• • •
The house in Hempstead is exactly as Tracy left it at the start of the summer. Silver front gate, astroturf lawn, artificial flowers in plastic window boxes beneath each of the two front windows.
And her mother—her mother is sitting on the front steps, head high, waiting for the two of them to arrive.
The Blackhawk roars to a stop in the driveway, and Molly Jewell stands up.
Tracy jumps out of the car, and runs to her mother—her kind, funny mother, who has always been exactly herself, who makes no attempt to be anyone or anything she isn’t.
With a jolt, Tracy realizes whom she reminds her of.
“Oh, Tracy,” says her mother. “I’m so sorry about your friend. It sounds like she meant a lot to you.”
“She does,” says Tracy.
How, wonders Tracy, will she ever explain to her mother how her life was changed by a person she knew for two months?
Her father, having unloaded the car, now clears his throat awkwardly.
“Good to see you, Molly,” he says. She nods.
He hugs Tracy, and then he is gone, leaving Tracy and her mother standing in the driveway with all of her things from Camp Emerson. This, she understands, is how things will be for the rest of her childhood: the two of them, together. The two of them, alone.
She’ll see her father again at his wedding to Donna Romano, and at holidays where, for each of the three years afterward, a new baby half-sibling will appear. She will make conversation. She’ll be polite. But they won’t be her family, not anymore. The only family she has left stands beside her.
“Mom,” says Tracy. “Have you ever heard of punk music?”
“No,” says her mother. “Will you tell me about it?”
• • •
The sky above Hempstead is growing dim. Tracy thinks of Barbara Van Laar. Wonders if she’s alive, if she’s seeing the same sky, three hundred miles to the north.
She pictures Barbara’s strong limbs, her upright steady head, her skillfulness in water and in woods. She pictures Barbara as she was on the Survival Trip: building a tent, building a fire, bringing back food for them. Keeping everyone alive.
And she knows—or believes, at least—that Barbara is still in the world.
Judyta
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975 | September 1975
In her Beetle, Judy pulls into the driveway of her parents’ home in Schenectady. She sits for a moment, preparing herself.
It’s a Saturday, and she knows precisely what they’ll be doing: Inside, her mother will be vacuuming while her father dusts. Her brothers will be changing lightbulbs, or doing other odd jobs that their parents have requested of them. It’s the same thing they’ve done every Saturday for as long as she can remember. For years, she would have been working alongside them, folding laundry, making beds. Only this Saturday, Judy is, for the first time, a visitor.
A month ago, she moved all of her things out of her childhood bedroom and into a tiny rental a few miles from headquarters at Ray Brook. She had no help doing so; her father, upon her arrival, had nodded once in her direction, and then left the house.
• • •
Now she gets up out of the car. Closes the door. The noise brings her brother Leonard to the door.
Seeing her, he calls backward into the house. “Ma.”
Judy enters the house, and Leonard hugs her.
The sound of the vacuum, ceasing. “What is it?” her mother calls.
Leonard grins.
“The Nation’s First has returned.”
• • •
Ten minutes later, all the Luptacks sit at the kitchen table. Her mother has set out tea. Her father, the last to arrive, stirs sugar into his cup, clears his throat. All of them are silent, until Leonard says, “We saw your name in the paper again.”
Judy looks up.
“You did?”
Leonard nods. Stands up from the table. Returns with a sheet in his hands: another clipped article from the Times Union.
She takes it into her hands, and reads.
• • •
Van Laars Indicted, reads the headline. Beneath it, a subhead: Original Suspect Posthumously Cleared.
The story continues.
