Chapter Seven

Daniel mops up a bit of extra gravy with his second slice of challah. “You’ve really outdone yourself, Mom. This is fantastic.”

“Thanks, honey,” his mom says. Her frizzy hair is pulled back with a scrunchie, and maybe it’s because she’s been cooking all day, but somehow, the bags under her eyes and the way her frame seems to keep going bonier the older she gets stands out even more than it did the last time he was here.

She put up the string of hand turkeys Daniel made in elementary school that she keeps carefully preserved in her box of seasonal decorations, along with a few hollowed-out gourds. She’s probably going to spend Sunday taking it all down and putting up twinkly lights and the menorah she likes to put in the window right next to the light-up reindeer.

It’s not that he doesn’t respect her dedication to secularizing the holiday season academically, it’s only that he wants it to feel like it did when he was seven and really proud of his hand turkeys, and it doesn’t anymore.

The table truly is a masterpiece. It’s the same old dining room table Daniel sat at three times a day from age five to eighteen but with the addition of a fold-out table at the end for the aunts and uncles and a few nieces and nephews not doing Thanksgiving with their spouses. Every inch of both tables is groaning with food. There’s the turkey, an enormous masterpiece, golden brown and somehow not completely dried out, and beside it, bowls and bowls of stuffing. The good kind, made with Mom’s three-day-old challah, resting in pottery she hand-painted when Daniel and Meredith were both small enough to love painting their own mugs and bowls. There’s even a veggie bowl with no turkey innards, just in case Daniel stopped eating meat. Apparently, his mom is never sure. There’s cranberry sauce and brussels sprouts fried up in turkey drippings, and gravy and fresh bread, and sweet potato mash covered in walnuts and brown sugar. The trip home was worth it for the food alone.

Maybe he should come visit over winter break.

“Glad to see you’re still eating meat after all.” It’s the first thing Daniel’s father has said since the meal started, and Daniel groans internally.

“I told you; I’m not a vegetarian.” Daniel mentions this every time he’s here. “I’m trying to reduce meat, that’s all.”

His dad doesn’t answer. Daniel’s dietary choices, as well as his career choices, remain a mystery to him, Daniel can tell. Academia is all well and good, but that’s in fields like medicine and law, not something as weird as “digital humanities.”

“Well, it’s good you’re making an exception for the holidays.” Daniel’s mom is all forced cheer. “It’s so nice we’re all together today, isn’t it!”

“Definitely.” Daniel hopes his smile doesn’t come off as fake. “Except Benjamin.”

“Oh, such a shame he had to work, and on Thanksgiving!” Daniel’s mom agrees. “Meredith, do you think he’ll be by later?”

The heat now firmly on Meredith, Daniel pulls his phone out under the table and opens his messenger thread with Tony.

Happy thanksgiving

Only seconds later, Tony answers.

hpy t-day hope ur having a good time in cali

Daniel tries not to let anything show on his face—happiness at the quick response, confusion at Tony’s sudden lapse into textspeak, continued conflict at how he’s supposed to handle this. He hasn’t seen Tony since their impromptu first date on Monday, and he doesn’t know if he should angle for a second. Tony certainly is; he asked on Monday evening if Daniel was free before he had to leave for Thanksgiving, and Daniel lied and said he wasn’t.

He wants to see Tony again; he wants it so badly he has trouble remembering why he probably shouldn’t.

The problem is he looked up Gianna’s records at the registrar’s office. She took a class with Mario in the fall semester last year. Her transcript is nothing special, a solid B-minus/C-plus student, but her dropping out is not explained in any of the official documentation.

The problem is Daniel needs to know why she dropped out and why she’s so affected by the death of a professor she took one class with a year ago. He needs to know why she was calling Mario in the weeks leading up to his death.

The problem is Daniel lay awake three nights in a row, feeling guilty for not telling the police about Gianna and her possible connection to Mario out of fear of hurting Tony if she is involved.

The problem is Daniel woke up way too early three mornings in a row, feeling guilty for not asking Tony about his suspicions.

The red-eye flight into SFO this morning was almost a relief; at least he has an excuse for how tired he is.

“Put the phone away, son,” Daniel’s dad says, snapping Daniel out of his reverie.

“Sorry.” Daniel does as he’s told.

