Then Pamela left for college, which meant that she no longer saw Robert daily. Consequently, she may have noticed the changes even more clearly than her parents. One holiday when she returned from school, he told her he was relieved: He said he had been quite sure she had been kidnapped—and he was serious. Another Christmas, he said he saw things in his pictures that no one else did. Initially, Pamela had hoped that he was merely evidencing a newfound hubris as an artist or critic; when he showed her his photos the next day, however, she realized that he meant it literally. On some level, he was aware of this inconsistency, and her heart sank for him.
When Robert left home, he took few clothes with him, reserving the limited space in his suitcase and their uncle’s large Army duffel for his cameras and negatives and stacks and stacks of his photographs. Among them, she knew, was a portrait he had taken of her, because he showed it to her when she tried to calm him down and stop him from packing. But she could only guess what other images—either family snapshots or his own work—he had with him when he departed. She tended to doubt he had any pictures that included either Daisy or Tom.
Would things have been different if, as their mother had begged when she’d returned from her card game, Tom had gone after Robert that evening? Pamela honestly didn’t think so. The two men, one still a teenager, would simply have found another night to continue their interminable, unresolvable conflict, and Robert would have chosen another night to storm out. Besides, they all expected he would return in the morning. And then, when he didn’t slink back in by breakfast, that he would be with them once more by dinner. Even her own effort to convince him to stay had been brief and halfhearted, both because she presumed he would not be gone long and because she would always be loyal to her parents. She knew who they were and what they did. But there was also less for her to forgive.
Still, someone probably should have gone after Robert in those first hours when, in all likelihood, he was still on Long Island. She was home from Smith for the summer, and she knew who Robert’s friends were and the places where he was likely to find refuge. She could have retrieved him—or, at least, she could have tried. She did wander down to the dock to see if she could detect a glowing shaft from a flashlight or a campfire near the empty house across the cove. The old Gatz estate had been bought and sold at least a half-dozen times since 1922, but once more it was on the market and empty. Nevertheless, she spent only a moment at the shore: The image in her mind of a solitary figure looking for a light across the water was far too reminiscent of James Gatz’s desperate behavior that spring he was stalking her mother. And so she returned to the house and her father’s now-silent rage.
A year later, her father announced that he no longer cared if Robert ever returned. The boy was all but dead to him. Soon after that, she heard him remarking gravely to an acquaintance from college whom he hadn’t seen in twenty-seven or twenty-eight years that Robert had died. In a car accident. In Grand Forks.
Apparently, their mother had hired a detective to find Robert, and he had been sighted there six months after he had left home. The rest, of course, was a spontaneous, arguably sociopathic fabrication: After Grand Forks, the trail had disappeared.
Eventually, Pamela would hear the story repeated at dinner parties in their elegant dining room in East Egg: The Buchanans’ wayward, runaway son had died when his car had overturned in a ditch. By the time she was married in 1946, friends of friends were actually claiming at the wedding reception to have been at her brother’s memorial service in Rosehill.
It would be decades before she would see him again, because he did not return for her father’s funeral. It was years later, about a month after Daisy was buried, that he reappeared. Pamela came outside one afternoon when she saw him photographing—documenting was the word he would use—their house. She hadn’t recognized him at first: It had been a long time and he hadn’t aged well. He smelled like the homeless she passed on the streets in Manhattan, vinegar-like and sour. He boasted proudly of an idea he was hatching, and she offered to get him help. She couldn’t even get him to stay. His disgust with her hadn’t diminished in the slightest over time.
Which was why she knew she had to retrieve those photos from the social worker. She could only speculate how far her deranged younger brother had taken his plan.
She watched a wave retreat and dug her toes into the sodden sand. She presumed the girl hated her. Fine, she thought. Let her lionize Robert. The fact was, it was she—not Robert—who had found it in her heart to pardon her parents.
And now she had to forgive herself. Even if she had gone after her brother that night, she couldn’t have saved him. He would still have gone mad, he would still have resisted every attempt the family made to help him. Nevertheless, as she looked back on their lives, she couldn’t help but wish that she had been able to reel him in—if only for the sake of their mother.
If only so he hadn’t wound up…homeless.
The idea stunned her when she contemplated it. Homeless. In the end, her unstable, unhinged, self-destructively self-righteous little brother had actually wound up on the street. It was almost incomprehensibly needless and sad.
Before her, a small flock of seagulls landed en masse in the hard, moist part of the beach where the sea had just been, and began to strut and peck. She sighed and tried to remember specifically what had triggered her father and Robert’s finishing quarrel. Then, almost ruefully, she shook her head. She didn’t have to think long at all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHILE LAUREL WAS walking to the bar, slightly fortified by the juice and the scone, it dawned on her that agreeing to meet with this lawyer might prove to be an egregious mistake. He was, essentially, the opposition counsel. And Katherine had specifically asked her not to speak to him. Yet here she was, largely—but not entirely—on her way because early that morning she had wanted to get off the phone. Of course, she had also agreed to see him because she was interested in what he had to say, and she thought she might be able to learn something more about Bobbie Crocker. Nevertheless, she was anxious, and she found herself brooding upon the consequences and all the things that could go wrong.
