She had barely seen his face.

The first time had been accidental; the second time was intentional. After T.J. went out one morning, Louise watched at the window until she was a hundred yards away, a dark figure in the snow. And then she went still: from down the hallway, she thought she could hear low voices coming from Vic Hewitt’s room.

She walked down the hallway, holding her breath, making each footfall lighter than the last. Mr. Hewitt’s door was closed, but not latched; she could see the tiniest crack in it, and she put her face to it, and then nudged the door open, little by little, until she could see inside.

Vic Hewitt lay on top of all the blankets, clad in corduroy pants and a sweater, his long feet bare. He was thin to the point of pain—very different from the tall, broad figure T.J. had pointed to in the black-and-white photograph from early in the last decade. He looked up at the ceiling, blinking.

The voices she had heard, Louise realized, were emanating from a large radio just to the right of his head. An announcer gave a call sign she recognized immediately: WNBZ, out of Saranac Lake. It was the only radio station that reached the town of Shattuck.

She nudged the door open an inch further, straining to hear the news, when suddenly Mr. Hewitt spoke.

“Hello,” he said to her, though he didn’t turn his head.

Louise had not thought he’d heard her.

“Hello,” she said.

“Who are you?”

“Louise,” she said.

Silence.

“Do you need anything?” Louise asked. But he said nothing more, and at last Louise retreated.

•   •   •

While T.J. was out each day, Louise read the books on her shelves, many of which were how-to manuals and guides, but a number of which were classics of American and British literature, the kinds of books Louise had been assigned during her only year in college. She read Walden out of sheer boredom and found herself annoyed by Thoreau: his self-regard, his tone of superiority, the way he doled out advice so obvious as to be insulting. Here was a rich person playing, thought Louise. There were poor people far more resourceful and self-sufficient than he was; they just had the grace and self-awareness not to brag about it.

“Have you read this?” she asked T.J., upon her return, and when T.J. nodded, she shared these feelings aloud.

T.J. was opening cabinets in the kitchen, reaching for pots and pans.

“Oh,” said T.J. “He wasn’t as bad as all that, was he?” But she was smiling, and Louise was convinced that she agreed.

In the evenings, they played cards—Rummy 500, mainly—almost always in silence, until Louise got comfortable and restless enough to begin asking questions about T.J.’s life. Some of these T.J. answered readily; others she dodged. Things T.J. would not talk about included: the Van Laars, the Van Laars’ children, the guests who came to visit the Van Laars. Things T.J. was happy to talk about included: the operation of Camp Emerson, her passion for hunting and fishing, building repair and maintenance, planting schedules, and—most of all—her father. About Vic Hewitt, T.J. was happy to speak at length. She regaled Louise with stories of his smarts, his skillfulness, his quiet humor.

Of all the stories she told, the ones about her father brushed closest to revelations about the Van Laars themselves, because they often involved Vic correcting or preventing some act of mismanagement of the estate itself. But she never used their names, Louise noticed; in fact, T.J. seemed to prefer to pretend that they did not exist.

Every evening, T.J. had exactly one quarter-tumbler of rye whiskey. She always offered some to Louise. The first three nights, she declined, still feeling too raw. But the fourth night, she accepted.

One thing she admired about T.J. was her moderation, when it came to drinking. Always the one small glass, and no more.

She made a note to adopt this habit of T.J.’s. In the future, when she had her own home, when and if she became a mother: if she drank at all, this is how she would drink.

The night Louise took a glass of whiskey into her hands, it loosened her tongue, and she spoke freely, veering into territory she had so far avoided.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked T.J., who laughed into her glass as she said no.

“You’re smart,” said Louise. “Don’t ever get one.”

“I won’t,” said T.J. “Promise.” With one finger, she drew a little X across her chest. Louise could tell T.J. thought she was funny—intentionally or not. It brought out in Louise the desire to clown a little, to be egged on—a part of her that was close to extinguished. With John Paul, she always had to be the straight man.

“Where do you want to be,” said Louise, “ten years from now?”

“Are you interviewing me?” T.J. leaned back in her chair, knees wide, chin lowered, cards pointing at the floor.

“Yeah,” said Louise. And repeated the question, this time holding an invisible microphone in her hands, which she then swung in T.J.’s direction.

“Aright,” said T.J. She put her hand of cards facedown on the table. “I’d like to be up north. I’d like to be living off the land. I think I’d like to try that for a while.”

“By yourself?” said Louise, into her invisible microphone.

T.J. nodded.

“In a house? A tent? A cave?”

T.J. was laughing now. “Put your microphone away,” she said.

Louise shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t, ma’am,” she said. “My producers won’t allow it.”

“Who are your producers?”

“Mike and—Chuck.” Louise picked up the nearly empty glass of whiskey in her unoccupied hand and finished it off. She wanted more. Something was happening in her belly that she recognized as desire. It startled her. She had never wanted a woman before, not really, but T.J. was registering to her as something different from a man or a woman, something altogether separate from those terms. She had an interesting face, high cheekbones, and full lips and a strong jaw. She had broad shoulders and a thin, tall build. How old was she? Based on the picture she’d produced, and some math—late twenties, most likely. Maybe five or six years older than she was. Older, too, than John Paul.

“Aright,” said T.J. “I’ll talk. But this is off the record.”

She stood abruptly and walked toward the kitchen, speaking as she went.

“I’ve got a cabin on a lake up north. Inside the park,” said T.J.

She opened and closed a cabinet. Returned to the living room with the bottle of whiskey, which she poured for herself. It was the first night she had had any more to drink than her quarter-glass, but it did not alarm Louise: instead it enlivened her, sent a little shiver of energy up her spine. She held her own glass out for more.

“My people built it a long time ago. Been in the family since,” said T.J. She walked to the wall, where the map of the Adirondack Park had been hung. She pointed to a little lake fifty miles to the north; a tack marked the spot. Then she returned and sat down in her place across from Louise. Left the whiskey on the table between them.

“We used to go up there twice a year for hunting. Me and my dad. It’s not much to speak of, but it’s got four walls and a roof and a stove for winter. You can only get to it by canoe, and first you’ve got to portage the canoe through a mile-long trail that’s gotten pretty overgrown by now.”

“It’s on an island?” said Louise.

T.J. nodded.

“Why’d they build it on an island?”

“Good fishing,” said T.J. “And a good vantage point.”

“Against the Indians?” Louise had heard stories most of her life about the Algonquins and Iroquois who came through the region for hunting. None of them had permanently settled and farmed the Adirondacks; Europeans had been the fools who were first to do so, lured there by overcrowding in New England and a government lie about plentiful arable land.

“No,” said T.J., looking at her strangely. “For hunting.”