“My mother,” he’d said.
She looked at him with pity but not comprehension. And he knew immediately that she wasn’t going to. She had lost Jeffrey. A sister to heal. A family. A community. Students who were facing this . . . this . . . for the first time. He was a casualty, yes, but a lucky one. He was only walking wounded.
Even thinking about this is so embarrassing that he wants to vomit into the lake. Forty-six years old, and he was saying “my mother” to save a relationship that was only months in the making. They weren’t married. There were no children to suffer from this. “My mother,” he’d actually said. And he’d said it because there was a musical note to this. A tone. A shifting earth below the surface of their conversation that maybe hinted at another reason why she wanted him to go away. Was he hearing it or creating it? Was it an echo or a new sound? Was Lydia only sad, or was it deeper? Was she finished with not only him, but all of it?
It would have been better if she had quietly stood and taken him by the arm and led him into the hallway, saying nothing. But that isn’t what happened. She folded her arms and acknowledged that he had turned this moment onto himself.
“What about your mother?” she asked.
“She had cancer. I had to watch her die,” he said.
“I know, Marcus. And I’m sorry for you.”
“I knew she was going to die.”
“I really am sorry for you.”
No, that isn’t what he meant. He had meant something more specific than that. But he’d failed to find the right words. Again.
A Hot One
Sheriff Irving Wylie’s Jeep Wagoneer chugs merrily into the town of Saranac Lake. When they arrive, Sigrid feels as though she has finally stepped onto the movie set of the small-town America she had always imagined. The green forest wraps around wooden homes that stand impervious to time and change. The main street is simple, welcoming, and unmarred by the brand names that litter the interstate and bordering towns. Saranac Lake is not overwhelming in its beauty or aware of its own charm. It feels to Sigrid as though the town has discovered a way to live in harmony with its own American self, and the source of her attraction to it comes from its integrity. It is a proper destination; a place to experience a way of life and an invitation to perform it correctly.
The lake itself is not called Saranac.
“Lake Flower,” Irv tells her.
It is, at least today, a vision of tranquility, and its blue is less a reflection of the sky above it than a melody inspired by it. Beyond the lake are distant mountains that ring Lake Placid, where the Olympics had once been held—back when they were held every four years and were therefore interesting.
Sigrid looks out the open window as they drive. A dozen middle-aged women and pension-aged men have erected small easels and are painting the town and scenery. Two children wave at her and she waves back.
“It’s delightful here,” she says.
“You’re surprised,” Irv replies, turning toward the police station.
“This isn’t what I’ve seen so far.”
“You haven’t seen us at our best. The whole area out here is inspiring and relaxing at the same time. A lot of celebrities and artists and famous folks have summer places out here. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of them, even became friends with a few. I used to set them up with security companies for their big parties, and help them manage the press. You might say I have fancy friends out here.”
Irv drives down Broadway and through the intersection of Main Street.
“It’s actually called Main Street?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I thought that was a metaphor,” Sigrid says, as a cyclist in Spandex and a helmet passes them briskly on the left.
“What?”
“Main Street. I thought it meant the primary street.”
“It does.”
“But it’s also the actual name.”
“Yes.”
“Like . . . Watertown.”
“Sigrid, I have no idea what you’re going on about,” Irv says, crossing an intersection marked as Route 3, passing a convenience store on the right, and then slowing to a near crawl as they pass over a bridge that abuts the lake on their left, which is due east. The sun breaks through the trees there and broils the car.
“Gonna be a hot one,” Irv mutters.
He parks outside a low brick building that is tucked discreetly behind trees that separate it from the town.
Irv parks in the shade and proceeds into the station, but Sigrid lingers outside and walks the short distance to the edge of the lake, peering outward toward the distant forest and hills.
“Marcus,” she whispers.
Of all places for us to end up.
In Oslo, like the smokers outside her office building, she too would often stand with her eyes closed to feel the heat—finally—upon her face. The entire city would loiter on street corners or between shops where the light broke between buildings and they would bask, for precious moments, as urban flowers of unwavering reverence.
Her colleague, Petter, used to mock her for the metaphor. “Flowers don’t turn to the sun because they love the heat,” he once said. “The sun is actually burning off the moisture of the cells on that side of the stalk, so the flower is collapsing in the direction of its tormenter,” he explained.
“Sounds like love to me,” she answered.
This New York sun, though, is vastly hotter than her Norwegian sun. These people talk about being upstate as though it means north. But it is not. It is barely 43 degrees north latitude. Compare that to Kristiansand at the southernmost tip of Norway, she would like to tell them. That is already 58 degrees north.
Even Venice is farther north than this.
No, this is south. And the sun burns like a southern sun.
Sigrid’s solitude ends when a black van with SWAT markings rolls to a halt in the space beside the Wagoneer. Behind it, on a trailer, is a black Zodiac
