Learning to Swim

FOR A HORRIBLE MOMENT I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO PASS out or, worse, die here in this man’s impeccable office. It seemed as if I couldn’t get in enough air to make a sound, but I must have managed enough of a squeak that he realized he was slowly choking the life out of me.

He let go and whirled away, took two steps to his desk and propped himself on it, his back to me, breathing heavily. I leaned against the wall and rubbed my throat and breathed deeply. Air, as much as I wanted—stuff you take for granted until you suddenly can’t get enough of it. My ears were ringing. It was curiously like how I felt when I’d surfaced in Lake Champlain with Paul.

When he turned back around he was once again the cool businessman, in perfect control, hair back in place. “If you have harmed my son, I will kill you,” he said, almost pleasantly. “If this is a hoax, I will probably also kill you.”

We stared at each other a long moment. If this was innocence, it wasn’t what I expected. If it was guilt, it was terrifying.

“May I have some water?” I asked, my voice catching. He made a small violent movement, but restrained himself. He gestured toward a fancy watercooler in the corner. I walked to it on unsteady legs, ran water into a mug that sat nearby and drank, for once not concerned about germs. I carefully set the mug down and turned back to him. He was watching me unblinkingly.

I realized my entire plan had been absurdly naïve. I’d been insane to think I had the ability to face down either raw evil or deep anguish. Dumond either was responsible for his own wife’s death and his son’s near-death, or had suffered a life-shattering tragedy. And I had no idea which.

Time ticked by. I forced myself to breathe steadily. “Okay,” I said. “I’ve found a boy who may be your son.”

“Let me guess,” he interrupted, lip curling, French accent slipping through. “You need a cash deposit to remember where my son is. For this I get perhaps a small clue, but to remember exactly where he is you will need more cash, eh?” He nearly trembled with rage.

“No, no, no,” I said. “You don’t understand,” and God help me, my voice cracked again. I go years without crying—in public, anyway—and then I’m about to turn on the spigot for the third time in two days.

It stopped him for a moment, halted a tirade that I sensed had barely started. He abruptly gestured at a chair, and in that moment I thought I saw something besides rage: a flicker of despair, a deep sadness.

I sat, warily, on the edge of one of the leather chairs. I thought of a small boy, waiting for me, trusting me. Needing a parent who loved him.

“I’ve found a boy I think is your son,” I said. “But before I tell you where he is”—I held up my hand as he moved involuntarily—“I need to know what happened.”

He stared at me. “What do you mean?”

“How it happened. How Paul disappeared.” My voice rose. “Why there was no newspaper coverage. And why you’re here instead of in Montreal.”

He eyed me, gauging the advantages and disadvantages of humoring me, of telling his story. At last he did, flatly and with little expression, leaning up against the edge of his desk.

He’d come home from work one afternoon to find his wife and child gone, along with her car, and a scribbled note saying she was going on a holiday. She had taken breaks before, especially during the winter, but had never before taken Paul. But the nanny had had the day off, and he assumed it had been spur of the moment. Some clothing and jewelry and her laptop were gone. He’d called their condo in Florida and then her friends. Nothing.

A few days later a neighbor wandered over with a misdelivered envelope that had sat in their mailbox while they had been out of town. It was a ransom demand with a deadline that had passed, threatening to kill both mother and child if he went to the police or failed to pay.

Paralyzed, he waited. Next a packet arrived at work. He’d obviously not cared about his wife, the note said, and she was dead, but he had another chance to get his son back. It included a Polaroid of a frightened Paul, perched on a chair in a room he didn’t recognize.

He’d followed directions, leaving a bag of money near a park bench. Next came another note with a new photo, demanding more money. He paid. No Paul. Another demand, another photo. Now he went to the police, who orchestrated a fake payoff and staked out the drop site. No one showed. Three days later another demand, threatening to send Paul home in small pieces. Against police advice, he followed payoff instructions with as much as he could raise. Nothing. One more demand, but by this point he knew it was futile, and turned it over to the police. And then it all stopped. No more ransom demands, no more mysterious packets. Nothing—as if nothing had ever happened, as if wife and child had never existed.

He told neighbors that Madeleine and Paul had gone to Florida for the winter; the police had kept the story quiet. If any journalists had learned of the kidnapping, they had cooperated. Finally he sold the house and moved to Ottawa. One letter was forwarded from Montreal from someone claiming to have Paul, but with no contact info. He kept a Québec private investigator looking, with a standing offer of a reward. Nothing.

He recited it dispassionately, as if telling someone else’s story, and then looked at me.

“You think you know where Paul is,” he said, without expression.

“Do you have a picture of him?” I asked.

Barely shifting his weight off the desk, he pulled out his wallet, opening it to a snapshot of a dark-haired boy perched on a rail of a boat, laughing into the camera. He was younger and plumper than Paul, with a carefree look I’d never seen on Paul’s face.

But it was him, without a doubt.

This was when I had to decide. I had a natural antipathy to anyone as attractive, polished, and wealthy as this man, and he’d given me a first-hand example of his frightening rage. But what swayed me was the very flatness of his tone as he told the story, as if his anguish was so intense he had to keep it tightly bottled up. I could not imagine him harming his child.

I took a deep breath, and made a decision that would change lives, for better or for worse. “Yes,” I said. “He’s with a friend of mine in upstate New York. I found him two days ago.”

It seemed that the world should shift at this point, but Dumond didn’t blink. “How?” he asked.

The question caught me off guard. I wasn’t ready to trot out the ferry story: it was too involved, too unlikely, too traumatic. I didn’t know how to answer. He repeated it: “How did you find him?”

“He was on the ferry coming into Port Kent,” I said carefully, and that part was true. “He was alone, and told me he had been kidnapped.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why do you think it is my son?”

This wasn’t going at all as I had expected. I hadn’t considered his doubting me. “He says his name is Paul Dumond. And that his parents are Philippe and Madeleine Dumond, from Montreal. He says he was taken before Christmas.”

