Chapter 10: The Porch Light

I took his hands off my face.

"You're saying my brother-in-law faked his own death."

"I'm saying nobody ever saw him dead."

"The family held a funeral. I stood at the grave."

"There was a casket," Hugh said. "Was there a body in it?"

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.

The coffin had been closed.

Gail had said Dale would not want people looking at what the lake did to him.

I had believed that, because I wanted to.

"That's insane," I said. "That's a thing from a movie. Neil's mother wouldn't."

"She wouldn't?"

"She cried for a month."

"She told you for ten years that you don't deserve the week at the lake," Hugh said.

"Do you think she couldn't lie to you?"

He took out his phone and set it on the table between us.

"Nine days ago I sat on the road at Pine Point with a long lens," he said.

"I've done it three times. This is the only time I got his face."

He turned the screen toward me.

The photograph was grainy, taken from a long way off, through cedar branches.

A man stood on the porch of the lit house with a mug in his hand.

He had thick dark blond hair, and a wide mouth, and he was laughing at something off to the side.

I knew the way he held his shoulders.

I had watched him do that at a hundred Sunday dinners.

He would lean back in his chair and say, Mom, you've outdone yourself again.

I put my hand flat over my mouth.

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