They’ve moved on from interrogating Meredith about her absent husband to Aunt Silvia’s work stories. Aunt Silvia’s work stories range from utterly baffling to absolutely horrifying, so Daniel tunes in long enough to hear about her coworker who was caught doing meth in a supply closet.

Aunt Silvia works in an elementary school.

Dinner peters out slowly. Daniel manages to nab the last bit of the good stuffing—the stuffing that was in the bird, that is, as opposed to the three dishes of excess stuffing his mom baked in her neighbor’s oven. There’s just something about all that soggy bread and celery when it’s mixed up with the liver and the heart and all the other bits Daniel doesn’t ever eat on his own. He might as well make the most of it.

He offers to help his mom with the dishes about twelve times, but she turns him down each time, and the aunts bustle their way into the kitchen to help without asking. Once he’s carried all the plates and dishes into the kitchen, Daniel’s out of a job unless he wants to help his dad find a football game or an insanely boring documentary on TV.

Instead, he steps out back onto the porch.

“Traitor,” Meredith says from where she’s looking out at the yard they used to play in.

“They were about to start ganging up on me.”

“So you threw me under the bus?”

“Who else was I gonna throw? The dog died three years ago.”

“I miss Harley.”

“Me too.”

They smile at each other. It’s only when they’re both at their parents’ house that they get along like they used to—when Meredith isn’t stuck playing messenger for their parents, and Daniel isn’t stuck disappointing her by proxy.

“So, who were you texting under the table?” she asks, turning to lean against the porch railing. She’s not wearing any makeup, which she never used to do before she had kids. Her brown hair is pulled up in a tight bun. Her forehead has creases now. She’s only four years older than him. Emily is asleep in the crib their parents still keep upstairs for her even though, at three, she’s almost too big for it; Davy’s in the living room with Dad, probably learning to swear at football players. It’s the most relaxed Meredith has looked all evening.

“So, where is Benjamin?” Daniel parrots.

Meredith scowls at him. “I still think that was a low blow.”

“Sorry. Just trying to get Mom and Dad off my back.”

“Mom and Dad would get off your back if you called more.”

“They would not, They’d get on my back some more over the phone.”

“So you tell them what they want to hear a bit; where’s the harm?”

Daniel laughs darkly. “I tell them I want to live in Cali again someday? I tell them I want to follow your example and procure some grandkids so they can at least pretend I’m not gay?”

“Daniel!” Meredith looks shocked.

“It’s true. They’ve hated every single guy I’ve brought home.”

“Because they were all pretentious douchebags,” Meredith tells him, which is rich given that she’s married to fucking Benjamin. “They’re not homophobes.”

“They literally think my life isn’t worth as much, and I can uproot it any time because I don’t have kids.” It’s an effort to keep his tone even and his voice low so no one inside hears him. Daniel’s not ready to have this discussion with his parents. Not again, and definitely not so soon into the holiday.

“So that’s it. You’re…never coming home?”

“You too, huh?”

She shrugs. “I kinda thought… I don’t know. We’re all here.”

“I like my life,” Daniel bursts out. “I like my apartment and my friends and my job. I worked really hard to get a PhD before I was thirty, and I know none of you give a shit about my career, but it means something to me. I don’t get why this is so hard to grasp.”

“Oh my god, shut up about your career already.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s all you ever talk about. Do you have friends? I don’t know! Are you seeing someone? You’d never tell me! All you ever talk about is your classes and your students and how successful you are. Have you ever, even once, considered that I didn’t get that chance?”

He can’t say he had.

“I had Davy when I was twenty-six, asshole,” she reminds him. “Guess how many career-furthering opportunities there are for moms who need to be home by 3:00 p,m. or pay out the nose for a babysitter?”

“I thought that was what you wanted. That’s why you didn’t go on after your master’s, right?”

She snorts. “Right, my lowly master’s. I don’t know; I thought it was what I wanted. You ever consider that Mom gave up her job to raise us?”

Daniel blinks, leaning against the railing next to her, staring at the dark yard. He can barely make out the shape of the swing set. “No.”

“She got great grades in college. But she had us, and she stopped working when we were little. And when we were old enough to take care of ourselves, everything she learned before was outdated, and all she could get were admin jobs.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. And when her only son refuses to visit more than twice a year and acts like his career is the only important thing in his life, it’s kinda like he’s spitting in the face of everything she gave up.”

Daniel opens his mouth and then closes it again. “That’s not my intention.”

