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Skander decided to leave, saying that he felt obliged to tell the other staff and faculty members—those who hadn’t left for the Thanksgiving break. The students were bound to be terribly upset. “Ruth Standish has gone down to Boston and poor Clifford is dead. We’ve no counselors, no one who’s been properly trained, except you, of course.” He nodded toward Hawthorne. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t have to engage grief counselors. Who knows where the money will come from?” He buttoned his coat. “I’ll call Hamilton Burke; perhaps he can make a suggestion. And perhaps he can also deal with the press. Poor man, as if he didn’t have enough to do.”

As Skander walked toward the door, Jessica Weaver came hurrying in. She had tried to get in earlier but Purvis had kept her out. Now Purvis was engaged with Chief Moulton.

“Where’s Lucky?” she said anxiously. “They said outside my kitten was here.” She wore a red down jacket. It was speckled with snow and snow was caught in her hair. Seeing her kitten in Kate’s arms, she ran to it and took it gently. “Oh, I thought it was dead.” She hugged the kitten to her face, kissing it, and the kitten squeaked. “It must be starved.”

“How did it get out?” asked Hawthorne.

Jessica unzipped her jacket and slipped the kitten under it. “I don’t know. I went to Thanksgiving dinner and when I came back it was gone. I thought it was a trick. I mean, my door was locked. I’ve been looking everywhere. Scott once told me that someone would probably try to hang it and I was scared. I was even looking at tree branches. But now she’s safe, or he, I’m still not sure.”

“Did you see Scott at Thanksgiving dinner?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Everything is so awful. Poor Scott.” The kitten’s orange head was sticking out from the crack in Jessica’s jacket. It kept mewing over and over. “You see how hungry it is? It wants me to feed it.”

Hawthorne told her to go back to her room and take care of the cat. Kate and Alice Beech were talking together, then Kate said, “Scott must have taken the kitten. He must have been going to play some trick.”

“Perhaps,” said Hawthorne.

“But he certainly wouldn’t hurt it,” said the nurse.

At every pause in the conversation, Hawthorne could once again feel the rubbery coldness of the boy’s skin. Early in the fall he had asked Scott if he wanted to join the swim team.

“I don’t like getting wet,” Scott had said.

But that didn’t answer the question of whether or not the boy could swim.

Shortly, Hawthorne left the gym and headed back to Emerson Hall, meaning to talk to Frank LeBrun. It was a little before six and he assumed Frank would be in the kitchen. It was dark and the snow fell heavily, a mass of white flakes caught in the security lights, swirling yellow and white, a vortex of shiny particles. Away from the light the snow became a shadow in the air between Hawthorne and the looming shapes of Adams and Emerson Halls, where most of the windows were dark. Hawthorne buried his hands in the pockets of his coat. He wore no hat. The snow from earlier in the week had been plowed from the paths, but now several more inches had fallen and it shifted and blew around his feet as he scuffed through it. At least a foot covered the ground. He wondered how much more could fall. He had heard that in some winters, the really bad ones, there had been three hundred inches, though surely that wasn’t all at once. But three feet of standing snow wasn’t unusual, and a few times each winter the school would be cut off for a day or two—no phone, no electricity—before the snowplows could get around to clearing the road. Once, two years earlier—so he’d been told—it had snowed so hard that not even Jeeps and cars with four-wheel drive could get through, although usually such conditions didn’t last long, no more than a day.

When Purvis had come to fetch Hawthorne with a garbled story about a boy in the water, Hawthorne had run out without his hat or scarf, even without putting on his boots. Now snow got into his shoes and his socks were wet. More snow got down the collar of his overcoat and fell onto his hair. His ears stung with cold. Having come east from San Diego, he hadn’t seen snow in over three years. Often at Ingram House in the Berkshires there was snow, but never as much as in northern New Hampshire—there were not the great drifts, the roads indistinguishable from the fields around them, the trees under their white cloaks. Hawthorne felt a shiver of claustrophobia as he imagined being unable to get away from Bishop’s Hill, the snow heaped halfway up the windows and the wind pushing its way through the cracks. Then he slipped on the walkway and lost his balance. As he twisted to regain his footing, the bandages pulled on his shoulder and he felt a stab of pain.

