You’d have had to be watching closely to see it. They were in the shadows. The focus of the attention was elsewhere, on Mrs. Haltom, who at that moment could not have known or cared if either of them was even in the same room. I saw, but I did not consider the implications. I was too stupidly joyful to be at a fancy party, standing next to my dream girl to feel any undercurrents swirling below the shimmering surface of the masquerade. But Vanessa saw it. She knew.

“Hey, you two—smile!”

Our heads turned abruptly toward a photographer taking pictures for the society pages. The camera flashed. When we glanced back, Mr. Haltom had rejoined his wife, and my mother was gone.

eight

Sometime in the ’70s, Mr. Haltom and Arch’s father had gone in on a large tract of land near Rock Island, Tennessee, about two hours’ drive from Nashville. The two friends wanted a retreat of their own, where they could teach their sons about the great outdoors. After David Creigh died, Jim Haltom had carried on alone, teaching the Creigh and Haltom kids to fish and shoot. But Jamie had allergies and preferred video games, and Arch’s sisters were nearing college age and disinterested. Vanessa was more earnest, and showed some aptitude, but Mrs. Haltom didn’t want a tomboy. Consequently, Arch became the sole focus of Mr. Haltom’s attentions.

By the time I came along, Mr. Haltom was mostly too busy to get out to the hunting camp. He’d bought a retreat closer to Nashville, in Leiper’s Fork, a farmhouse, where he could keep horses. Once he could drive, Arch started going out to the hunting camp on his own. Half of it was his, after all. His father was buried there. The cabin could be called a “cabin” in the same sense that the Haltom residence could be called a house: a big stone A-frame the size of a basketball gym, with exposed wood beams, a great room, and a huge hearth. Two flights of stairs on opposite sides of the room led up to a long balcony and four bedrooms. Beneath them on the first level were two master suites. Above the mantel hung the head of an enormous elk.

Meat on the grill and fish in the cast-iron skillet; coffee from a thermos in the early morning dark; whiskey served neat with dinner. Long walks out in the fields, silent but for the swish of the bird dog’s tail across the high grass as she sniffed at the air, then the breathless moment when she stopped and pointed at the covey hidden in the brush, followed by the flurry of wings and the roar of gunfire echoing off the distant trees. The twitch of the line, followed by the pull and the bend of the rod and the tense dance of the reel and run.