A long silence. Then he asked, “Where has he been?”

“I don’t know. The ferry was coming from Burlington, Vermont, but they could have driven from anywhere.”

“And his mother?” The question was casual.

My throat tightened. I hadn’t considered that I would have to tell this man that his son had heard his mother being shot. I wished I could lie and say I didn’t know, but I’m a terrible liar. And he needed to know. “Paul says … Paul says she was shot soon after they were taken.”

Dumond raised an eyebrow, but gave no other reaction. “He saw this?”

“No,” I whispered, “but he says he heard it.”

He stood suddenly. He had made his decision. I could be a lunatic or a criminal; I could be playing a horrible hoax, but he had reached a decision: he would go see the boy—now. We would go to New York, in his car. I would leave my car here, in the garage under the building. He had no intention of letting me out of his sight.

“Don’t you want to call the police?”

“Later. First I need to see the boy.”

Spending three hours in a car with Paul’s father hadn’t been in my script. But I could see his point: he didn’t want to run the risk of my getting away from him. And he was, after all, the person I’d decided to turn Paul over to.

“All right,” I said after thinking it through. “But you need to call the police, tell them I said I found your son, and that you’re going to go see him.”

We stared at each other. But on this I wasn’t giving in. I was all too aware that I could be making entirely the wrong decision about a man who may have plotted the murder of his wife and child. With deliberation, he picked up his desk phone. As he punched in a number that he read off his cell phone I could see the wedding band on his ring finger. He pushed the speakerphone button and I heard voice mail kick in.

Dumond shoved a pad of paper and pen at me, making a writing motion as he spoke. “Yes, this is Philippe Dumond and I have spoken to you about my son’s kidnapping last winter from Montreal. I am with a young woman whose name is”—I’d figured out what he wanted and hastily printed on the pad—“Troy Chance, from Lake Placid, New York. She says she found my son at the ferry station in the New York town of Port Kent, day before yesterday. We are traveling to New York State now so I can determine if this is my son.” He rattled off his cell phone number, hung up, and stood.

I followed him out of the office as he spoke briskly to his secretary, and then he strode beside me to my car, waiting with barely restrained impatience as I scrabbled to move map, water bottle, and other odds and ends from the passenger side. I’d never realized how much stuff I travel with. He directed me curtly into a slot in his underground garage and waited while I got my things. As I rummaged in the glove box for my ID and phone, I slipped the tape recorder out of my blazer pocket and into the compartment. If the worst happened, someone would find the tape of our conversation. Like the schoolteacher from Maryland years ago who had recorded her conversations with her teenaged carjacker, trying patiently to talk him out of killing her, but failing.

He silently ushered me into a black Mercedes a few spaces over. Awkwardly, I sat in the leather seat and buckled up.

“What about—” I started.

“What?” he asked sharply, as he backed the car out.

“I thought maybe … shouldn’t you, well, take along something of Paul’s? I mean, he’s been gone for a long time. Does he have a favorite toy, a teddy bear or something?”

He looked at me as if I were crazy. But I could remember Paul saying his father didn’t want him. Maybe the kidnappers had told him this; maybe he’d just assumed it because his father hadn’t come and rescued him. But having a tangible reminder of happier times couldn’t hurt.

Again he made a quick decision. We veered away from downtown and toward an elite area with winding roads and stately homes of diplomats and a few embassy compounds, with private homes mixed in.

We stopped at an elaborate Tudor home nestled behind a tall wrought-iron fence with a hedge thickly entwined. The gate swung open when he fingered a gadget in his car. He parked in front of the house and ushered me in front of him, through the heavy oak door and across the polished floor of the hallway.

He moved fast. He punched off an alarm, then stalked down a corridor. He paused to pull down a soft black bag from a hallway closet, and continued down the hall and into a room. I followed, tentatively. From the doorway I could see a child’s furniture: oak bunk beds with matching dresser, desk and chair, rocker, and toy box. Otherwise the room was bare, with a row of stacked boxes still sealed with movers’ tape. Dumond moved to the boxes and ripped four or five of them open, one after another. In silence he rooted through them, grabbing a stuffed bear, a truck, and action figures and cramming them into the bag. I didn’t say a word; I scarcely breathed. My throat tightened. Here was Paul’s childhood, boxed away, carefully moved into a new room. Waiting for the boy who had spent the last five months alone in a tiny room.

As quickly as he’d started, Dumond was finished. Back down the hallway, up a short flight of stairs to what seemed to be a loft area. I sat on the stairs to wait. He reappeared a few minutes later with a packed leather bag.

“Let’s go,” he said, and we strode in silence across the shiny hallway, our heels clicking on the marble, and climbed into the Mercedes.





DOES HE SPEAK ENGLISH?”

“What?” I asked, startled. We’d traveled in silence the first half hour. He had no idea if I was telling him the truth. If he was innocent, he wouldn’t want to get his hopes up that he was about to see his son. If guilty, he was probably working out how best to get rid of me. I was working hard not to consider the second option.

I felt as if I’d suddenly stepped into a movie without having seen the script. Had he been involved? I hoped the hell not. Was I doing the right thing taking him to Paul? I hoped the hell yes. Was I in danger? I had no idea. The Ottawa police knew he was with me, and knew where we were headed. But either way, this man was going to take one small boy out of my life forever.

He grimaced. “This boy you say is Paul.”

“No. At least not much. Did your son … ?”

“He speaks a little, but we spoke French at home.” I knew that most Québec schools didn’t let kids study English until third grade or so. Which seems to me a tad exclusionary, especially in a country that’s officially bilingual.

Silence for a few moments.

“Is he healthy?” he asked.

“He seems fine. I had a friend who’s a nurse look him over.”

More miles in silence. We zoomed past an exit, and I could see McDonald’s arches in the distance. My stomach rumbled. I had a packet of peanut butter crackers in my bag, but I couldn’t picture myself pulling them out and crunching them down in this car with its spotless leather seats.