“Yeah, well, it’s your effect.” Meredith pushes herself off from the railing and goes back inside.

Daniel sags against the porch railing heavily. Is there anything to what she said? Does he really make his parents feel like that? Daniel refuses to believe there’s no homophobia in the way his dad has kept him at arm’s length ever since he came out junior year of college. That was when he started flying home less and less too. He started putting down roots on the East Coast, and the more roots he had, the harder it got to leave them. Daniel’s always been an overactive gardener, drowning his plants.

Maybe he was overcompensating for neglecting his earlier roots.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one neglecting them though.

He can’t believe Meredith still thought he was planning on moving here again someday.

It’s not that Daniel categorically denies the possibility, because that isn’t how jobs work in academia. Sure, he looked mostly on the East Coast when he was first applying for teaching positions after his PhD, but either way, as an academic, you take what you can get. He hasn’t ever explained the process in detail to his parents, though, because they never asked and never seemed to care overly much.

The longer he thinks about it, the more uncomfortable he gets.

To avoid it, he pulls out his phone.

It’s actually kind of horrible, he texts Tony. Hope yours is better.

aw that sucks, Tony replies only seconds later, followed by a string of unhappy emojis.

Tony, are you drunk? he asks, a smile pulling at his lips.

g2g, kisses. Tony follows that with a kiss emoji.

Daniel sends him a string of question marks, but he doesn’t reply. Weird. It’s not like Tony being tipsy on the phone would be a problem.

Unless he’s worried about keeping secrets from Daniel.

With a sigh, Daniel heads inside. He pops his head into the kitchen, but it’s only the aunts at this point, gossiping and drinking wine. The dishes are long-since done. He swipes a glass of wine off the counter and drinks it as he walks toward the living room; he’s old enough to enjoy red wine because it makes him mellow and sleepy, and in combination with the turkey and the chronic sleep deprivation, he’ll fall asleep before seven at this rate.

Someone or other would probably take that as cause to accuse him of avoiding his family.

He settles on the floor next to Davy, who has his back to the couch, his impressively clunky cast resting carefully on the tops of his bent knees.

“How’s it going?” Daniel asks him.

“Shh.” Davy frowns. “This is my favorite ad.”

Daniel holds up his hands in surrender. Favorite ads. Who knew? Kids these days.

To his surprise, they’re not watching sports or a documentary that prominently features a factory line. Instead, it’s a local station interviewing retail workers about their Black Friday preparations.

“Nuts,” Daniel’s dad mutters, and Daniel is surprised to find himself nodding in agreement.

“Did you know people die at these things every year?” Aunt Silvia asks, vaguely disgusted.

There’s a low murmur of agreement.

“They do this crap in New York too?” Daniel’s dad asks gruffly.

“Yeah.” Daniel is startled into honesty by his father’s interest. “I mean, the big chains, like everywhere. Rhinebeck does a lot of advertising for Small Business Saturday these days.”

“Well, that’s something.”

Daniel counts it as a win.

They watch in joint horrified silence as various cashiers and other retail workers prepare by putting up Plexiglas shields to keep from being attacked and stocking tons and tons of goods. If Daniel hadn’t just eaten way more stuffing than his stomach can comfortably fit, he would feel disgusted at the excess; right now, he only feels vaguely disgusted with himself.

A shrill noise breaks through the cozy food coma of the living room.

It takes Daniel three rings to realize it’s his phone. He never turned the ringer off after he missed Colette’s call last week.

“Sorry,” he mutters and answers it, stepping out into the hallway. He doesn’t look back to see everyone’s expressions; he’s sure they’re all various degrees of censure.

“Hello, Daniel Rosenbaum speaking?”

“Daniel?” Colette asks. “Daniel, have you heard?”

There’s an unfamiliar urgency in her tone, and panic grips Daniel. “Was there another murder? Has there been an arrest? Have they found the killer?” What if they arrested Tony? What if they think it was him, and he lied to protect Gianna? What if they arrested Gianna, and Tony is miserable, and that’s why he’s so drunk?

“No,” Colette chokes out. “No, it’s Lily Peterson.”

“Lily?”

“She’s in the hospital. They found her in her room, unconscious. She— Daniel, she took pills. She left a note.”

“Oh my god.” Daniel leans against the wall. He should have given Lily that extension, no questions asked.

