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And then he came back. Maybe What else? What else? had been the question before my father left us, and maybe he thought by leaving us he'd answer the question or at least stop hearing it, and maybe he never stopped hearing it; maybe none of us ever do. I can't say for sure: neither of my parents mentioned why he came home, and I never asked, and together, through our silence, we conspired to make it one of those family secrets that had to remain secret if we were to remain a family. My mother had told me, after my father came back, that my father was "sensitive" about what he'd done while he was gone and that I should never mention the postcards to him. She never told me why my father should be so "sensitive" about the postcards, and again, I never asked. I put the postcards in an envelope and stowed them way toward the back of my highest closet shelf and never mentioned them again. But no matter what his reasons, my father came home and got his job back at the university press, and we forgave him, or at least I did. Because he was my father, and I'd missed him.

"I've missed you," I said.

"Mother," he said.

"What about her?"

"Yes, Bradley," said a voice from behind me. "What about me?"

It was my mother, of course, I knew this without turning around, and so I didn't, at first. I sat there with my back to her, imagining all the things I'd say to my mother, all the well-deserved grief I'd give her about my poor, crippled dad and the filthy house she'd left him in and the stories she'd told me when I was a boy and what a ruin they'd made of me and my life and so on. When I turned around to face her, I would be eloquent and fierce, I knew that much. Maybe it was remembering the arson letters and their possible proximity that made me feel this bold ― the letters and my father's talk of my could-be greatness. Maybe it was because I'd seen this mother-son moment so often in the books my mother had made me read, and so I knew how it was supposed to go. Whatever the reason, I felt powerful and righteous, like an avenging angel or something. And what do you do when you become an avenging angel? You turn around and tell your mother about it.

So I turned around to tell my mother about it. There she was, standing in the doorway. I couldn't get a good look at her ― maybe because it was late and my contacts were dry and cloudy, and because the hall light behind my mother made her seem hazy and mysterious and bathed in white, like the Lady of the Lake, whom my mother had also made me read about those many years before. I couldn't see her clearly, is the point, and so I couldn't see the expression on my mother's face when she said, "Your wife kicked you out of the house, didn't she?"

One of the things that mothers are good for, of course, is cutting to the heart of the matter, and in cutting to the heart of the matter, my mother had also sliced off some of my good feeling. Whether I was an avenging angel or not, my wife still thought I was a cheater and a liar and still hated me, I still couldn't see my kids, and I still couldn't go home to Camelot. Anne Marie had kicked me out, maybe for good. That was the truth, and my mother saw it, and suddenly I was tired, so tired.

"I'm so tired, Mom," I said.

"OK," she said. My mother turned and walked out of the doorway and into the hall, and I followed her, wordlessly, through the blackened rooms, up the stairs, to my old bedroom. Because this is another thing mothers are good for: they know how to get at the truth, and then, when that truth makes you too tired to hear any more of it, they know when to guide you through the darkness and put you to bed. My mother opened the door to my bedroom, turned to me, put her hand on my cheek, and said, "Get some sleep, Sam." I was so grateful for that, so very grateful, and to express my gratitude I did exactly what my mother told me to do. I slept.

Part Two

6

Now that I've returned home, to the very bedroom where my mother told me all those stories about the Emily Dickinson House ― the stories