He drove well, checking rearview mirrors regularly and changing lanes smoothly. It was at least a quarter hour before he spoke again.

“How did you find me?” When he wasn’t angry, his English had no trace of an accent. It’s not uncommon for Canadians to be flawlessly bilingual, especially Québécois who move in both anglophone and francophone worlds. Although some never learn English, and others have a heavy accent.

“Paul told me your names, and I searched on the internet until I found your company and its address. I mean, I assumed it was you.”

“You live in Lake Placid.”

“Yes,” I said. And then, because talking, however inanely, seemed better than sitting in silence for the rest of this three-hour drive, I told him where I’d grown up, where I went to school, about working for the newspaper, and what work I did now. I’m not usually a rambler, but something had to fill this silence. He asked no questions. Neither did I.

Suddenly I thought of Baker—I needed to let her know we were on our way. I didn’t want to be left sitting tensely with Dumond in their driveway waiting for them if they had gone out. And I owed her some warning: Hey, Bake, I’m about to arrive at your house with Paul’s father, who I’m hoping like hell didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping.

I pulled out my cell phone and gestured with it. “I should tell Baker that we’re coming.”

“Baker?”

“My friend that Paul’s with.”

He thought a moment and then nodded, pulling a cell phone out of a cradle I hadn’t noticed. “Use this one.”

Fine by me. He’d have a record of the call, but since I was taking him to Baker’s, it hardly mattered. I punched in the numbers. Baker answered.

“Bake, it’s me. How’s Paul?”

“He’s fine,” she said mildly. “The boys are home from school and teaching him all kinds of naughty slang. Did you talk to his father?”

“Yep. I’m in his car. We’ve crossed the border, as a matter of fact.”

Silence for a moment. “So you’re coming down here. And you’ve decided he’s not the bad guy.”

“Yep and yep. I mean, yep, I’ve decided, pretty much anyway.”

“Should I expect squad cars to descend on us?”

“No, he just wants to see Paul for now. I wanted to give you a heads-up. We’ll be there in about an hour.” What I wasn’t saying was In case I’ve guessed wrong and this man is a homicidal lunatic, have Mike on hand and the kids tucked away safely. But Baker was smart, with a mother’s instincts. She’d probably send the boys to Holly’s. And Mike was an Adirondacker—he hunted, had more than one gun, and knew how to use them.

Dumond watched as I carefully put the phone back in its slot. “Who is this Baker?”

“She’s a good friend of mine, in Saranac Lake. She’s got kids, and Paul likes them, so he’s fine with her.” I was starting to babble.

“She has been keeping Paul?”

“No, he’s been at my house; I just left him at Baker’s today while I went to see you.”

We were quiet the rest of the way, me speaking only to direct him at intersections. By the time we pulled into the driveway Dumond was stiff with tension, and I could hear my heart pounding.

Then we were out of the car, Dumond at my side, gripping my elbow, his fingers tight on my arm. Baker was in the driveway, moving toward us with a slight frown, her eyes worried, her very posture telling me something was wrong. She glanced at Dumond and then spoke to me.

“Troy, he’s gone.” I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach. A harsh exclamation, a sudden movement from the man beside me. I ignored him.

“What do you mean, gone?” The words were thick in my mouth. Oh God, oh God, oh God, ran a little voice in my head. Please tell me that Child Services got him or he’s in the hospital. Please please please …

She gestured toward the doorway, where sturdy Mike was standing, looking like a lumberjack in his jeans and plaid shirt, their sons lined up in front of him, his hands on the shoulders of the two youngest. “They were playing Sardines outside but then they couldn’t find Paul, and finally gave up and came and told me.”

I knew Sardines was a hide-and-seek game: when you found the first person hiding, you squeezed in, until the whole group was squished in together and only one left searching.

Dumond whirled on me and began to spout a torrent of French so furious I was glad it was too fast to understand. Midway he switched to English, just as fast and almost as angry. “What game are you playing that you bring me here and pretend you have my son? How dare you …”

I jerked my arm free and faced him. “Look,” I said hotly. “You have to believe us. Paul was here; he’s your son, he has to be. How many Paul Dumonds have been kidnapped from Montreal? Why would we make this up?” He was staring at me angrily, and I remembered something I’d tucked into my satchel. I grabbed it and pulled out the paper where Paul had written his and his parents’ names, and held it out. “Look, he wrote down his name and your names. He wasn’t lying and I’m not lying.”

Now I was almost shouting. His eyes and posture told me he wasn’t buying it, any of it. Baker had stepped away from us and reappeared, silently pushing something into my hand. I looked down, and saw a small digital camera. “Mike Jr.’s,” she said. “They took pictures today.”

I lifted the camera and looked at the viewing screen. Baker’s middle son, Rick, was grinning a toothy grin, with Paul beside him. I turned to Dumond and silently held out the camera.

He took it and looked down at it. He looked at it a long time, then across the driveway at Rick, wearing the same shirt as in the photo. Now I saw what I’d been looking for and what did, at last, put an end to that horrible am-I-doing-the-right-thing doubt. His face was etched with agony, so stark and pained it made my stomach jolt.

“Yes,” he said. “This is my son.”





MIKE STRODE FORWARD AND INTRODUCED HIMSELF. “FIRST thing to do is contact the local police,” he said. “I’ll call Jimmy Dupuis down at the station and he’ll have everyone keeping an eye out, even the Staties.”

Dumond nodded. Mike normally stays in the background and lets Baker manage things, but when action is required—like when Mike Jr. took a baseball to the forehead and spouted blood like a geyser—he moves, and moves quickly.

We plugged the camera’s memory card into their computer; I selected the best shot of Paul’s face, cropped out the other kids, and printed copies. Mike emailed one to his friend at the police station. They couldn’t do an AMBER Alert, he told us, because we had nothing to suggest that Paul hadn’t just wandered off. Holly and her husband, Tom, appeared, and she herded the kids into the living room to watch a movie.