Hawthorne had liked Scott. More than liked. He had admired Scott’s energy and rebellion, even when the boy exasperated him. Hawthorne had taken pleasure in the wiry intensity of his body, his tireless curiosity. It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t see Scott in class on Monday or see him in the halls. Three times in the fall Scott had come to Hawthorne to take him up on his offer to go for a drive so Scott could smoke a cigarette. Hawthorne would take one of the dirt roads along the edge of the mountain—the trees changing and full of color the first time, then the leaves brown and falling, then the trees bare and skeletal. Through the trees were the bluffs and cliff faces that attracted climbers from all over New England. Scott would crack jokes and tell Hawthorne the harmless gossip, the gossip that wouldn’t get anyone in trouble: boys and girls with crushes on one another, not who had been drinking or smoking dope. After forty-five minutes or so, Hawthorne would drive back to the school, feeling more content than before he had left, feeling that his work at Bishop’s Hill wasn’t so terrible after all. Now he would have to call Scott’s parents and tell them the boy was dead.

The dishes of food for dinner already stood on the heated serving tables—turkey casserole, green beans and mounds of mashed potatoes, small white pitchers of gravy and, of course, bread. Shiny aluminum pitchers of water stood on a shelf by the entrance to the dining hall and two students were carrying baskets of bread through the swinging doors. The kitchen was warm and smelled of apples and cinnamon from the pies that LeBrun was taking from the oven.

“Only thirty-five tonight,” he called as he saw Hawthorne come through the back door and pause to stamp his feet on the mat and brush the snow from his coat. “A piece of cake. You going to be eating as well? There’s a place set.”

Hawthorne took off his coat and hung it from a hook. The two older women who worked part-time in the kitchen were putting dishes into the dishwasher and scrubbing the pots. There was a small white plastic radio in the corner but it was unplugged.

LeBrun had baked eight apple pies and was setting them on the counter to cool. Hawthorne walked up to him. “Any news about your cousin? Do you have any idea where Larry could have gone?”

LeBrun looked bewildered and his eyebrows went up. “It took me by complete surprise. He’d gotten a call, I don’t know who from, right here in the kitchen on Monday night. It upset him. He said he had problems, but he didn’t say what they were. Hell, I didn’t know he meant to take off. I didn’t even know he was gone till I came in the next morning to make breakfast. I figured he’d overslept. I ran over to his apartment. His drawers were pulled out and there were clothes on the floor. He’d packed a bag and split.”

“And his door was unlocked?”

“Larry never locks anything. He’d even leave the kitchen wide open if I didn’t remind him. Tell you the truth, my feelings were hurt. I thought we were close enough that he’d let me know if anything was bothering him. I don’t know, I’m still feeling down about it.”

“Did you hear that a boy drowned in the pool?” asked Hawthorne.

Now LeBrun appeared shocked. He took a step backward and his eyes widened. “Shit, you’re kidding me. I didn’t even know it was open.”

“It wasn’t. I don’t know how he got in.”

“Who was it?”

“Scott McKinnon. Did you know him?”

LeBrun’s narrow brow wrinkled. “Wasn’t he a tall kid?”

“No, he was quite small.” He described Scott—small for his age, an eighth grader, thirteen years old, red hair, freckles. As he described the boy, Scott’s face came vividly to mind. A nice kid, he thought, a kid who shouldn’t be dead.

“I don’t know,” said LeBrun, “sounds familiar. I’m not sure I can place him. Was he in the chorus?”

“I don’t believe so.” Hawthorne went on to describe what had happened, how Purvis had come running to find him about two hours earlier, and how Scott appeared to have been in the pool for quite a while. He didn’t mention the kitten.

LeBrun’s thin face continued to express dismay. “And you just got back from seeing your friend, right? Damn, what a shame.” He wiped his hands on his white apron.

“Anyway,” said Hawthorne, “the police are here and they’ll probably talk to you. They’ll want to talk to everyone.” It occurred to him that LeBrun had been more upset when Evings had died.

“I don’t know if I want them in here,” said LeBrun, beginning to fidget.

“I expect there’ll be only one man. You can talk to him anywhere you want. The police will probably ask about Larry as well, about his family. They live in Manchester?”

