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my tale. The skepticism.
    And if he didn’t believe me, the rejection would break my heart. I was loathe to meet his unloving eyes, to read the doubt, the lack of trust, in them. Just as I’d once told myself over and over that my mother was sure to survive her disease, I now told myself that my father loved me. If I revealed what had happened at the creek, he would treat me like a liar, and he despised liars.
    So I said nothing, which was easy to do in our house. We ate dinner without a word to each other. Dad’s mood was worse than usual, his gaze inward.
    I woke up the next morning eager to grab something out of one of the freezers to feed the bear.
    The person who sold us the house had been involved in dressing and processing elk, deer, and other wild game. The pole barn had sinks and hoses and big drains and two enormous freezers that my father bargained into the home purchase. I think my father saw those game freezers and pictured himself hunting and freezing a whole winter’s worth of meat every year, but once my mom got sick he lost his taste for killing anything.
    Now the freezers were full of foil-wrapped packages. When news of my mother’s disease leaked out, the people of Selkirk River showed up in a constant stream, leaving pies, roasts, hams, and an absolutely endless assortment of casseroles in their wake. Most of it was still there: my dad didn’t really like casseroles.
    I hit the breakfast table with a fast bowl of cereal and a mind that had already left the house, but my father came out of his room with the worst kind of news: time to do some chores.
    At the word “chores” my limbs grew heavy and I felt all of my energy drain out through my legs. I collapsed onto the couch with a groan.
    “First thing to do is sweep the driveway,” he said.
    “Sweep the driveway?” I demanded incredulously. “Why? You’re just going to drive on it!”
    “It’s got gravel that washed off the road from the last rain.”
    “It will rain again!” I predicted.
    “Then we’ll sweep the driveway again,” he said, as if this made any sense whatsoever.
    After the driveway he decided I should rake up the bark around the woodpile while he washed the wooden chairs on our deck. Then we cleaned house. Then we reset the mailbox, which had been knocked a bit cockeyed by the snowplow that winter.
    “Are we done?” I asked him after each task. Finally, after the mailbox, he said yes, we were done. I turned to sprint away.
    “Go wash up. We’re going to the Becks’ for Sunday dinner.”
    I looked back at him, astounded. “What?”
    “We’ve been invited to the Becks’ house. Shower and put on something clean.”
    As I stood in the shower I pictured a hungry grizzly bear pacing the riverbanks, wondering where lunch was. Walking up the road to the Becks’ house, I thought of the way the bear looked at me, now believing that in his implacable gaze I saw affection and friendship, a friendship I was abandoning by putting on a pressed shirt and striding next to my silent father to the home of our neighbor.
    The Becks lived next door to the Aldertons. They had a son named Scotty who was eight years old, with whom I was expected to “play” while my dad sat with the adult Becks and drank beer. Scotty Beck amused himself with toy soldiers, for God’s sake! He was still at that age when he ran everywhere, like a puppy.
    But there was no preparing myself for the betrayal that awaited me inside the Becks’ home that afternoon. Worse than abandoning the bear, worse than playing with stupid dolls with Scotty, worse even than wearing a starched long-sleeved shirt on a warm August evening, was the woman who rose off the couch to greet us when Mr. Beck ushered us into the house.
    “Charlie, you remember Miss Mandeville,” Mrs. Beck gushed at me.
    The lady worked in the grocery store, ringing up purchases. I never knew her name. The only times I’d ever seen her, she wore a smudged white smock of some kind and her hair and