A benefit of the Northwoods was the eight-hour drive from the Chicago suburbs. You had to travel twenty-two hours to reach Yellowstone. For a working man, this was all the difference in the world. He busted his ass six days a week in the summer for Stinson Construction. This entailed pouring concrete foundations for McMansions in the suburbs. The labor was difficult at times but he found it soothing. Being outside was always preferable to sitting indoors in crummy office air.

You have to spread your wings, his father would often tell him.

He couldn’t spread his wings in some little office. No room. He couldn’t spread his wings in high school, either (or the alternative computer-based school). Both buildings had always seemed like prison to him. Even worse was the dearth of windows. The only natural light entered from the ends of long hallways, piping into the halls and then pulling back as if to say I’m not going in there. So the light waited for him outside the doors, as the Northwoods waited for him. Stepping outside, he was reborn.

Even with the disdain for high school he did well, playing soccer and getting okay grades and dating pretty girls. Until The Incident . . . something he didn’t talk much about, or even want to remember. The most vivid recollection he had from The Incident was the look he got from his father when returning home that fateful day. His father had stormed out of the house. His mother, always one to plug the gaps and paint over the cracks hugged Matt when his father had left.

It’s for the best, Matthew, she’d said. He will be back. Time will heal this.