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Anita novels always end like an avalanche. I know the end is coming. It makes a lot of noise and is a half-exhilarating, half-frightening ride. The books end in exhaustion and a daze. Merry’s books are like spring. It comes in fits and starts — a crocus followed by more snow. You thought it was spring, but it fooled you. Then one day, when you’ve stopped thinking that this sign, or that, must mean spring is truly here, you find the yard is a river of purple violets and spring has come at last. I finished MISTRAL’S KISS just now, seconds before. I didn’t know until yesterday that I might be this close to the end. I didn’t know until earlier today that I might actually finish this day. Twenty-two pages, an end line I’m happy with, and we’re done. It’s a book, yippee-skippy. I promised myself that the day after I finished if it were in the middle of the week I would take the next day off. I told Jon that if I finished we’d take tomorrow off. He said, what will we do. I told him, I just gave myself permission to take a day off, beyond that, I didn’t know. Maybe we can do a movie, or lie in bed all day, or do something I haven’t thought of. Sometimes I take the day after I finish a book off because I am so exhausted I can’t think, or function. But this is the first time I can remember in all these years that I’ve just given myself permission to take a day and celebrate that the book is done.