Sadie’d been so little when her father died, an only child. A freak accident, she told Jack once. Did she want to talk about it? She did not. He thought he’d be the sort of person in a marriage—they weren’t married yet—to whom anything might be told. That was true of the small stuff, the nutshell jealousies, the unusual rashes on inner thighs, the basest functions of the body and the psyche. Not the big things. She had one picture of her father looking toweringly tall, a sort of diamond-shaped monolith, wider at the beltline than anywhere else. He smiled, showed off his bad teeth.

Sometimes Jack thought that if only he could solve the riddle of Timothy Brody he could go forward in life. They’d get married. Have a kid. They were waiting for a sign. As though they would follow a sign. As though they’d be able to read it.

In July of his twelfth year with Sadie, Jack answered the phone to hear a man with a thick Boston accent say, “Is that Jack? I’m a friend of Linda.” Linder. “She could use your help. She took a tumble.”

Jack could hear Linda in the background saying, “Tell him I’m fine!”

“She’s fallen down?”

“She’s just in a bit of a pickle. Could you come over to her place?”

“Sure,” he said. “Let me just call—”

“She says don’t bother Sadie,” said the voice. In a stage whisper he said, “She’s embarrassed.”

“I’ll be right over. But—can you tell me the address?”

He didn’t tell the voice that he couldn’t drive; he grabbed a cab. It was hot in Boston, the kind of heat he resented. Linda’s building was called the Schoolhouse, which sounded picturesque but was only accurate: twenty apartments, some with blackboards and some with tiny porcelain water fountains. His cell phone sat in his pocket, accusing him of treachery. He should call Sadie. It was Sadie to whom he was bound.