In the Lake of the Woods. Tim O’Brien

rage, and he couldn’t keep it in and he couldn’t let it out. He wanted to hurt things. Grab a knife and start cutting and slashing and never stop. All those years. Climbing like a son of a bitch, clawing his way up inch by fucking inch, and then it all came crashing down at once. Everything, it seemed. His sense of purpose. His pride, his career, his honor and reputation, his belief in the future he had so grandly dreamed for himself.

      John Wade shook his head and listened to the fog. There was no wind. A single moth played against the screened window behind him.

      Forget it, he thought. Don’t think.

      And then later, when he began thinking again, he took Kathy up against him, holding tight. “Verona,” he said firmly, “we’ll do it. Deluxe hotels. The whole tour.”

      “That’s a promise?”

      “Absolutely,” he said. “A promise.”

      Kathy smiled at this. He could not see the smile, but he could hear it passing through her voice when she said, “What about babies?”

      “Everything,” Wade said. “Especially that.”

      “Maybe I’m too old. I hope not.”

      “You’re not.”

      “I’m thirty-eight.”

      “No sweat, we’ll have thirty-eight babies,” he said. “Hire a bus in Verona.”

      “There’s an idea. Then what?”

      “I don’t know, just drive and see the sights and be together. You and me and a busload of babies.”

      “You think so?”

      “For sure. I promised.”

      And then for a long while they lay quietly in the dark, waiting for these things to happen, some sudden miracle. All they wanted was for their lives to be good again.

      Later, Kathy pushed back the blankets and moved off toward the railing at the far end of the porch. She seemed to vanish into the heavy dark, the fog curling around her, and when she spoke, her voice came from somewhere far away, as if lifted from her body, unattached and not quite authentic.

      “I’m not crying,” she said.

      “Of course you’re not.”

      “It’s just a rotten time, that’s all. This stupid thing we have to get through.”

      “Stupid,” he said.

      “I didn’t mean—”

      “No, you’re right. Damned stupid.”

      Things went silent. Just the waves and woods, a delicate in-and-out breathing. The night seemed to wrap itself around them.

      “John, listen, I can’t always come up with the right words. All I meant was—you know—I meant there’s this wonderful man I love and I want him to be happy and that’s all I care about. Not elections.”

      “Fine, then.”

      “And not newspapers.”

      “Fine,” he said.

      Kathy made a sound in the dark, which wasn’t crying. “You do love me?”

      “More than anything.”

      “Lots, I mean?”

      “Lots,” he said. “A whole busful. Come here now.”

      Kathy crossed the porch, knelt down beside him, pressed the palm of her hand against his forehead. There was the steady hum of lake and woods. In the days afterward, when she was gone, he would remember this with perfect clarity, as if it were still happening. He would remember a breathing sound inside the fog. He would remember the feel of her hand against his forehead, its warmth, how purely alive it was.

      “Happy,” she said. “Nothing else.”

       2

       Evidence

He was always a secretive boy. I guess you could say he was obsessed by secrets. It was his nature.¹

       —Eleanor K. Wade (Mother)

       Exhibit One: Iron teakettle

      Weight, 2.3 pounds

      Capacity, 3 quarts

      

       Exhibit Two: Photograph of boat

      12-foot Wakeman Runabout

      Aluminum, dark blue

      1.6 horsepower Evinrude engine

      

He didn’t talk much. Even his wife, I don’t think she knew the first damn thing about … well, about any of it. The man just kept everything buried.²

       —Anthony L. (Tony) Carbo

      Name: Kathleen Terese Wade

      Date of Report: 9/21/86

      Age: 38

      Height: 5′6″

      Weight: 118 pounds

      Hair: blond

      Eyes: green

      Photograph: attached

      Occupation: Director of Admissions, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

      Medical History: pneumonia (age 16), pregnancy termination (age 34)

      Current Medications: Valium, Restoril

      Next of Kin: John Herman Wade

Other Relatives: Patricia S. Hood (sister), 1625 Lockwood Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota³

       —Extract, Missing Persons Report

After work we used to do laps together over at the Y every night. She’d just swim and swim, like a fish almost, so I’m not worried about … Well, I think she’s fine. You ever hear of a fish drowning?⁴

       —Bethany Kee (Associate Admissions Director, University of Minnesota)

      He was not a fat child, not at all. He was husky. He had big bones. But sometimes I think his father made him feel—oh, made him feel—oh—maybe overweight. In sixth grade the boy wrote away for a diet he’d seen advertised in some silly magazine … His father teased him quite a lot. Constant teasing, you could say.

       —Eleanor K. Wade

You know what I remember? I remember the flies. Millions of flies. That’s what I mostly remember.⁵

       —Richard Thinbill

       Exhibit Three: Photograph of houseplant debris

      Remains of six to eight plants (1 geranium, 1 begonia, 1 caladium, 1 philodendron, others unidentified)

      Plant material largely decomposed

      John loved his father a lot. I suppose that’s why the teasing hurt so bad … He tried to keep it secret—how much it hurt—but I could always tell … Oh, he loved that father of his. (What about me? I