Mary’s voice is hushed, but excited. She leans forward and the soft light of the room makes her red lipstick look even darker and more dramatic. “And every night we have to put up the blackout curtains. Montauk is on constant blackout—no streetlights or house lights once it gets dark. It’s because we’re so far out on the coast, we don’t want the U-boats to see the lights of the town. But I bet we’d be pretty safe here if the Germans did attack. There are soldiers everywhere, with the base at Hero and the navy up by the bay.”
“The army and navy took over a lot of land to set up their bases,” Dr. Bentley cuts in, his tone serious. “The Killing family was forced to sell their home to the navy and move down near the new town center. And the Parker boys lost part of their fishing business when they had to leave their storefront behind. A lot of families were affected.”
“We all have to make sacrifices during wartime.” Mrs. Bentley stands up, moving to a sideboard to get dessert. It’s a brown, lumpy cake that smells of burnt molasses. “Have some war cake, Lydia.” She cuts it quickly and sets a plate down in front of me.
“What about Camp Hero?” I take a bite and almost gag as the dry, bitter cake breaks apart in my mouth. It tastes like it’s missing butter and sugar.
“What about it?” Dr. Bentley asks.
I swallow with effort. “I mean, what happens out there? Is it just a training camp? And a lookout?”
“Oh, no,” Mary mumbles around the cake in her mouth. “They have watch towers near the ocean and these big guns and a few barracks. But it’s not exciting at all, no dances or shows or anything. The navy lets us have our USO dances over at Montauk Manor.”
“Dean is stationed at Camp Hero. And so is Lucas. In the officers’ barracks. Lucas helps with training,” Mrs. Bentley says as she sits back down at the table. The heavy blackout curtains stir behind her as a breeze comes through the covered window. It’s an eerie effect—like someone is hiding behind the black material, pushing it along the wood floor.
“What about Dean? What does he do?”
“He recently came back from the European theater,” Dr. Bentley explains. “As he tells it, his commanding officers pulled him from his troops in Italy and brought him back home. He was somehow selected to be involved in intelligence training at Camp Hero.”
“He’s always been a smart boy.” Mrs. Bentley smiles proudly. “His officers saw that. He’ll have an important role to play one day.”
Mary scoffs loudly. “What role? We don’t know what Dean does!” She sits back in her seat. “It’s all top secret.”
“Mary!” Mrs. Bentley says sharply. “Loose lips sink ships, remember.”
Mary throws her fork down and it clatters against her plate. “We don’t know anything, just that Dean is always off doing secret training and he won’t tell us a thing, not even if I beg him! It’s all very dull.” She rolls her eyes at me.
I nod absently. Grandpa was right about one thing: Dean is working on something that he can’t tell his family about, and it forces him to spend time at Camp Hero. But is it connected to the Montauk Project?
Intelligence training can mean anything. Dean could be training to become a mission specialist. The government could be grooming him to become a spy. Or the whole thing could be a cover for the work he’s doing for the Montauk Project.
If I’m going to find out what really happened to Dean, I have to start searching for the answers.
Later that night, I rest on Dean’s bed, wrapped in a white cotton nightgown. My hair is twisted around pieces of rags—something Mary had insisted on doing after dinner. The tight curls pull at my scalp.
Dean’s room is all blue in the soft lamplight: blue-and-white-striped wallpaper, a blue quilt spread out over the narrow bed. Model airplanes hang from the ceiling on wires and dull gold trophies sit neatly on a tall bookshelf.
I spent my whole life hearing stories about my great-grandfather’s disappearance, but I never really thought about what he was like. What did he care about? What were his hobbies? How old was he when he fell in love for the first time?
If I stay in the past long enough, I’ll discover the answers to these questions. I’ll spend time with Dean, and I’ll learn about him and his family. My grandfather’s memories of his father are blurred by age and sorrow. But my memories will be new and clear. I can share those experiences with him, but it won’t ever be the same as being here. I might end up knowing more about Dean than my grandfather ever did. It’s a disconcerting thought, and I almost wish it was my grandfather who had gone back in time, so he’d get to relive this through fresh eyes. But would he ever be objective enough to see his father for who he really is, and not as a larger-than-life tragic hero?
Will I?
I walk over to the low, wide bureau and open the drawers one by one. Socks, crisp T-shirts, folded slacks. I run my hand under the clothes in the top drawer and touch the crackled edges of a piece of paper. I pull it out. It’s an old letter, brittle with age. “My darling,” it starts, “you are my everything.” I read to the end. It’s from a girl named Elizabeth—the name of my great-grandmother—and dated 1940. I put it back into the drawer, feeling like a trespasser.
I trace my fingers over the dusty lettering on a basketball trophy. STATE CHAMPIONS, 1935. A stamp collection and a few comic books vie for space with novels—John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
I pull out Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. I carry it over
