The Wild Truth: The secrets that drove Chris McCandless into the wild. Carine McCandless

bed set in the guest room, where it appeared he planned to choke her to death.

      “Kids! Kids! Help! Look what your father is doing to me!” she would scream out between breaths.

      “Kids! Get in here now! Look what your mother is making me do!” was his pathetic defense.

      I would scream at him to stop and try to push him off her. Chris—three years older and wiser from his own injuries—would quickly pull me back, until I learned to watch from the doorway. We were forced to witness, and then wait. We waited in fear of what would happen—not just to our mom but also to ourselves—if we left before being given permission. We learned early on that if you haven’t managed to run before the bear smells you, the best course is to just stay really still. Eventually Dad would release Mom, without apology, and she would collapse into the doorway with us.

      “I’m sorry, kids,” Mom would shriek toward Dad as he walked away, “but when I got pregnant with Chris, I got stuck with your father!”

      I remember Chris crying desperately, in anguish over being born, apologizing for causing such trouble.

      Our parents’ hatred of one another needed an additional outlet as their brawl dissipated. Undoubtedly, this would result in a recollection of Chris’s and my most recent heinous crime of childhood: forgetting a chore or perhaps sticking our tongues out at each other while fighting over who got the last Oreo. We would then be instructed to choose the weapon for our punishment. Dad and Mom would wait down on the main level, just off the dining room at the bottom of the steps. Chris and I would take the customary walk down the hall and into our father’s closet.

      Hand in hand, we looked through his assortment of belts, trying to remember which ones hurt the least, which buckles lacked sharp edges. If we chose incorrectly, he would surely drag us back in here to select a much more suitable option himself.

      “Hurry up, goddammit!” he roared while spilling his gin.

      Having made our selection, we started back down the hall: me hyperventilating, Chris consoling, “Don’t worry. It will be over soon.” As we dragged our feet down the staircase, Dad seemed excited while he sat waiting on a dining room chair. He forced us down together, side by side across his lap, and then yanked down our pants and underwear, slamming his palm against Chris’s bare ass and running his fingers across mine.

      The snap of the leather was sharp and quick between our wails. I will never forget craning my neck in search of leniency, only to see the look of sadistic pleasure that lit up my father’s eyes and his terrifying smile—like an addict in the climax of his high. Mom looked on, I imagined fearful to intervene yet also with a certain satisfaction, as if she were a victim observing a sentencing. We were getting what we deserved. We had ruined her life with the weight of our existence, trapping her in this hell.

      When Dad was done—the length of the punishment varied depending on his level of inebriation—we usually retreated to Chris’s room and hid under his bunk beds until we were called to dinner. As we passed the flank steak and mashed potatoes, the discussion circled around everything but the day’s conflict: what we were learning in school, what big contracts they had recently acquired, how smart we were, how rich they were, the next renovation happening to the house, or the upcoming family vacation. The only acknowledgment of the events that had just occurred were veiled stories about how other children who overreacted and talked about such things were separated from each other and thrown into foster homes.

      Dad was cunning enough not to leave marks on any of us that would be noticeable to outsiders. Both our parents seemed ignorant of the deeper emotional wounds they were inflicting. “Don’t be overly dramatic,” we were told. “If it’s not visible, it isn’t really abuse.” We needed to be more grateful for all the advantages we had in life. We knew from watching the news that we were better off than lots of kids, and we assumed that most households were similar to ours. It was our normal, and we became acclimated to it.

      “Hey, are you all right? Do you want to go up?” Marian snaps me back to today.

      “I’m sorry. Yes, thank you, I’m fine,” I answer, less than convincingly. “It’s a lot to take in.”

      “I’m sure it is,” Marian concurs, “but sometimes it helps to work back through some things, doesn’t it?” I am touched by her willingness to walk me through this catharsis, and I follow her upstairs.

      The first door she opens was my room. I point out where I had my bed and my vanity—my collection of stuffed animals as a kid, my collection of makeup and hair products as a teenager. The next door was Chris’s room.

      “Would you like a few minutes to yourself?” Marian offers sweetly.

      “No, I think I’m okay, thanks.” I know full well that I would be completely incapable of containing my emotions if left alone in this space.

      I show Marian where Chris had his bunks and his play table, always set up with hundreds of army men. The little figures of green plastic seemed to come to life as he described the battles to me, and I convinced myself that he was a brilliant strategist. Ultimately, a full-size mattress and study desk took over the artificial war zone.

      I am secretly relieved when Marian opts not to show me the guest room. “I’ve got all my ironing in there—too messy!” She laughs. And again with the master bedroom—there was no reason to drag the tour into Marian’s private space. The only fond memory I have of that room was one classic day when our cat, after being kicked by our father, proceeded to steal into his closet and methodically piss in all his shoes. Chris and I gained a lot of respect that afternoon for the Russian blue we called Pug.

      I thank Marian for her kindness as she walks me back out to the front yard. We exchange cell numbers and email addresses. I embrace her for giving me the chance to revisit this place, to remember the good with the bad.

      Before I pull away from the curb, I envision Chris sprinting toward me on the street, Buck fast on his heels, me with stopwatch in hand cheering him on to beat his latest personal running record. One last look at the yard recalls the building of snow forts, storing our frozen ammunition in hidden bunkers in preparation for a surprise attack from the other neighborhood hoodlums out of school for the day.

      What I initially saw as a property suffering from neglect now appears to just be a very relaxed home. Exhausted from the charade it hosted for the better part of two decades, it is no longer expected to uphold any impression, no longer required to hide any sins. It is what it is. It might not look as pretty, but it now lives with peace, and I find myself envious. I watch the house get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, until it finally disappears.

       PART ONE

       WORTH

       . . . I want to go up to them and say Stop, don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman, he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do, you are going to do bad things to children, you are going to suffer in ways you have never heard of, you are going to want to die. I want to go up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it, . . . but I don’t do it. I want to live. I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them, I say Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

       —Sharon Olds, excerpts from “I Go Back to May 1937,” The Gold Cell

      CHAPTER 1

      MY PARENTS’ BEDROOM was fairly large for a sixties-era upper-middle-class home in Annandale, Virginia. It was simply yet elegantly