With the trials over, I could finally focus on the part I had been dreaming about since the beginning: my book. Harbor Press, the publisher who had signed me during the civil trial, moved up the publication date for *The Lighthouse Keeper's Widow*. They gave it a beautiful cover — a lighthouse at dusk, a woman in a yellow raincoat on the shore, the same image Dana had stolen, now restored to its rightful owner. They sent me on a small book tour: Bar Harbor, Bangor, Portland, Boston, New York. At every stop, women came up to me, hugged me, told me their own stories of being underestimated, overlooked, stolen from. One woman in Boston, about my age, whispered, "I gave up writing when I was thirty because someone told me my stories didn't matter. You made me pick up my pen again." I cried in the car after that event, happy tears, the kind I had almost forgotten how to cry.
The book did well. Not #1-on-the-charts, overnight-sensation well — but steadily, honestly well. It sold 40,000 copies in its first six months, which for a first-time traditionally published author in her late fifties is a wonderful result. It got reviewed in real newspapers, by real critics, who praised its "quiet power" and its "unflinching honesty." It was nominated for a Maine literary award. It did not make me a millionaire — the court damages had already done that, in a way I never wanted — but it made me something better: a real author, with my name on the cover, with my story inside, with readers who knew who had written it.
Sophie's memoir was published, too. Harbor Press signed her as well, after hearing her story, and they published her memoir under her own name, with the original title she had chosen years ago: *The Blue Bicycle*. It sold well, and Sophie used the money to quit the diner for good, move to Bar Harbor, and start writing her second book — a novel, this time, entirely her own. Grace Ellery's book was republished under her name as well, and she started a support group for writers who had been plagiarized, which now has hundreds of members across the country. The three of us — Sophie, Grace, and I — became something like sisters, bound not by blood, but by what we had survived and what we had built from it.
I also started something of my own: a small foundation, funded with part of my damages, called the Lighthouse Fund, which provides free legal help to writers who cannot afford a lawyer when their work is stolen. In its first year, the fund helped eleven writers, and won nine of their cases. I think about Tom, about how he used to say my writing would matter someday, and I think he would be proud — not just of the book, but of the fund, of the women it helps, of the fact that something good grew out of something so ugly. I keep his old watch on my desk when I write, and sometimes, when the light is right in my kitchen, I swear I can hear him say, "See, Nora? I told you so."