Terrance Leckbruge had told her that she would know him because he would be reading the Atlantic. She decided the moment she walked into the wine bar that she would have picked him out anyway. He was sitting atop a tall stool when she arrived, a glass of something white and a well-thumbed copy of the magazine on the circular table before him. He looked about forty, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if he was considerably older than that: His hair, slicked back with a heavy gel, was so black that she was quite sure he had colored it. He was wearing the sort of oddly dated eyeglasses that she expected to find on senior citizens: rhombic-shaped spectacles the color of mustard. The glasses were particularly unnerving because his eyes were a dazzling, Day-Glo blue, and his nose was so petite that it was practically nonexistent. She almost wondered whether he epoxied his spectacles to his eyebrows to keep them from sliding off his face, especially since he was, when she saw him for the first time from the wine bar’s front entrance, peering down at that magazine, his head slightly bowed, his mouth frozen in a vaguely condescending smirk. He was wearing a gray linen jacket with a beige T-shirt underneath it, and Laurel felt more than underdressed in her jeans: She felt slovenly. She hadn’t washed her hair or showered in a day and a half, and she realized that she was wearing the same clothes she had put on Friday morning before leaving for BEDS. She also wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she wished at the very least that she had layered on some lipstick and blush.
Leckbruge glanced up as she approached the table, and then slid off the stool to his feet. She thought for a brief moment that he was actually going to try to kiss her cheek, but she was mistaken: He simply leaned in a little closer than most people when he shook her hand.
“You must be Laurel. I’m Terrance Leckbruge, but my friends all call me T.J. They always have, they always will—even if, God willing, I make it to a v
ery old man. Thank you so much for dropping by. Now, you look like you are in serious need of a drink.” His accent was lovely in person, even more southern and pronounced than when he’d spoken with her on the phone. She wondered if it was an affectation, but she didn’t care. It still sounded nice.
“I am,” she agreed, and she reached for the burnished metal clipboard with the calligraphed list of wines. He must have sensed that she was in way over her head, because he quickly recommended one. Then, when the waitress arrived, he ordered it for her, sparing her from having to wrap her tongue and mouth around the name of an unpronounceable Tuscan vineyard.
For a few minutes, they discussed how much they loved Vermont’s quirks and eccentricities, and he told her how he savored the kindness of his neighbors in Underhill. She grew silent when he brought up the town, and it crossed her mind that he might interpret that quiet as coldness—which was fine with her. As soon as her wine arrived, he said, “Really, Laurel, I am so appreciative that you’re willing to see me on such short notice. Truly I am. Thank you.”
“Well, I have to admit: If I hadn’t been trying to get out the door quickly this morning, I probably would have said no. But I didn’t want to argue with you.”
“And so you said yes.”
“That’s right.”
“I can be very persuasive,” he said, resting his chin on his knuckles.
“Not this time.”
“And persistent.”
“That’s more accurate.”
“Well, I am grateful that you have been so accommodating.”
She shrugged noncommittally.
“Where were you today?” he asked. “What was the engagement that was so pressing? May I ask?”
She considered lying, but saw no need. “I wanted to get to the darkroom to work on Bobbie Crocker’s negatives. See what’s there.”
“And?”
“And I saw absolutely no more images of your client, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Her house? Her property? Any pictures like that?”
“Look, I shouldn’t even be here.”
“But you are. Imagine if some individual—a profoundly ill individual—somehow took possession of your family’s photographs. Deeply personal images. Wouldn’t you want them back?”
“Bobbie Crocker’s schizophrenia was under control. You make him sound deranged.”
“We don’t need to parse mental illness. He was homeless until your group parachuted into his life. I do not believe reasonable senior citizens live on the street in northern Vermont when they have a choice.”
“As soon as BEDS gave him the chance to come in off the street, he took it.”
Leckbruge swallowed the last of his wine and motioned for their waitress. When she returned to their table, he purred, “This was scrumptious. Every bit as exquisite as you’d said. May I have another, please?”
The waitress had the sort of twin piercings along her left eyebrow that Laurel found painful to look at, especially since otherwise her young skin was as smooth as a model’s in a face crème commercial. A lot of Laurel’s acquaintances had small piercings and tattoos—even Talia had pierced her navel. Once, soon after graduating, she had toyed with the idea of following Talia’s lead and piercing her belly button, too. Piercing one’s navel, she knew, was a lot like the decision to pose nude for erotic photographs: It was best done well before you hit middle age. And so it had seemed to Laurel that if she were going to do it, she should do it sooner rather than later. Further goading her toward the body-art parlor was her boyfriend—older, as always, who presumed that a loop in her navel would make it even more apparent to the world both what a trophy catch she was and what a stud he was. In the end, however, Laurel decided that she didn’t want to draw attention to her stomach, because then she would risk drawing attention to her breasts. And ever since she had been attacked, that simply had not been an option. Besides, her boyfriend’s immoderate enthusiasm alone was enough to nix the idea.
