cunningham, whose absence never stops being a great emptiness in my heart. I also want to thank Alexa, Nicholas, Isabella and Jack…by loving my children so totally, the story of Mai was able to come to life.

      My father…somehow his stories of Manhattan are always interwoven in my books. This one is no exception.

      My sister Stacey Groome is one of my biggest cheerleaders. She has read every one of my books, and I am so lucky to have her as a friend.

      Other family and friends: my sister Jessica, Kathy J., Kathy L., Nancy, Cleo, Pammie.

      I’d like to acknowledge the wonderful team at MIRA, my publisher. I especially love my cover. Thank you to Sasha Bogin for her insights and editorial direction, and for her enthusiasm for this book. And the members of Writers’ Cramp. I began this novel three times, always agonizing about weaving the past and present. Jon, especially, encouraged me to travel deeper into the past and into Vietnam and Laos as I wrote, and the book is better for it.

      Finally, I would like to acknowledge J. D. He patiently let me read aloud to him, and felt every tear and heartbreak that my characters did. I love you.

      If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him.

      —Buddha

      In war, truth is the first casualty.

      —Aeschylus

      We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.

      —Jimmy Carter

      How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

      —Lao Tzu

      I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

      —George McGovern

      Contents

       Prologue

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-One

       Chapter Thirty-Two

       Chapter Thirty-Three

       Chapter Thirty-Four

       Chapter