“We’ve got to stop this, Jack. You’ve got to. She’s your only daughter, for Christ’s sake. Are you going to let him ruin her life?”

Just after eleven that night, Jack found a parking spot outside the movie theater, turned off the car, and waited for Elissa and Nick to emerge. After dessert at his parents’ house, Mary and Wilma had prevailed upon him to allow the kids to go to the movies, even though it meant that Elissa wouldn’t get home until after eleven. He’d finally thrown up his hands, said, “Fine! But I’ll pick them up after the movie!” Jack’s father had shaken his head glumly, but then said, to Jack’s bewilderment, “Let me take your picture. To commemorate the night. After he’s gone, Liss, you’ll want his picture, won’t you?” So they had waited while John went for his camera; he took three shots of them standing near the front door.

After the kids left, cheerfully waving good-bye, Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra playing on the radio was the only sound, along with the clicking of Wilma’s and Mary’s knitting needles. John put away his camera and poured himself a liberal drink from the decanter, liquid tumbling noisily into the glass, while Jack smoked and looked at his watch. He couldn’t help feeling restless in his parents’ house, itchy to get out of there. Around ten, he told Mary he would take her home.

“Keep an eye on things, Jack,” John intoned as they left.

Sitting in the car now, blowing into his gloved hands to warm them, Jack reflected that John had often taken this same tone. From the time Jack was a little boy, Jack had known that people in Pine Rapids liked John Mickelson even less than they had liked John’s father, Knute, and Jack had always thought that perhaps it had something to do with John’s tone. As a child, Jack had hated it. As the years went by, he despised it more and more. There was nothing profound about it: The tone simply said, Because I’m bigger than you and I said so.

People had been willing enough to give John a chance, in Pine Rapids’ early years. His father had done well by the town, after all, building the mill and giving first a few, and then many, men good jobs, processing the fruit of the land, the massive white pines. It was safe to say that Pine Rapids wouldn’t have been much of a town without what Knute Mickelson had invested in the mill, without what he paid its workers.