“Sure, I can give them all that stuff. I don’t mind talking to them unless they get rude. I don’t like rude.”

“You need to be patient, in any case.”

“Yeah, well, maybe.”

Hawthorne glanced at the apple pies. They made him hungry. “I’m sorry you’ve got this extra burden. You work hard enough without doing Larry’s job as well. I’ll make some calls tonight and try to get someone to help you.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I just have to move faster, that’s all.” LeBrun appeared pleased. He looked down at the floor and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Then he grinned.

—

Hawthorne had driven down to Concord early on Thanksgiving. It had been a bright, sunny morning but cold, and the sunlight reflecting off the fresh snow sparkled so fiercely that Hawthorne needed his dark glasses. There were few cars on the interstate and no trucks, but the people he passed or who passed him seemed unusually cheerful. One little girl waved and waved to him from the rear window of a red Volvo station wagon. The closer he got to Concord, the less snow there seemed to be.

Driving to see Krueger, Hawthorne found it impossible not to think of other Thanksgivings they had shared in Boston when Meg and Lily were alive. And it was for this reason that Hawthorne had almost refused the invitation. But he told himself that he had to force his life forward even if he didn’t wish to. He knew that part of him wanted to make himself suffer, the part that kept reminding him of how he had been late that night coming back to Wyndham, how he might have run faster down the burning hallway, if only he had been less afraid.

Against this was the memory of putting his hand against Kate’s cheek, just that, the night he’d gone over to her house—he could feel its soft coolness under his palm even still. And Kate had taken his hand and kissed it. As he drove down to Concord the memory gave him a little thrill of pleasure. He knew that if he was going to move beyond the events in his past, then Kate might be able to help him.

Yet how could she not despise him? Here he professed to love his wife and daughter and yet he’d had sex with another woman in a parked car. Looking back, Hawthorne felt amazed by his hubris. He had been director of one of the most prestigious treatment centers in the country. His articles were taught in clinical psychology classes in dozens of universities. Specialists from around the world had come to Wyndham to see how well the school worked. Give the kids responsibility, he had said, give them things to care about. Let them earn their independence. Help them feel connected to their surroundings, feel a sense of belonging, obligation, and love. And it worked. Kids left Wyndham to lead successful lives. And when Claire had turned to him in the car, she was just one more gift that the world was giving him. Then came the fire that would destroy Hawthorne’s theories and end his life.

Kevin Krueger and his wife lived in a small white Victorian with a wraparound front porch, the corner house on a quiet street a mile west of the capitol building. Hawthorne had arrived around eleven and already the house smelled rich with spices and cooking. Although Hawthorne wanted to ask Krueger’s advice about Bishop’s Hill and describe what had happened, he didn’t wish to burden Krueger’s Thanksgiving. And he told himself that he needed to live entirely within this day, with no grieving over the past and no worrying about the future. He knew he wouldn’t succeed, or not completely—after all, he had brooded about Wyndham all the way down from Bishop’s Hill—but he had to try, if only out of courtesy to his friend. Krueger’s daughter, Betsy, was six and his son, James, was four. Hawthorne wanted to engage himself with these children, to be close to them without also thinking of Lily and how much he had loved her and how responsible he felt for her death.

Hawthorne managed not to talk to Krueger and his wife, Deborah, about the past and he said little about Bishop’s Hill. He helped his namesake build a snowman in the backyard and duly admired the daughter’s collection of Barbie dolls. Yet the past tugged at him ferociously and he kept having to jerk his mind away from its grip. Two other couples with whom Krueger worked in the Department of Education came to dinner in the afternoon and one brought their ten-year-old daughter, who Hawthorne couldn’t stop looking at, her hair was so blond. As they ate they discussed education and psychology, even movies, staying away from sensitive subjects. Hawthorne realized that Krueger had warned them—don’t talk about California or Bishop’s Hill, remain in the plain vanilla of conversational material. They were careful not to look at the scar on his hand. Even the girl tried not to look at it, although she wasn’t as successful as her parents. Partly everyone’s efforts made Hawthorne feel like a cripple and partly he felt grateful.

The only difficult moment was when they were discussing people they knew in common. “Claire Sunderlin is a friend of ours,” the man named Beatty said to Hawthorne. “I gather she used to be a student of yours.”