“So,” Leckbruge said quietly, almost dreamily, when the waitress had left to get him a second glass of wine, “what will it take for you to relinquish the photos? That is, of course, why we’re here. My client feels deeply violated and she would like the pictures back. And, clearly, a part of you understands her deep sense of violation. After all—”
“Why would you think that?” Laurel asked, momentarily afraid that she had read more into his use of the word violation than was there. Here she was presuming that somehow he knew what had occurred years earlier on the outskirts of his little village, when most likely he was simply suggesting that she was a particularly empathetic soul. She was about to apologize, or at least try to write off the stridency of her interruption to a lack of sleep or exhaustion—anything—when he reached across the table and rested a warm, gentle hand atop hers.
“Please, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, I shouldn’t be so touchy. It’s just that—”
And this time he cut her off: “You were attacked. I understand. I should have used a different word than violation. That was callous of me, and profoundly unthinking.”
And so he did know. And she should have guessed that he did. After all, he had a place in Underhill. He was a lawyer. He probably knew all along what had happened. She quickly took back her hand and reached down for her knapsack, planning to leave. But then an image came to her: the girl on the bike on the dirt road. The photo that Bobbie Crocker had taken.
“When was your client’s brother in Underhill?” she asked.
“My client says her brother died a very long time ago. He—”
She waved him silent, scything a swath through the air with her fingertips. “When was Bobbie Crocker in Underhill?”
“I didn’t know he was. You know considerably more about his life in Vermont than I do.”
“He took pictures there. In Underhill. I’ve seen them. Does your client believe those are hers, too?”
“What are they of?”
“A bicyclist.”
“You?”
When she had been nearing the wine bar, she had considered the different mistakes she might make. This thread, however, wasn’t one she had contemplated. But, then, she wasn’t even sure this was a mistake. Hadn’t she come here after all to learn what she could? She sighed, and in the abrupt silence at their table she heard for the first time the music and the conversations and the clatter of the glasses all around them. Almost suddenly, the bar seemed to have filled up.
“Me,” she answered finally, and then added quickly, “at least it might be.”
“You’re not positive.”
“Not completely. But it’s likely.”
“My client is a collector. There is no reason not to believe that among the photos that disappeared was an image of a girl on a bike.”
“This would have been taken seven years ago. When does your client claim that her collection—”
“A part of her collection.”
“When does she believe that a part of her collection disappeared? It would have to have been since then.”
“Your point?”
“Did Pamela inform the police of the theft? If the collection was that valuable—”
“Value needn’t be judged solely in monetary terms. What she cares about most are the images of her home. Her family. A picture of her and her brother means considerably more to her than it would to, say, the George Eastman House. If you want this picture of you so badly, I am sure my client would be happy to let you have it.”
“I don’t want the picture,” she said, aware that she was starting to grow dizzy, that the table was starting to inch up toward her, “I want…”
“Yes?”
“I want to know why he was there.”
“Assuming he was.”
“I want to know why he was on that road the same day those two men were.” The words, she knew, had come out as a mumble, a small sad plea smothered by falling snow. She felt like she was being
smothered by falling snow—she was starting to feel cold and clammy now, though inside her head she could hear her heart beating like an African drum.
“The men who hurt you?”
“Yes! What other men could I possibly mean?”
“But you don’t know for sure it was the same day. Do you?”
“No. Not for sure.”
“All right, then. Were your attackers homeless? Forgive me, Laurel, I just can’t remember.”
“Why would you ask that? Why is that relevant?”
“You sound defensive. You sound like you believe the homeless never get violent. And yet just last spring two of your clients got into a knife fight in the alley adjacent to that pizza parlor on Main Street, and now one of them is dead and the other is in jail. According to the newspaper, the perpetrator—excuse me, alleged perpetrator—even threatened the victim over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in your shelter.”
She bowed her forehead into the table. Of course she knew the story. But she also knew the two were exceptions: Everyone who had met them at BEDS had feared they were going to come to a bad end the moment they arrived. They spent a mere two nights at the shelter and then were gone. Laurel herself had never met either of the men, and so she had been more frustrated by the utter meaninglessness of their ends—death and prison—than she had been saddened.
“Laurel?”
She flinched when she felt his hand move up her arm to her shoulder, and she forced herself to look up. “One of the men who attacked me was a drifter,” she said finally, her voice halting and slow. “But he had never set foot inside BEDS. I checked that years ago.”
“May I get you something? Have the waitress bring you water? Are you…”
She raised her eyebrows and waited. She recalled the van backing toward her, over her, her mouth and her lungs momentarily filling with exhaust. The weight of the tires on her toes. Her collarbone and a finger already broken. The bruises on her breast.