He shakes his head. That doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t their anthropology class that made Lily do this. He should have followed up. He should have emailed her again, asked how she was doing.

“The police came again.” Colette’s voice is shaking. “They were…much less polite.”

“Oh fuck. Did they—was it—I mean, police officers in America—”

“It wasn’t about race.” It would be more comforting if Colette didn’t sound so scared. “At least, it wasn’t explicitly about race. They seem to think I’m hiding something about Mario. They think what Lily did is connected.”

“Is it?” Daniel hates himself for even thinking it.

“I don’t know,” Colette bursts out, frustrated. “She left a letter, and it said something about her and Mario, and no one is telling me anything.”

“Okay. Okay. Here’s what you should do. Call Stacy.”

Dead silence on the other end.

“I’m not kidding,” Daniel barrels on. “I know you can’t stand her, but she’s a middle-aged white woman. She can call the manager like you wouldn’t believe. I bet she can get you information.”

It takes a while for Colette to respond. Finally, with her voice so low Daniel almost doesn’t hear her, she says, “I’m afraid they actually might arrest me.”

“I’ll bail you out.” Daniel has no idea how to bail a person out, or if that’s even something he could do. He’d figure it out.

She laughs. “It’s a homicide, Daniel. Do you realize how high the bail is?”

“No. I don’t care. I’ll figure it out.”

“I wish I had come with you.” That’s the first time she’s said that. Daniel always offers to take her home for Thanksgiving, even when he was dating Jeff, and she always turns him down. According to her, it’s the most productive weekend of her academic year. And according to her, in France, people have the decency to act ashamed of their imperialism instead of creating a holiday around it.

Daniel can’t argue with either statement.

Eventually, when the silence stretches for too long, Colette announces, “I’m sending flowers to Lily. Shall I sign for you?”

“I’m coming home early. And yes.”

“You just left yesterday.”

“One of our students nearly killed herself, and you’re being framed for murder.”

Backlit by the dim glow of the TV, Daniel’s mother’s shadow drops a wine glass.

It shatters to pieces on the big, flat tiles of the hallway floor. Daniel never liked those tiles. His feet get cold.

“Murder?” his mother whispers, her eyes wide.

“I gotta go,” Daniel mutters into the phone. “I’ll text you when I get in.”

He hangs up, but not before he hears her heartfelt thank you. Then, he gets the dustpan from the cupboard by the kitchen door, crouches, and starts sweeping up the glass.

“Oh, Danny, you’re a guest. You don’t have to,” his mom starts.

“I’m a guest who’s going to have to leave early. It’s the least I can do.”

“Leave early?” Meredith repeats from the living room door, where a whole crowd has gathered. “Are you serious? You haven’t even been here twenty-four hours.”

Daniel takes a deep breath to explain, but before he can even try, his mother does it for him.

“There’s been a murder.”

“Seriously?” Meredith asks.

Daniel rocks to his feet, holding the dustpan full of glass shards. “My colleague Mario was killed a week ago.” No one responds, so he powers through. “That was my friend Colette. She was the last to see him alive, and now it’s looking like the police think she’s a suspect. She said…” He swallows heavily, trying to parse it. Lily, with her pink-tipped hair and the wrist tattoo and her exceptionally quiet voice whenever she does manage to speak in class. “She said one of our students attempted suicide. And it’s connected.”

The whole family is crowded around the door to the living room, staring at him.

“Well,” Dad says. “Guess we’d better find you a flight back.”

Daniel nods wordlessly and trudges upstairs to his laptop. He doesn’t want to stay in the living room with all those eyes on him, especially with Meredith looking at him like she thinks this is somehow his doing.

There’s an email from the college president in the work email tab Daniel left open with the subject line “Urgent: Lily Peterson.” Daniel doesn’t click it; he clicks another tab and opens his personal email instead. He does a keyword search for Jet Blue and tries to figure out if his flight home on Sunday can still be refunded, but the tiny script makes his eyes cross.

Finally, he does the unthinkable: he dials the customer service hotline. It’s only about five minutes of listening to the call waiting jingle before he reaches someone. By some stroke of luck, whoever happens to be manning the Jet Blue call center on Thanksgiving Day is remarkably competent, and within minutes of him explaining there’s been an emergency, his flight has been rebooked at only a minor increase in expense.

Daniel packs up the few things he got around to unpacking; he’ll have to head for the airport at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning.

