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jar of pickles, an everyday occurrence down at the Jewel; he’d seen it all, women’s water bursting, cantaloupes in smithereens in the produce aisle, freezer doors left open overnight and in the morning rivers of ice cream and orange juice flooding down to checkout. His aptitude, in truth, was not for managing money or overseeing a complex and perishable inventory, but rather for directing the stock boys to clean up and keeping the ladies from peril.
    It was shortly after the mess was cleared away that Walter heard Aunt Jeannie’s piteous cry from the living room. “Where is Father Flannery? Didn’t anyone show him to his room? Didn’t anyone tell him he could stay the night?” Her older sons were dead drunk in the boathouse, and the younger daughters were in the trees down at the lake, jumping into shallow water from dangerous heights. Francie had finally gotten Roger Miller to look her in the eye and the two werenecking, tentatively, behind the woodpile. “Where is Father Flannery?” Aunt Jeannie wailed. Her hairpiece had wilted and come off and she was carrying it in both hands as if it were her bridal bouquet. The priest didn’t answer. Nobody had seen him leave hours before. He had eaten a sour grape off of the arbor up in the old tennis court, where his car was parked, looked at his watch and told himself he could be back in Indianapolis by dark.

    The McClouds were quiet on the way home. Walter and his friends were sunburned and woozy. Robert had slept through the catastrophe on the porch, slept through the noise of the two frightened babies and woken only when most of the guests had gone. He felt refreshed and ready to drive. It had been a hard day for Aunt Jeannie, and he personally was glad to have gotten through it. He was looking forward to Sunday, to some tennis early in the morning, and Daniel’s swim meet in the afternoon. His wife was resting in the front seat next to him, and he did not disturb her. Joyce wasn’t asleep but she kept her eyes closed, and her face turned to the window, to the hum of the August night. She thought she might just call Mrs. Gamble’s son, Greg, when she got home. She might ask him if he would teach her this transcendental meditation business. She hadn’t told Robert yet, but she’d had an upsetting conversation with Sue Rawson in the middle of the party. She was going to need something in the coming months, an aid, her own little syllable, to calm her.
    They drove up Maplewood Avenue. Most of the houses had a few lights on downstairs and, in the upstairs, the dim yellow glow that came from the children’s night-lights. Their own house was black, the windows reflecting the streetlights, as if the place had no heat, no life, no center of its own. The Gambles’ house was ablaze and the Missus herself was standing under the light on her front porch, her cigarette burning between her two fingers, her arms crossed, waiting. Waiting for them as if they were truant children. She looked as if she was too mad to shout, too mad to curse; she looked as if she was going to take her time and when she was good and ready she’d whisper, she’d practically spit each word, Where—Have—You—Been?

Two

    SEPTEMBER
1995

 
    A t the end of the summer Walter spent several days at Lake Margaret trying to envision his future. It was an embarrassment, to be in his late thirties and straining, still, to see what came next. He hoped that no one was spying on him as he sat on the pier watching for a light to shine from somewhere out in the dark years before him. He had struggled to find his way as a teenager and as a college student. It was humbling to be in the future, in the time that should have been filled with satisfying labors and triumphs. How was it that he was sitting in the same chair, trying again to divine the path ahead? Most of the people he knew seemed to have had little difficulty long ago choosing a profession and stepping into the role, using the jargon naturally,