Mike shook out a map of Saranac Lake onto the kitchen table. “Phil and I will drive this section of town.” He slashed red crayon lines up and down streets. “Tom and Holly will drive this section.” He marked off more streets with a blue crayon. “Troy can search the immediate area on foot and check with neighbors. Susan will stay here in case Paul comes back, and she can alert all of us if anyone finds him.”

For a moment I wondered who Susan was, before I remembered it was Baker’s first name.

I searched for over an hour, knocking on doors and peering into backyards. Excuse me, have you seen a small boy about this size, who looks like this? I was trying not to panic or despair, but I saw only three possibilities: Paul had gotten lost, Paul had run away, Paul had been abducted. One, two, three. None good. After I’d circled the neighborhood, I stopped back at the house for a bathroom break. My head was pounding and my gut felt hollow. The kitchen door creaked as I came in, and Baker looked up from the kitchen table.

“When did you eat last?” she asked.

“Mmm. Breakfast.” She pointed, and I pulled out a chair and sat. Within minutes she had a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich and a cup of steaming Earl Grey in front of me.

My fear, one that I kept probing at like a sore tooth, was that I’d tossed away the miracle I’d been handed—of having saved Paul’s life—by leaving him to be snatched again. I had to struggle not to envision his body in Lake Clear or one of the other nearby lakes. How simple it would be to stop to pretend you’re looking at the view and slip a small bundle into the water. This time they’d be sure he was unconscious or dead first.

Baker spoke as if she were reading my mind. “It’s not likely that someone took him, Troy. The other kids would have seen someone, they’d have seen a strange car. And someone would have had to follow you here this morning; you’d have noticed them.”

She’s not inclined to platitudes, but that’s what this sounded like. I shook my head. “I can’t imagine him just wandering off, Bake. He’s stuck close to me ever since I found him. He wouldn’t feel safe enough to go off on his own. And he had no idea where I was or what I was doing.”

Baker shook her head. “Well, maybe he did.” She took a sip of tea, involuntarily grimacing. She probably would have preferred a shot of Jack Daniel’s—I always bring her back a bottle when I visit Tennessee. I assume you can buy it here, but she seems to prefer it from closer to the source. “When I was talking to you on the phone, the kids came into the kitchen to get something to drink. It never occurred to me that Paul could understand me, or that—”

I finished the sentence. “That he’d run away from his father.” I chewed a bite of sandwich as I thought. “I don’t believe Dumond had anything to do with his son being kidnapped, but I’m not sure that Paul knows that. No telling what the kidnappers said to him. And his father not coming to rescue him would seem like abandonment to a kid.”

I never should have left Paul. What I should have done, I wasn’t sure. I’d stopped being entirely logical the moment I’d dived into the water.

The phone rang, and we both jumped. Baker grabbed it, spoke a few terse words, and returned to the table. “That was Mike. They’re heading back here for coffee.”

I let the tiny hope fade that had formed when the phone rang. I pulled one thought from the tumbling mass in my brain. If Paul had been snatched, we couldn’t find him. But if he’d wandered or run away, we could. And to have evaded us this long, he’d have had to find somewhere to go.

“Baker, do any of the kids around here have a hideout, a clubhouse or anything? Something they might have told Paul about that he could have thought would make a good hideaway?”

“Maybe,” she said, frowning. “Let’s ask them.”

In the living room the kids were intent on Free Willy. The whale was about to sail over the wall to escape to the ocean, so we politely waited until he leaped, and then hit the Pause button, freezing him just before he splashed down on the other side.

“Hey, guys,” Baker said genially, “we need to talk a little.” Seven solemn sets of eyes looked at her. “You know that Paul’s missing, that he may have wandered off somewhere or gone to hide.” Her tone was amiable. Seven solemn nods. “What we need to know is if anybody may have mentioned something about a cool place to hide or a fun place to explore, that maybe Paul thought he’d check out.”

It took a while to convince them that they weren’t in trouble, but eventually Mike Jr. and Holly’s older son, Jack, admitted they’d mentioned a scary cave on the hill behind Jack’s house, and, well, maybe bragged about having explored it and how it was much too hard to find and much too scary for anyone younger than them. By now Tom and Holly had returned, and Holly joined us while Tom poured himself some coffee in the kitchen.

“But Paul doesn’t understand English,” Holly protested, pushing her hair away from her face.

“I think he knows more than we realize,” I said. “I think he can understand a lot. And kids are good at communicating.”

Baker had already assembled a row of flashlights on the counter, and was piling up jackets, because the sun was beginning to sink and it was cooling off. Suddenly I thought of something. I jumped up. “Tiger. I’ll bet Tiger could find him.” I grabbed the kitchen phone and dialed. I was in luck—Zach was home and so was Dave, with his car. They’d be right over. I rattled off directions.

Mike and Dumond strode into the kitchen while I was on the phone, arriving like the next set of characters in a play. It was clear they had no news, and I could see Baker relaying to them what the kids had told us. As I hung up, Mike nodded. “I figured that’d be the next place to search anyway,” he said, wiping his brow. “There is an old cave up there, but the opening’s pretty small and it’s hard to find. He could be anywhere up there, so we’ll have to cover the whole hill.”

Baker looked over at Dumond, still in his brown Armani, now slightly bedraggled. “Do you have any other clothes?” she asked.

He blinked. “A few things, yes. But …”

“You’re going to need something sturdier than that, and shoes that won’t slip.”

He started to speak again, then turned and headed out to his car for his bag. The clothes I had on weren’t fancy, but they were the best I had. No point in ruining them. “I’ll change, too,” I said, and ran out to get the bag with the clothes I’d brought in case I’d needed to stay over in Canada.