Finally, he takes out Emily’s carefully, but still somehow sloppily, wrapped birthday present. It’s on Saturday, and they were going to have a little party. Now, he’ll be the uncle who missed her birthday as well as the uncle who’s never around. His only saving grace is that Benjamin is an only child, thus depriving the kids of competent aunts and uncles.

A knock on the door interrupts his preparations.

“Hiya.” His mom slides in through the crack of the open door.

Was she always this thin? This frail?

She takes a seat on his bed. “Did you find a flight?”

“Yeah. Early tomorrow morning. I’ll take BART. I don’t want to—”

“We’ll drive you,” she tells him firmly.

“Mom, I don’t want to make you and Dad drive all the way around the city on Black Friday.”

“And I don’t want you taking BART all by yourself after a holiday.” She smiles a little ruefully.

Daniel relents. “If you’re really sure.”

“Positive.” She picks at a loose thread on the quilt her mother, Daniel’s grandmother, made at some point long before Daniel knew her when her hands were still steady enough for sewing. “Daniel, honey…”

“Yeah?” Daniel already fears an accusation or an invitation for Christmas.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

He blinks. “Huh?”

“Why didn’t you tell us all this was going on? You could have canceled.”

He shakes his head instantly. “I don’t see you enough anyway. And I thought… I don’t know; I thought it would make things awkward. You’ve never met Mario or Colette, so I kind of figured…”

“We wouldn’t mind knowing your friends.”

“Yeah, well, you’d have to come out to see me sometimes for that.” A hint of bitterness escapes with his words, and Daniel wishes he could put it back.

She looks up from the quilt. “You’ve never invited us.”

“Oh.” It’s true, probably. He assumed they wouldn’t be interested.

“What time is your flight?”

“Seven thirty.”

“We’ll leave around five thirty, then,” she decides. “Set an alarm?”

“Yeah.”

Daniel goes to bed as soon as she’s gone. He can’t face the email about Lily; he can’t stomach thinking about what he should have done to help her. Staring at the wall of his childhood bedroom is a vastly preferable alternative.

His 5:00 a.m. alarm rings much too soon. He drinks too-weak black tea standing in the kitchen and assures his mom twelve times that he can get breakfast at the airport. The drive to SFO is uneventful, almost too fast. Sitting in the passenger seat, Daniel checks in on his phone as his dad shakes his head at the number of people already on the roads and sips coffee from a thermos.

He’s surprised when his dad pulls him into a quick, rough hug before he gets in line for security.

The problem with morning flights is that Daniel can’t even attempt to sleep through them. The in-flight entertainment isn’t offering much besides six whole episodes of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and right now, Guy Fieri’s voice, presence, and enthusiasm for deep-fried food is like a cheese grater to the inside of Daniel’s skull. He can’t stop thinking. What if Colette’s been arrested by the time he lands? What if her one-day absence from life wasn’t a breakdown she didn’t want anyone witnessing but a signal of guilt. What if—

Daniel pushes the thought away. He’s already driving himself insane wondering about Tony and Gianna, which he shouldn’t be doing. He can’t start questioning Colette as well. She’s his best friend, he knows her. She wouldn’t.

That, of course, leaves room for other thoughts—wild, fantastical ones about Lily Peterson and Mario. Midway through the flight, he abruptly can’t stand thinking about it anymore, and he shells out the money for in-flight internet access. He opens the email and skims it.

 

Dear Members of the Faculty,

I regret to inform you that one of our students, Lily Peterson, attempted suicide on the college premises early on Thanksgiving morning. Due to the campus being empty, it was several hours before she was found, and then only at the insistence of her roommate, who was concerned when she stopped responding to messages. Lily is currently in the intensive care unit of Dutchess County Hospital. It is unclear whether she will recover. In a letter addressed to our recently deceased Professor Lombardi, Lily described her motives for this attempt. While these motives are of a very personal and sensitive nature, we have decided to share them with a select group of colleagues who taught Lily, as you will likely be questioned by the police regarding them.

She wrote that she couldn’t imagine managing her course load without Professor Lombardi’s guidance, and that she could not imagine loving anyone as she loved him. It is unclear as yet whether or not her feelings were reciprocated and what that might mean for Professor Lombardi’s death. Over the course of the next weeks, the police will seek you out as other members of faculty with whom Lily had relationships. Depending on the outcome of the criminal investigation, it is also possible there will be an ensuing internal Title IX investigation.

