He didn’t make a sound, sneaking out through the living room, down the back hall, grabbing his coat and hat off the peg near the back door. His keys were already in his coat pocket. Quietly, he went out, blinking to clear his quivering vision as cold air and then cold rain hit his face. He stumbled down the back porch steps, then tiptoed across the snow-speckled yard to the old carriage house that had, over the years, held his father’s various lacquered buggies and sleighs, then his own first Model T, on up to when he had become a Packard man, about fifteen years ago. He supposed the kids’ old bicycles would still be up in the rafters, though he had never looked for them. That was the thing with continuity—you took it for granted that nothing would ever change. You felt you didn’t have to fight, just to keep things the same, and you didn’t find out how wrong you were until it was too late.

John unlatched and swung open the doors; they creaked on their hinges in the damp air. Rubbing his temple with his thick fingers, he made his way into the dark depths of the garage, along the side of his Packard Eight. The car—the only Packard in this town where most men drove Fords and Buicks—was so long that its nose came within a whisker of brushing the carriage house’s front wall, while the back bumper scarcely fit inside the doors. John pulled open the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. He inhaled deeply of the car’s comforting scents, flexing his hands on the steering wheel. This car, the sixth Packard he had owned, was a 1941 model. Like everyone else, during the war years, he’d had to live with what he had, but now he was glad. The car was a familiar old friend, a comfort in a harrowing time.

Soon, he was speeding west on Highway 46, the soothing purr of the Packard’s motor vibrating under his skin, rain spattering the windshield, the road weaving before his eyes, the taste of wet metal in his mouth. He pressed the gas pedal closer and closer to the floor, imagining that maybe, given the right combination of acceleration and sheer will, he could fly.

Chapter 68

THE MICKELSON HOUSE
502 W. First Street, Pine Rapids
Friday, August 4, 1950

“How long did Wilma play the piano?” Dolly asked.

JJ shrugged. “Hours, I guess. I don’t know. I could hear it, though, from upstairs. I listened to her all afternoon, past dark.” He sighed. “Meantime, I guess Nick still didn’t believe it. I mean, he’d grown up his whole life believing this Ben Overby was his dad. You can understand it’d be hard to change your mind all of a sudden.”

“What did he do?”