In Baker’s downstairs bathroom I pulled on jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers. When I came out, Dumond had changed to khakis, a button-down shirt, and soft leather lace-up shoes. Scrambling around on the hillside would probably ruin these clothes, but at least they were sturdier. And less expensive.

Baker insisted that everyone gulp mugs of coffee and eat sandwiches while she filled a thermos and gathered supplies. Then I heard the sound of Dave’s rattletrap old Pontiac, and ran to the door. The car doors opened and bodies piled out: Tiger, then Zach, Dave, and Patrick—young, muscular, full of energy, wearing sweatshirts and faded jeans, almost like a uniform. I ran to meet them and they surrounded me, a warm protective ring, not quite touching me, but close.

“Sixteen minutes, flat,” Dave said proudly, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes. Patrick balanced on the balls of his feet, bouncing up and down; Zach gave my arm a little punch.

“Hey, don’t w-w-worry,” he said. “We’ll find him.”

We walked in silence to Holly and Tom’s house, armed with flashlights. The sky was starting to dim and we could feel the incoming chill. Holly shooed all the kids inside, where her younger sister was waiting to watch them. Baker set up a base at the bottom of the hillside with a lawn chair, spare flashlights and batteries, first aid kit, thermos, blankets, and air horn. She’d rounded up these things with so little effort that I could only assume that households with three small boys keep them stashed away for emergencies. Dumond was restless, impatient to get started, but waited for Mike’s instructions.

Two neighbors Holly had called joined us. We’d sweep up the hill in rows in pairs, Mike said, and try to cover every inch of ground and every place a small boy might take shelter. Dumond teamed with me, which somehow I’d expected.

I’d had Zach bring over the clothes Paul had worn yesterday, and Tiger obligingly sniffed them. I had no idea if she knew what I wanted, but she can track an invisible squirrel across a field and find a peanut that’s rolled under a couch, so maybe she could find a lost little boy on a steep, overgrown hillside.

For the next hour we plunged through dense underbrush, Tiger scooting under thick bushes and tree branches we had to battle through. Sometimes I got down on my hands and knees and crawled, holding the flashlight in my teeth, with the light shining crazily off to the side. Sometimes I had to call to Tiger to wait. Sweat was trickling down my back despite the coolness of the evening. I was very aware of Dumond’s presence. I was praying silently, over and over, Please let us find him, please let me have been right about his father. Please please please. Now Tiger was sniffing at the ground, following a scent, and I hoped we weren’t painstakingly tracking a deer or a squirrel. We seemed to be zigzagging, and occasionally I’d catch sight of a bobbing light from someone else’s flashlight. So much for Mike’s plan of careful linear searching.

Then Tiger plunged ahead, into a thick bramble, woofing. I knelt and played the flashlight ahead of me. I could see a tunnel-like opening in the brush, about the diameter a small child could crawl through, too small for either of us. Tiger dived in. I strained to hear. Was she nudging, licking, greeting a small boy? My pulse quickened. Dumond’s hand was gripping my shoulder. He didn’t speak—maybe he couldn’t. What could you say when you might see the son you thought you’d lost forever?

“Paul, Paul,” I called softly. “C’est Troy. Tu es là? Are you there?”

Silence. I called again, “Paul, please come out. Il n’y a rien de dangereux ici. You are safe. Please come out. Paul, Paul, come on, sweetie.”

Beside me, on his knees, Dumond didn’t move, but I could feel the pressure of his fingers on my shoulder. A tiny rustle, then another. The grip on my shoulder tightened. A small figure appeared, slowly, crawling through the tiny space, and then we could see Paul’s face, tear-streaked and more than a little grimy, with Tiger close behind, as if she was herding him out. I held out my arms and he scampered the rest of the way and fell into them.

“Vous êtes revenue,” he squeaked. “Vous êtes revenue pour moi.” You came back for me. I could feel Dumond beside me, shaking in tiny tremors.

My heart did that funny twisting thing again. I clung to Paul. I could feel the breath going in and out of his body, in unison with my own. “Chéri, chéri, chéri,” I whispered. “Tu es fou de te cacher. You are silly to hide like this.” Dumond must have moved or made a sound, because Paul lifted his head and saw him. Paul’s small body tensed in my arms. I turned his face toward me. “Paul, ton père est ici. Il était inquiet pour toi. Tu lui as beaucoup manqué.” Your father is here; he is worried about you; he has missed you a lot.

In the glow of the flashlight, Dumond’s face was haggard, naked with emotion so raw my stomach turned over. Now Paul was trembling a little. I gave him a nudge, and then he was in his father’s arms, and Dumond was murmuring French so fast and low I couldn’t understand a word. Paul was saying, “Papa, Papa, Papa,” over and over. They were both crying, the dark heads close together. I backed away and sat against a log. I was drained. I’d reunited a father and child; I’d lost a child who was never mine. I’d filled a hole in Dumond’s life, but had carved one in mine. Only now did I realize how intense had been my dream of keeping Paul, protecting him, loving him, watching him grow up.

It was a long trek down the hill, Dumond carrying Paul, me playing both flashlights in front of us. At the base, Baker was waiting, ever-patient, calm and ready. I fell into her arms wordlessly. Guess I forgot I wasn’t the hugging type. Baker held tight and patted my back once, before releasing me to give the air horn a blast. She knew what I’d found, and lost again.

She turned to Paul. “Hey, little guy,” she said. “You sure gave us a scare.” She ruffled his hair and snuggled a blanket around him, still in his father’s arms. People began to straggle off the hill, weary but ebullient. We stopped to collect the kids from Holly’s house, and trekked back to Baker’s house together. Mike called the Saranac Lake police to report we’d found Paul, and Dumond made a call, I suppose to leave a message with the Ottawa police.

