“I’d made my choices by then.”
“Why did you have the affair?” I ask.
“You have to ease into these interviews, Charlie. That’s a big question, and not one I can answer at midnight.”
“How about one clue,” I say.
“Good marriages don’t end. And bad marriages don’t have a good guy and a bad guy. We all play our parts. I played mine, and so did your father.”
“You make it sound like Dad had an affair, too,” I say.
My mother rolls on her side and looks as if she might say more but stops herself. “Enough memory lane for one night,” she says.
This was a good start, better than I’d hoped for after what happened earlier. “You’ll get used to the recorder after we’ve talked a few times,” I say. “Eventually, you’ll forget it’s there.”
“I doubt that.”
“Paul came to the firepit tonight. He talked about those moments before, when the world was one way, and all the choices he could have made.”
“You can’t change the past,” my mother says. “No matter how much you wish you could. We walked through a door that night. What came before was a different lifetime. And what’s followed, we’ve muddled through.”
I stand to leave. “At the firepit, Paul told me to cut out the evil before it takes root, to eliminate the darkest parts. That’s what this project’s about for me, eliminating the dark so I can come toward the light.”
I turn to say good night. My mother stares after me, as if she’s seen a ghost, or as though I’ve spent the evening making her relive her worst moment. “I’m sorry,” I say.
She shakes her head. “For what?” she asks. “You have a right to know your story and to understand who your father was. I should have told you about him a long time ago. You can ask me anything, Charlie. I’ll tell you what I can. Get some sleep. I’ll be gone in the morning at a site visit near Finstock, but we can talk when I’m back. There’s something important I want to tell you.”
I could press her to tell me now, but I get the sense if I push too hard, my mother will shut down. She’ll tell her story at her own pace. I stop in the doorway, not ready to leave. “Why did he do it?” I ask.
My mother flicks off her bedside lamp. “When you find the answer, let me know.”
If I’ve learned anything tonight, it’s that we’ve each been asking the same questions for years. Maybe we can find the answers together.
A moment later, I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying tonight’s conversations. When I finally sleep, I dream of rocking in a rowboat, of paper lanterns floating against a darkened sky, and of my brother’s frightened heart beating against mine.
Chapter Eight
I wake with the sun. In the light of day, last night’s events—the questions I asked, the secrets I kept, the relationships I risked—feel reckless, as though I approached a truth I’m not sure I want to find. I remember my brother sitting by the fire, transported to his worst night. I think about my mother and the secret she promised to reveal. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear whatever she has to say. I slip out of bed and creep down the hallway to where her room is empty, her bed unmade. She must have already left for the site visit in Finstock.
Back in my room, I stare at my phone. The podcast had seemed like a good idea in theory when Julian proposed it. I’d gotten a thrill from the advice to dig deep, to follow the emotion, and believed exposing my family’s hidden truths would make me feel whole. I’d also hoped the podcast would take off and be good for my career in the way Julian’s series about the Boston Strangler had jump-started his own.
But this morning, I’m not so sure anymore.
I type a text to Julian—??I may scrap the podcast. Sorry??—and stare at the screen, my thumb hovering over the send button. Despite my misgivings, I’m not actually ready to abort the project, though I’ll see how I feel later, after I speak with my mother. I keep the unsent message on the screen, turn the phone face down, and leave it behind as I change into my running gear and make my way down the stairs and through the Ping-Pong room. When I get outside, my breath freezes in the coldair. Spring in New Hampshire can be fickle, and the long, lazy days of summer are a month off.
After stretching, I take off at a slow pace, across the island, over the footbridge to the parking area, where I notice Reid’s Audi hasn’t returned from wherever he escaped to last night. I’ll text him an apology when I get back to the cottage. I jog along the shore and onto a path through the woods. A half mile later, I emerge at Burkehaven in the next cove, with its idle construction equipment and half-built house.
Heading inland, I run by the VW-size boulder marking the fork in the road, then past the bungalow where Hadley’s staying. Eventually, I cut onto a dirt road by a white farmhouse set back among maple trees, where Paul’s car is parked outside a red sugarhouse. This is Burkehaven Farm, where Paul grew up, living here in the farmhouse during the offseason, and at the cabin on Burkehaven Cove during the summer. Fieldstone walls and hiking paths crisscross the farm, including a trailhead I come upon that follows a swollen brook up into the foothills.
I run most mornings. It’s the one thing I’m good at. I competed on a national level in prep school and kept at it through college. Now I push myself as the trail steepens and my breathing grows heavy. Sweat pours from my face and my thighs burn. I reach a fork in the trail, one way leading to Miller Pond, two miles off, and the other to the Ridge Trail, which I follow until the path levels out on a field dotted with wooden posts. This is a remnant of an old firing range where parents would send their kids to shoot at aluminum cans with BB guns. (“Different times,” Hadley would say if she were here now.)
My breathing steadies. I increase my speed, sprinting the last mile, until I emerge at an overlook perched above Hero Lake.
Here, an abandoned hunting cabin with broken windows and a caved-in roof has begun to return to nature. Below, the lake spans almost to the horizon, the coves and inlets forming a kind of inkblot among the trees. I catch my breath, then stretch toward the sky before working my way through a routine of push-ups and squats. This is my special place, one I look forward to visiting for the first time each year.
I take another cleansing breath and settle further into myself.
Today I’ll make things right. I’ll meet Seton at the Landing for a drink. I’ll apologize to Reid. I’ll listen to whatever my mother has to tell me, and if I decide to scrap the podcast, I’ll explain the decision to Julian in a way he’ll understand. Maybe he’ll be relieved not to have to serve as a mentor.
