Then she moved her finger down on the photograph, to a boy of ten or so, sitting cross-legged on the ground in the front row. He was blond, and grinning impishly, one shoulder angled lower than the other.

“Recognize him?” she said.

Louise did, vaguely, but she didn’t know why.

“That’s your boyfriend,” said T.J.

Louise inclined her head. Spread open the swollen eyelid. Her eye was tearing now. She was trying to find an angle that would let her see more clearly.

Sure enough: that was John Paul. She’d seen a picture of him at that age, on the desk of his room at Union College. In the picture he’d been standing with another boy. She had only asked him about it once, and he’d brushed it off. “An old friend,” he’d said.

“John Paul McLellan,” said T.J. now. Pondering something, it sounded like. Remembering something—unpleasant.

“How did you know he was my boyfriend?” Louise asked.

“How do you think you got this job?” T.J. said.

That quieted her for a bit. She didn’t like to think of herself as someone with connections. Everything she’d ever gotten, she’d earned for herself—until she met John Paul.

“I always hated him,” said T.J. “Wasn’t my choice to hire you. It was the family’s.”

Then she stood up abruptly and walked again down the hallway. Only this time she did not return.

•   •   •

Louise set the picture on the low table in front of her. Thought for a bit.

A moment later she picked it up again.

1961, said the writing on the back: that would have been the year the Van Laars’ son went missing.

She inspected the picture more carefully. There were twelve people in the back row; fourteen in the middle row, including T.J. and her father standing off to one side; and ten in the front row of children seated on the ground. On one side of John Paul was a girl who was most likely his sister, Marnie, a frown on her face, annoyed by something—the same expression she’d worn when Louise came to dinner.

But on the other side of John Paul was something more interesting: a little boy was there, just a bit younger than John Paul. Eight or so. He was smiling broadly, had both arms in the air. A woman in the row behind him—his mother, Louise assumed—was clutching his hands and smiling down at him, her head lowered in his direction.

She recognized him, suddenly, in two separate ways.

This was the boy in the picture on John Paul’s desk. An old friend, he had said. He wouldn’t tell her more.

This was Bear Van Laar, the family’s missing son, the subject of so many whispered stories at Camp Emerson. She had never seen a picture of him.

The fire behind her cracked loudly, and she jumped.

•   •   •

In the morning, she woke to find the photo gone, and her host holding out the telephone to her.

“What time is it?” Louise asked.

“Ten thirty. You slept well.”

“Shit,” said Louise. “Shit.”

She was due back at the Garnet Hill Lodge by noon. She still had the staff car—which had no gas in it.

Louise jumped up, wincing. She began feeling for her boots.

“Louise,” said T.J., calmly. “Think a minute.”

“I gotta go,” said Louise. “I gotta work.”

“What are you gonna tell them when they see your face looking like that?”

Louise paused. “I was night skiing. And I ran into a tree.”

“Well, they’re not gonna let you work like that,” said T.J. “And you shouldn’t be driving with your eye swollen shut. So you might as well call in with that excuse instead of delivering it live.”

Louise had never called out of work in her life. It was a point of pride to her. It was one of the things T.J. sensed about her, she thought; one of the reasons T.J. liked her.

“Go on,” said T.J. “I give you permission.”

They were interrupted by a sudden coughing from down the hallway: loud enough to make Louise jump.

“Oh,” said T.J. “That’s Dad. I should have told you he was here.”

“He lives with you?” said Louise. Last summer, she had learned that the former director was still living, if deposed; but she had never once spotted him on the grounds.

“He does,” says T.J.

Louise considered. “If I stay here, and you go out,” she said, “will he need anything from me?”

“No,” said T.J. “We’ve got a pretty good system. I come back in once or twice a day to tend to him. He’s fine on his own, otherwise. Doesn’t need much.”

Louise said nothing.

“You look scared,” said T.J., grinning. “He’s shy, but he doesn’t bite.”

•   •   •

Louise stayed at T.J.’s for a week. Because T.J. tended to her father only in his room—bringing him soft food on a tea tray, and then returning twenty minutes later with an empty bowl—Louise intersected with Vic Hewitt only twice: the first time, she came out of the bathroom after a shower to find T.J. emerging with her father from his room. Walking behind the old man, she supported him carefully: arms beneath armpits, hands clasped tightly at his front.

Louise gasped, before she could stop herself, and then said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

There was something so intimate about the moment that Louise felt guilty for even seeing it. She put her head down.

“You’re all right,” said T.J., “but get out of the way so I can bring him in there.”

And Louise backed into the other bedroom, allowing them to pass.