It was a crazy celebration: eleven adults, most of whom hadn’t known each other before, plus eight kids, crammed into Mike and Baker’s kitchen area. We were tired, dirty, and nearly giddy. Baker kept the table filled with sandwiches, chips, cookies, beer, and soda, and I think even she was amazed at how much my housemates ate. I had to tell three times how Tiger had found Paul. Paul, ensconced in his father’s arms, piped in with bits of French and English mixed together that made everyone laugh. Mike and Zach had found the cave and Zach had squeezed in, but found nothing other than a few drink cans and empty chip bags. Mike Jr. and Jack strutted around, proud that they may have helped find Paul by telling about the cave, never mind that their tales had probably enticed him to go cave hunting in the first place.

No one knew why Paul had hidden himself up on that hillside, that far from the house. When we’d asked if something had scared him, he’d just shrugged. Maybe he had been looking for a great hiding place. Or maybe he had been worried about seeing his father. It didn’t matter now. Dumond sat with his arms lightly around his son. He was deeply fatigued but looked years younger, a different man than the one I’d met that morning. Finally Baker took her youngest son off to bed. Holly’s two youngest had already fallen asleep on the sofa.

I stirred and looked at the wall clock: 10:15. Unbelievable that I’d just left this kitchen this morning to head for Ottawa. “I need to go home,” I said, into a momentary silence, and stood. I looked at Dumond, across the table. “You can stay at my house.” I was too tired to make it sound gracious.

Dumond nodded. Zach, Dave, and Patrick hopped up to leave, grabbing sandwiches on their way out.

We loaded our bags into the Mercedes and tucked Paul into the backseat with Tiger, where he promptly fell asleep. I directed Dumond out of town and into Lake Placid, along Main Street and into my parking space. Never had my paint-peeling, ramshackle house looked so good. Dave’s car was already there, motor pinging the way old cars do after they’ve been shut off.

Carrying his sleeping son, Dumond followed me up to my bedroom. I set down Paul’s bag and pulled down the covers so Dumond could lay Paul in the bed. “You guys can have this room,” I said. I nodded toward the outer rooms. “The bathroom’s outside there, and there’s another bathroom downstairs, off the kitchen.”

He glanced around. “This is your room. Where will you sleep?”

I tugged a sleeping bag down from the top shelf of the closet. “On my sofa, out there,” I said.

He nodded, grimacing an apology at taking my bed. I was so tired that standing upright was a huge effort, and I was almost swaying on my feet. I turned to leave just as Dumond moved toward me. He put his right hand out and grasped mine, his skin warm against mine. “Thank you,” he said.

The contact of his skin on mine felt like a conduit, an opening into my soul. Suddenly I wanted to cry, long and hard. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me while I cried until I couldn’t cry any longer. I wanted to cry for Paul and for all the things I’d ever lost or never had. If I had looked at him I would have lost control. I muttered something, broke his grip, and left, pulling the bedroom door closed behind me.

By the time he came out to go into the bathroom, I’d brushed my teeth, washed my face, kicked off my sneakers, zipped myself into my sleeping bag, and wiggled my bra off from under my clothes. I closed my eyes to pretend I was asleep, and when I opened them it was morning.





I LOOKED AT THE WINDOW WITHOUT RECOGNIZING IT, AND squinted to see if the curtains had the cartoon character pattern of my childhood curtains.

Sometimes I think that when you’re in a deep sleep you regress into your past, and wake up with your psyche in an entirely different place and time, before you’ve made it back to the present. This morning I’d made it to about age eight, a relatively uncomplicated time.

Sounds came from downstairs: a shrill boy’s laugh, a man’s deeper tones, and a slightly higher voice punctuated by a stutter. My brain slowly identified them: Paul, Dumond, Zach. The window came into focus: chipped paint, the curtain I’d made from a sheet, the old glass that looks grungy even after just being washed.

Across the room my bedroom door stood open. I was alone. Even Tiger had deserted me.

I lay there a moment, and when I stirred, it hurt in a way I’d never hurt before. Deep-water swim one day, sit in a car six hours, and then crawl around in underbrush. My body wasn’t taking well to this new regimen. I regretted not having taken a hot bath last night.

I wriggled out of the sleeping bag and padded into my bedroom for clean clothes. The bed was neatly made, Dumond’s bag nowhere in sight. I stumbled back to the bathroom. I pulled the plastic shower curtain closed and stood under the spray with my eyes shut, for once not caring if I drained the hot water tank.

I’d found Paul’s father; I’d delivered Paul safely. My adventure was over, and I had to reset. I had to block this mix of tumultuous emotions and move back into my safe, sane existence.

I had no idea how.

The anemic spray of the shower was beginning to run cool. I stepped out and toweled dry, moving slowly. Combing out my hair seemed impossible, even with my wide-toothed comb, and I gave up. My hair is so thick and curly that snarls just look like more curls, so it doesn’t much matter. I pulled on jeans and polo shirt, and headed downstairs barefoot, carefully holding the railing.

As I stepped out of the stairwell, faces looked up from the picnic table. Paul was almost bouncing, eyes shining, his face alive and bright in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

“Troy, Troy, Troy!” he chirped, as he untangled his legs from the bench. “Goot morning!” He ran toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist, and I automatically hugged him.

“Hey, hey!” Zach said, teeth flashing in a grin. “We’re all t-t-talking English today.”

“Good,” I said, almost dourly. My vocal cords felt as if they hadn’t been used for a year. “I don’t think I remember any French.”

Dumond sat at the table, hair damp, wearing a T-shirt and warm-up suit I recognized as Zach’s. “Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “Zach was kind enough to lend me some clothing, and keep Paul company while I showered.”

“So I see.” Somehow he seemed right at home here, not out of place as I’d felt in his fancy office, his stately house, his expensive car. This annoyed me.

“Troy, Troy, come zee my things,” Paul begged, pulling at my leg. “J’ai beaucoup de choses, beaucoup de jouets. They are from Papa, from my maison.” He looked up at me, face bright and happy. Overnight he seemed to have turned into a normal kid, nothing like the thin pale wraith I’d held on my lap on the shore of Lake Champlain. Kidnapped, mother murdered, tossed off a ferry to drown, lost searching for a cave—apparently all that was behind him. He had toys to show me, a whole bagful, and that was what was important.