Sincerely,

Professor Ernest Kaufmann

President of Lobell College

Professor of Ethnomusicology

Lobell College

30 Lobell Road

NY 12504

ernest.kaufmann@lobell.edu

845-596-7903

 

With a shaky sigh, Daniel closes his laptop.

He doesn’t know what he was expecting.

To know Lily was alone, probably for hours, before someone finally found her and got her help… It’s awful. It’s heart-wrenching, it’s upsetting in a way Daniel understands so well, and he doesn’t know how to process it.

Somehow, it’s easier to parse the other part of the email, to turn the complexities over and over in his mind. Lily wrote that she was only managing her course load with Mario’s support, but he wasn’t her academic advisor. As far as Daniel knows, she only ever took one class with him. That day in the car, when Daniel mentioned her, Mario talked about her with the detached air he would use to discuss any student.

That could mean that whatever was between them was all on Lily’s side, that this was a standard crush on a professor exacerbated by Lily’s mental health. On the other hand, if Mario was providing her with so much guidance, and there was nothing shady about it at all, why would he not say as much when the subject came up?

Almost clinically, Daniel tries to find ways to make it not Mario’s fault as the plane descends over JFK. He supposes it would make sense for Mario not to mention Lily’s feelings for him; he wouldn’t want to jeopardize her relationship with Daniel and Colette. Likewise, he probably wouldn’t want to admit anything because it’s a really bad look for a male professor to have young, impressionable female students fawning over them.

At least, in Daniel’s book, it is.

He thinks of the faculty retreat summer before last when it was put to a vote whether the college would institute a rule forbidding sexual relationships between faculty and students. Daniel thought it was a no-brainer and that it would be an easily decided question. It was 2016 at the time, and he had believed—naively, it turned out—that no one in this day and age still thought it would be a good idea for professors to date their students. It turned into a heated debate very quickly.

What about the master’s students? was the first line of argument. They were older and more mature. Surely it would be an offense to act as if they had no agency. And really, the BA students were all over eighteen; they, too, should be exempt. On and on the debate raged. Daniel had long-since cast his vote for the proposition of forbidding professor-student relationships and spent most of the retreat fervently wishing for a drink.

He was surprised at the time that Colette seemed undecided. Of course, she agreed on principle that a professor ought to keep their hands off their own students, she had said, but what about students to whom they were not connected through classes or advisory positions? She was concerned the whole debate was another example of American purity culture gone rampant. “Who are we,” she said, “to tell people who are legally of age who they can and can’t be with?”

Daniel argued about the power imbalance inherent in such an age gap and the mismatch in institutional power, but Colette wasn’t convinced that gave them any right to decide on the personal lives of faculty and students alike. Daniel argued that tenured professors were basically unfireable, and therefore, any wrongdoing they committed would inevitably be overlooked. The whole system was stacked against student plaintiffs in an internal investigation such as a Title IX investigation. Colette then conceded the point but argued that she and Daniel were lucky to have nabbed tenure-track positions in the first place since secure places for academics were thin on the ground these days and panic over possible private wrongs in intimate relationships threatened those jobs. Jeff was noncommittal, though he thought Colette made good points, especially because he himself wasn’t at Lobell on a tenure-track position, and his time there had a very clear expiration date. The whole thing was so galling to Daniel he mostly remembers being annoyed at them both.

He didn’t even remember how Mario spent all day playing devil’s advocate to both sides, just because he could, until Stacy mentioned it. At the time, Daniel assumed it was because he thought the whole thing was as ludicrous as Daniel did. Maybe he was wrong, and Stacy was right—maybe Mario was prolonging the discussion on purpose. Maybe Mario had something to hide.

It’s an hour on the subway from JFK to Penn Station, and he spends it staring blankly at the other passengers, wondering what secrets they have. Is the mother rocking her baby’s stroller back and forth monotonously sleeping with her babysitter? Is the guy in matching sweats and a hoodie with a baseball cap pulled low over his head stalking his professors? Is the girl staring out the window with her headphones jammed into her ears secretly in love with someone totally inappropriate?

