“Who else would I be engaged to?”
Jesse would not meet her eye.
“Jesse?” said Louise.
Jesse stood. Brought his plate to the sink.
“Well, aren’t you going to say congratulations?”
“Congratulations,” said Jesse. And then he walked out of the kitchen, leaving Louise alone.
“Promise me, Jesse,” said Louise, calling after him. “No more pot.” But she could tell that any authority she had once had with him was diminished, or lost entirely.
VI
Survival
Judyta
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day Two
Her alarm is sounding.
Judy opens her eyes, then closes them again. Just for a moment, she thinks.
“FOR CHRISSAKE, JUDY!” comes the cry from the other room. Her brother, incensed. “IT’S FOUR THIRTY IN THE MORNING!”
Her day begins.
• • •
She needs to move out. She knows this. She has the funds; she just needs the guts to tell her parents she’ll be breaking an unspoken rule. Among the Polish families of Schenectady, New York, a girl who moves out of the home before marriage is odd at best; a scandal at worst.
Last year, with her own money, she purchased a green VW Super Beetle with a sunroof. It was expensive—and impractical, her father said—but it gives her a feeling of independence. And it has a nice radio, an upgrade she’s now glad she insisted on; it keeps her awake for the two hours of her commute to the Preserve.
• • •
At seven, when she arrives, she finds that she’s beaten Denny Hayes to work. Technically, B-tour starts at eight a.m., which means she has an hour to prepare for the day.
A trooper dozes lightly in a folding chair outside the Director’s Cabin, now the Command Post.
Judy puts her hand on the wrought-iron handle, depresses it, and opens the door before the trooper opens his eyes.
“Morning,” Judy says.
“Oh,” says the trooper, rousing himself. “Badge?”
• • •
Overnight, the Command Post has been better established. The existing furniture has been cleared to the sides of the room, or pushed into the kitchen; a few folding tables and chairs have been brought in in their place.
A large chalkboard on wheels is pressed against one wall.
On it, someone has drawn a chalk line down the middle. On the left of the line, at the top, is written Bear Van Laar. On the right of the line: Barbara.
For a while, Judy stands in the center of the place, turning.
The walls are decorated with small prints of dogs undertaking various humanlike pursuits: playing poker and hunting and courting one another. The pictures have wrinkled and withered from their long battle with the dampness of the lake-adjacent air. The whole house looks as if it was decorated carefully and thoughtfully thirty years before, and then never once touched. A time capsule from the Second World War.
The only framed image that isn’t dog-related is a map of the Adirondack Park. In it, someone has inserted a tack right where Self-Reliance sits, on the bank of Lake Joan, close to Hunt Mountain.
A filing cabinet—brought in by the BCI, she guesses—sits in a corner, next to a few crates of folders, paper, pens—and bankers boxes. Five of them. Labeled with words she can’t read from across the room.
Judy, alone in the Command Post, walks in that direction. Bends down.
Peter “Bear” Van Laar IV, reads the lettering on the box.
She lifts the lid. For the next hour, she reads the documents inside.
At the bottom are dozens of photographs. Several are of Bear from what must have been the year before his disappearance. Here, he grins from ear to ear, holding up a fish he’s caught; here, he looks off pensively into the distance, hand in hand with a woman Judy recognizes as his mother.
Against her will, Judy finds herself fighting tears, swallowing the tight knot forming in her throat. Something in Mrs. Van Laar’s expression reminds her of her own mother, who loves her children so fiercely that it sometimes feels like a weight.
At 7:50, Judy places the material back in order, puts the lid on the box, just before Captain LaRochelle enters the Command Post.
• • •
The first thing he does at morning briefing is point to the chalkboard—where both children’s names have been written.