I glanced at Dumond, who smiled ruefully. I let Paul pull me into the living room, where he had laid out the truck, the fat teddy, the action figures. Paul was making a complicated demonstration involving a little plastic man I wasn’t quite following when Dumond appeared and handed me a steaming mug. “Zach says you drink coffee sometimes. We weren’t sure how you took it.”

The hot mug felt good to my hands. I took a giant swallow. On the rare occasions I drink coffee I drink it with milk only, and this was loaded with sugar, but I didn’t care. I could feel it infusing life back into me, as if my brain cells were realigning.

Dumond perched on the arm of the couch, an indiscriminate nubby gray-brown fabric useful for hiding soda spills and pizza stains. We watched Paul play. Here sat the man who had slammed me against a wall yesterday. Here, playing happily on the floor, was the boy who had been kidnapped and almost drowned. And here was Troy, in the middle of it all. It was surreal.

Paul was still grimy. “Paul, have you had a bath?” As soon as the words left my mouth I realized this wasn’t my concern anymore. But Dumond didn’t seem offended, and when Paul looked at me blankly, I pantomimed scrubbing. It was one thing to talk to Paul in my rusty French; it was another to trot it out in front of his fluently bilingual father.

Paul shook his head, and looked at his father imploringly.

Dumond laughed, a deep delighted laugh, and stood up. “No, Paul, Troy is quite right. Il faut que tu prennes un bain. You’re overdue for a bath.”

We climbed the stairs. I started the water running in the tub while Dumond helped Paul undress. I went to get clean clothes from the ones Baker had lent us, and when I returned, Paul was in the tub, splashing his plastic men in the water. Dumond was sitting on his heels, leaning against the wall, watching his son.

“Et voilà, des vêtements propres, ici,” I said, showing Paul the jeans and T-shirt. “I’m putting them here on the toilet.” He nodded, bashing the little figures in the water and making sputtering, crashing noises. Dumond closed the door part of the way behind us, and followed me into my bedroom.

He sat on the end of my bed. “How did you find him?” he asked. I think he knew I hadn’t just found an abandoned boy on a ferry. I sat against the wall and told him all of it: Paul’s fall from the ferry, my swim to reach him, bringing him here. I know I tell it flatly; I scoot past the grim parts. But a father, I expect, would live every moment no matter how you told it. Something flickered in Dumond’s eyes when I told him about the sweatshirt that had been tied around his son’s arms, but he didn’t speak until I was done.

He shifted where he sat. “So someone threw him off the ferry.”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“And he has been kept prisoner this whole time.”

I nodded again. “He said he was moved once, to a different place.”

We sat in silence, until Dumond spoke suddenly. “You saw no one?”

“No, I just saw Paul fall toward the water. I never even looked up at the deck—I kept my eyes on where he went in. When we got back to the dock, that ferry was on its way back to Vermont.”

“So you got him out of the water and brought him here.” His tone was even, but I don’t think I imagined the blame behind his words. I flushed. I looked down. I studied a tiny spring from a ballpoint pen that had somehow rolled between the gray painted floorboards.

The words were thick in my mouth. “I probably should have gone to the police,” I said. “Or the hospital. But I didn’t think anyone could do anything right away—and Paul was wet and tired and I wanted to get him warm and dry …” My voice trailed off.

He started to speak again, but Paul interrupted from the bathroom, calling, “Papa, Papa.” Dumond moved toward the doorway, and I stood. “Papa, est-ce que je dois vraiment me laver les cheveux?” Paul asked plaintively.

Dumond forced a laugh. “Mais oui. Of course you must wash your hair.” He turned toward me, once again the crisp efficient businessman. It amazed me how quickly he moved from one persona to another. “I’d like to make some calls and my cell isn’t working well here. May I use your telephone? I’ll reimburse you, of course.”

“Sure.” I nodded toward the phone on my desk. Only then did I notice that the message light was blinking. “Just a sec,” I murmured, and went over and pushed the Play button.

Hello, Troy, came Thomas’s pleasant tones. Just calling to see how things are going. Please give me a call. Damn. He’d be wondering why I hadn’t called him back.

Dumond paused, hand over the phone. “Do you need to use it?”

I shook my head. Thomas would be at work. Not that I felt like talking to him anyway. Dumond picked up the receiver and began punching in numbers.

As I helped Paul rinse his hair and dry off and get dressed, I could hear Dumond, calling his office and giving instructions; speaking in French to someone named Claude; getting a doctor’s referral and, with calm insistence, making an appointment; and speaking with someone I assumed was the Ottawa police. Then he called someone else, speaking in voluble French, fast and emphatic, then slower and calming. He was just hanging up as we emerged from the bathroom.

“His nanny, Elise,” he explained, eyes on Paul. “She has been with Paul since he was a baby, and she came with me from Montreal, as my housekeeper. Now she can be a nanny again.” I couldn’t help but wonder if he was romantically involved with the nanny; he’d hardly have been the first.

Paul handed me the comb I’d bought him, and I ran it through his wet hair. Dumond watched, and I could see him noticing the worn lettering on the T-shirt and the faint grass stains on the jeans. “They’re Mike Jr.’s,” I said, a bit defensively. “Baker and Mike’s son.”

Dumond nodded. “Paul, mon p’tit, could you please go show your toys to Zach? Veux-tu montrer tes jouets à Zach? Je pense qu’il veut les voir. We will be down in a minute.” Paul nodded, and walked carefully down the stairs, holding the railing as I’d shown him.

Dumond watched him go, and looked at me. “I want to head back to Ottawa today.”

I nodded. Of course. Paul would go home to Canada with his father. My life would go on, minus one small child I hadn’t known a week ago. “Did you want to see the police here?”

