That was it. A crowd was tapping on their screens to memorialize inebriated fraternity chums in disheveled suits humping the bride. Flinging his way past the plastic flaps into the stinging bright outdoors, he reflected there was something oddly peaceful about an island. A feeling suffused through one’s whole body of having fled from the world. It was like being mentally cradled. Was he ready to go home? The paperwork had been filed, but both his ex-wife, Sherri, and his son emphasized in their communiqués that he was welcome to move back whenever he wanted. But he hadn’t fully analyzed the impulse that had prompted him to jump ship and dogpaddle toward the genteel harbor of Martha’s Vineyard in the first place. The one thing he knew was that the Fetal Pig Incident had something to do with it. He had blithely been going about business as usual, ordering the little oinkers preserved in gelatin for that year’s batch of sophomores wrapping up their anatomy unit. After twenty years of teaching, he had become an expert in the signs that a teen was anorexic or self-harming or into drugs. Hence, it was a shock both viscerally and intellectually when Everett Johnson burst in on dissection day with a handgun. “Everett, you’re late,” he said. “Grab a coat and gloves.” The boy in the dour sweatshirt answered by pointing a Glock between Laird’s eyeglass lenses. “Silence, Mr. Hunt.”

The presence of the weapon didn’t sink in everywhere at once. Oblivious, a lab team in the back kept tagging organs. Stacey Weisman was crying, but she had already been crying when her scalpel made its first incisions into gooey skin. Everett trembled, also on the brink of tears. “Listen, Everett,” Laird pleaded, “this isn’t you. If you put down the gun, I promise you won’t get in trouble.” Everett screamed, buried the Glock in the belly of a piglet, and fired three rounds. Months later, Laird would find the spot where a bullet had ricocheted off the steel table and embedded in the wall behind the beakers. He should count himself lucky. Nothing had happened. Instead, he found himself nauseated by his job, his son’s stinky room filled with dirty boxer briefs, his wife’s series of depressed casseroles. Two thoughts picked at his brain. One, where had Everett gotten the gun? Anywhere, he could have secured a gun with ease from anywhere. Second, Everett Johnson was the only face and name he could distinctly remember of his students in the last ten years. It was too late to save Everett Johnson, who was going to pay dearly for the fetal pig. But Laird could save Rex Hasselbach. If he could save Rex Hasselbach, maybe he could save himself—he could go home. At any rate, here he was, at the lighthouse. The lighthouse was nice and lighthousey. A big old lighthouse. He might as well head back to the car.

“Rise and shine, princess,” Clayton said, ruffling Laird’s widow’s peak.

“I’m aware I look like your average science teacher,” Laird replied, “but I also think it behooves me to mention I used to compete in amateur boxing.”