Carthage. Joyce Carol Oates

of congratulating him, either, as everyone else was doing.

      Serve my country. Best soldier I can be.

      Like my dad . . .

      There was a father, evidently. An absent father. A soldier-father who’d disappeared from Carthage twenty years before.

      Brett had been brought up some kind of Protestant Christian—Methodist, maybe. He wasn’t critical, questioning. He wasn’t skeptical. He wanted to believe, and so he wanted to serve.

      Chain of command: you obeyed your superior officer’s orders as he obeyed his superior officer’s orders as he obeyed his superior officer’s orders and so to the very top: the Administration that had declared war on terror and beyond that Administration, the militant Christian God.

      None of this was questioned. Zeno wouldn’t have wished to stir doubt. He’d defended the high school biology teacher Cassidy who’d taught Darwinian evolutionary theory to the exclusion of “creationism”—more specifically, Cassidy had ridiculed “creationism” in the classroom and deeply offended some students—and their parents—who were evangelical Christians; Zeno had defended Cassidy against the Carthage school board, and had won his case, but it had been a Pyrrhic victory, for Cassidy had no professional future in Carthage and had been soundly disliked for his “arrogant, atheistic” stance. And Zeno Mayfield had suffered a good deal of abuse, too.

      Except that Brett Kincaid had become engaged to his daughter Juliet, Zeno had no wish to enlighten the boy. You had to learn to live with religion, if you had a public career. You had to know when to be quiet about your own skepticism.

      Juliet belonged to the Carthage Congregationalist Church: she’d made a decision to join when she was in high school, drawn to the church by a close friend; after she and Brett began seeing each other, Brett accompanied her to Sunday services. No one else in the Mayfield family attended church. Arlette described herself as “a mild kind of Protestant-Christian-Democrat” and Zeno had learned to parlay questions about faith by saying he was a “Deist”—“In the hallowed tradition of our American Founding Fathers.” Zeno found serious talk of religion embarrassing: revealing what you “believed” was a kind of self-exposure not unlike stripping in public; you were likely to reveal far more than you wished. Cressida bluntly dismissed religion as a pastime for “weak-minded” people—she’d gone to church with her older sister for a few months when she’d been in middle school, and been bored silly.

      Strange how Cressida could be right about so much, and yet—(this was not a thought Zeno allowed himself to express aloud)—you resented her remarks, and were inclined to dislike her for making them.

      Juliet’s Christian faith had certainly been a great solace to her, since news had come of her fiancé’s injuries—a hurried and incoherent phone message from Brett’s mother had been the first they’d heard; she’d been grateful, and never ceased proclaiming her gratitude, that Brett hadn’t been killed; that God had “spared him.”

      The shock to Juliet had been so great, Zeno thought, she hadn’t altogether absorbed the fact that her fiancé was a terribly changed man—and the changes weren’t likely to be exclusively physical.

      Since Brett had returned to Carthage, and was living in his mother’s house about three miles from the Mayfields, Juliet had spent a good deal of time with him there; the elder Mayfields hadn’t seen much of him. When she could, Juliet accompanied Brett to the rehab clinic attached to the Carthage hospital; she attended some of his counseling sessions, as his fiancée; eagerly she reported back to her parents that as soon as he was better able to concentrate Brett intended to re-enroll at Plattsburgh and get a degree in business and that there was talk—(how substantial, Zeno didn’t know)—of Brett being hired by a Carthage businessman who made it a point to hire veterans.

      See, Daddy—Brett has a future!

      Though I know you want me to dump him. I will not.

      Zeno would have protested, if Juliet had so accused him.

      But, of course, Juliet had not.

      Beautiful Juliet never accused anyone of such low thoughts. Least of all her father whom she adored.

      But there came impish Cressida to slip her arm through Daddy’s arm and to tug at him, to murmur in his ear in her scratchy voice, “Poor Julie! Not the ‘war hero’ she’d expected, is he.” Cruel Cressida squirming with something like stifled laughter.

      Zeno had said reprovingly, “Your sister loves Brett. That’s the main thing.”

      Cressida snorted with laughter like a mischievous little girl.

      “It is?”

      Several nights later, on the Fourth of July, Juliet had returned home early—and alone—(the most gorgeous, gaudy fireworks had just begun exploding in the sky above Palisade Park)—to inform her family that the engagement was ended.

      Her cheeks were tear-streaked. Her face had lost its luminosity and looked almost plain. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

      “We’ve both decided. It’s for the best. We love each other, but—it’s ended.”

      Zeno and Arlette had been astounded. Zeno had felt a sick sinking sensation in his gut. For this was what he’d wanted—wasn’t it? His beautiful daughter spared a life with a handicapped and embittered husband?

      When Arlette moved to embrace her, Juliet pushed past her with a choked little sob and hurried up the stairs and shut her bedroom door.

      Even Cressida had been shocked. For once, her shiny black eyes hadn’t danced with derision when the subject of Juliet and Brett Kincaid came up—“Oh God! Julie will be so unhappy.”

      At twenty-two, Juliet was still living at home. She’d gone to college in Oneida but had wanted to return to Carthage to teach (sixth grade) at the Convent Street School a few miles away from the family home on Cumberland Avenue. Planning her wedding to Corporal Brett Kincaid—guest list, caterer, bridal gown and bridesmaids, music, flowers, wedding service at the Congregationalist Church—had been the consuming passion of her life for the past eighteen months, and now that the engagement had ended Juliet seemed scarcely capable of speech apart from the most perfunctory exchanges with her family.

      Though Juliet was always unfailingly courteous, and sweet. Tears welling in her eyes at which she brushed with her fingertips, as if apologetically.

      There’d been no reproach in her manner, when the father gazed at her searchingly, waiting for her to speak. For never had Juliet so much as hinted Are you happy, Daddy? I hope you are happy, Brett is out of our lives.

      Numbly Zeno said to Arlette: “She hasn’t spoken to you—yet? She hasn’t wanted to talk about it?”

      “No.”

      “What about Cressida?”

      “No. Juliet would never discuss Brett with her.”

      In the issue of the sisters, it had often been that Arlette clearly sided with the pretty one and not the smart one.

      “Maybe Brett wanted to talk about it with Cressida. Maybe that was why—the reason—they were together last night . . .”

      If truly they’d been together—alone together. Zeno had to wonder if that was true.

      It was totally out of character for Cressida to go to a place like the Roebuck Inn. Totally unlike Cressida, particularly on a Saturday night. Yet witnesses had told investigating officers that they were sure they’d seen Cressida there the night before, in the company of several people—mostly men; and one of them Brett Kincaid.

      Saturday night in midsummer, at Wolf’s Head Lake. There were a number of lakeside taverns of which the Roebuck was the oldest and the most popular, very likely the most crowded, and noisy; patrons spilled out of the inn and onto the decks overlooking the lake, and even down into the sprawling parking lot; on the deck was a local rock band, playing at a deafening volume. A drunken roar of motorboats on the lake, a drunken roar of motorcycles