He gets a soft pretzel at Penn Station, not because he’s hungry but because he thinks he’ll get nauseous if he doesn’t eat. Holding both his pretzel and his bag, he gets elbowed to the side twice on his way to the tracks. Penn Station is overwhelming at the best of times, but right now, the noise all around him, the crowds of bustling people—all of it is too much, and Daniel feels like his ears and eyes are shutting down in self-defense. He loiters around the main hall, waiting for his train to be announced, trying desperately not to give in to his worst impulses (yelling at the young mom with three overactive kids that she needs to get them under control). Not that you can really hear the tinny announcement for the Amtrak up to Boston in the overcrowded hall, but the track number doesn’t show up on the switchboard before the announcement. Mario used to head up to Boston for breaks when he was still dating his ex-girlfriend, Laura, more than a year and a half ago now. He and Daniel never got the same train because they were headed in different directions, but sometimes, they split a cab to the station, Daniel taking the southbound train and Mario the northbound.

It’s a beautiful stretch of track up to the Rhinecliff Station. The season’s first freeze hit over the single day Daniel was gone, and the Hudson is majestic with it, all ice chunks crashing together, angry and stormy. He watches the little coast guard boat dart across the water, breaking up the biggest chunks. It must feel futile to be out on the water alone, trying to fight the full force of nature on a day when everyone else is at home with their families or beating one another half to death over the best sale.

His phone buzzes in his coat pocket. Daniel pulls it out.

Sorry about last night. Family Thanksgiving and all.

He smiles before he can stop himself. Tony was definitely drunk yesterday. It’s kind of sweet that he feels the need to apologize.

Tony’s kind of sweet.

For a long moment of relief from the noise of his brain, Daniel allows himself to think about that kiss down by the Hudson less than a week ago. There was such an honest potential to it that he finds himself wishing Tony didn’t have a sister, that he met Tony utterly independently from the rest of his life, just to savor that sweetness. He wants to cling to it, to that moment of connection, of clarity, with only the two of them and the cold winter air and the beauty of the world around them.

He wonders what Tony would think of this new possible revelation about Mario. He imagines Tony listening to the radio at the garage when a newscaster suddenly announces that Mario Lombardi’s death is being investigated in context with inappropriate affairs he was having with his students. Tony would shake his head, maybe scoff in disapproval, and his sister would—

His sister. His sister, who used to be a student at Lobell, who took a class with Mario and was so shaken by his death she spent a whole day crying.

If Lily’s feelings were requited—if Mario was using her like that—who’s to say he wasn’t doing the same to other students?

It’s an ugly, unkind thought about a dead friend. It’s an even uglier thought about a new lover’s sister and what it might do to her to see her professor-turned-paramour go after a classmate. Daniel draws his jacket tighter around himself even though the train is plenty warm. He stares down at his phone, the text from Tony reading suddenly sinister.

Turning to the window again, he snaps a picture of the frozen Hudson.

Had to head back early, but the view is great.

He’s not going to use Tony, he decides. If Tony wants to meet up again, he won’t turn Tony down, and he’ll try to discover more about Gianna in the process, but he won’t instigate it. Maybe that will be enough to calm the wildly spinning compass needle of his conscience. He puts his phone away again and resolutely doesn’t check it for the rest of the trip.

Colette picks him up at the station looking exhausted. She hugs him tightly, rocking up on her tiptoes to reach, and she drives them both home.

“Should we go visit Lily?” Daniel asks as they pass the hospital.

Colette doesn’t answer, but she also doesn’t stop.

“Do you think he did it?” she asks finally, once she’s pulled into the parking lot that no longer has red tape blocking off the alley where Mario died.

“Did what? Sleep with Lily?”

Colette nods tightly.

“I don’t know.” Daniel’s whole body feels heavy as he drags himself out of the car. “I wish I did.”

“I feel like I would have known. I feel like I should have known.”

“At the very least, he kept her feelings from you. He knew about that, right?”

“I don’t know.” Colette starts to toy with one of her braids and then abruptly crosses her arms across her chest as if to stop her own vulnerability. “And going to visit Lily when I was…complicit in whatever happened to her…”

Daniel could say that she wasn’t complicit; she didn’t know. Mario had kept it a secret; she couldn’t know. At the same time, he feels it as well: the guilt of having looked right past a student in need, a student suffering and reaching out for help in the worst ways.

“It feels wrong,” he agrees.

Colette swallows visibly and looks over at him. “I’m scared.”

Daniel rests a hand on her shoulder. “Me too.”