He shook his head. “No, we’ll do that in Ottawa, tomorrow morning. The kidnapping took place in Canada.”

“But the ferry,” I pointed out. “That was in New York.” State lines, I assumed, ran through the middle of lakes.

“I’d rather everything be coordinated by the Canadian police. They can work closely with the Montreal police; they can speak French with Paul; we’ll be in our own country. It will be better for Paul to be home.”

He stood. I felt the razor, cutting me out of their lives. Paul would remember the woman who rescued him, but to Dumond I was forgettable, expendable. It was a not unfamiliar feeling.

“I’d like to buy some clothes this morning before leaving, for Paul and myself.” He gestured at the track suit he wore, smiling slightly, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Of course he wouldn’t be comfortable driving across the border in a borrowed track suit. Nor would he want to wear yesterday’s crumpled Armani.

In the living room, Zach was delighting Paul by pretending not to understand how the bucket loader worked.

“So you turn this crank like this?” Zach fumbled with the truck.

“Non, non, non!” Paul declared, and with great deliberation showed Zach how to move the bucket arm up and down.

From the doorway, Dumond cleared his throat. “Paul, mon fils, we need to go shopping.”

“Shop-ping?” Paul looked up, inquisitive. “Pourquoi?”

“Because you need some new clothes, my son. And so do I.” He turned to me, “Do you know where to go?”

“The Gap on Main Street would probably have everything you’d need. If not, there are other clothing stores up there.”

“Do you need to work, or can you go with us?”

“Um, no, don’t have anything I have to do right now. Just a sec,” I said. I ran upstairs for shoes and socks. On the way back down I realized I was ravenous, and stopped in the kitchen to slather peanut butter on a slice of bread to eat on the way.





IT’S A QUICK WALK TO THE GAP, ABOUT HALFWAY UP MAIN Street. Two boys from the track team I used to cover ran past, waving at me. As we passed the high school I pointed out the outdoor speedskating oval where Eric Heiden won his five gold medals in the 1980 Olympics, and then the arena where the U.S. hockey team had defeated the Soviets in the Miracle on Ice, en route to winning gold. Dumond nodded politely. Maybe he’d seen it before, or maybe he was, like me, underwhelmed by skating rinks where something exciting happened a long time ago. And a Canadian wouldn’t likely be impressed by U.S. skating and hockey victories.

In the store Dumond quickly selected jeans, a pullover shirt, and a cotton sweater, emerging from the dressing room with Zach’s warm-up suit in a neat bundle. The young clerk was ogling him as if he were a rock star. “I’d like to leave these on,” he told her. She fell all over herself setting aside his price tags and the warm-up suit, and we went to the kids’ floor downstairs.

I’d thought he’d get Paul one or two outfits, but Dumond apparently didn’t do things by halves. He quickly acquired a stack of clothes. This was going to run into hundreds of dollars, even at a discounted outlet store. I shifted on my feet. “You know you may have to pay taxes on this at the border, and duty on anything not made in the States,” I told him. I knew that Canadians here fewer than forty-eight hours get only a fifty-dollar exemption, although it was possible that children’s clothing was exempt. Of course Paul had been here a lot longer, but Dumond wasn’t going to announce that to border agents.

He shrugged. “We’re here; we might as well get it now.” He watched Paul eyeing a new jacket in front of the mirror. “I don’t think many of his old things at home will fit.”

Of course not. Paul had been gone since December—more than five months. Kids grow. Somehow I hadn’t thought of that.

At Bass, across the street, Dumond selected leather shoes for Paul, and then at Eastern Mountain Sports he bought a duffel bag to hold all the new clothes, and Paul admired his new shoes as the clerk rang up the purchase. From the time we’d left my front door the whole expedition had taken just over an hour. Amazing how fast you can shop when you don’t look at prices. Paul was wearing one of his new outfits, and now I was the worst dressed. But one of the reasons I like Lake Placid is that everyone dresses casually, so I fit right in.

We walked back to the house in silence, Paul skipping along between us, holding our hands. The sun was bright and it was one of those beautiful Adirondack days that make you grateful to be alive, a segment of life you want to hang on to forever. I could almost pretend this was real, that I had a partner and small son and was out for a walk with them.

On the front porch Paul turned to his father, his face creased in a frown. “Est-ce qu’on retournera à Montréal?” Are we going back to Montreal?

The porch swing creaked as Dumond sat on its edge. “Non, nous allons retourner au Canada, mais pas à Montréal. J’ai acheté une nouvelle maison à Ottawa.” Not to Montreal, but to Ottawa, a new house.

The furrow between Paul’s eyebrows disappeared. He emitted a burst of French too fast for me.

“Oui, oui, c’est vrai,” Dumond said, pulling his son to him for a hug. His eyes met mine. “He says he is happy that we have moved, because now the bad men will not find him.”

A lump grew in my throat. Paul had not, after all, shucked off what had happened to him. Of course not. This was no TV movie of the week, happy endings in two hours or less. This was real life, gritty and painful. He had a lot of adjusting ahead: new life, new city, new house. With no mother.

“I’ll get his things together,” I said. I went up to my rooms and stuffed the clothes he’d worn when I’d found him into a Gap bag, along with the things I’d bought him and, as an afterthought, my crayons and coloring book. I’d had them since I was a kid, but they’d only remind me of him. I wondered if Dumond would let me come visit, but it was, I thought, more likely he’d want his son to put all this behind him.

As I turned toward the stairs, Dumond was coming up. I held the bag toward him, but he didn’t take it.

“I’d like you to come with us,” he said.

I blinked, not understanding. Suddenly I remembered my car was in Ottawa—of course I’d have to go get it. “Oh, right, my car.”

“No, I mean I’d like you to stay with us awhile, in Ottawa.” I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Yes, we have Elise, the nanny, but Paul has gotten very attached to you, and I think it will help him adjust to have you with us.”

I stared at him.

“It’s a big house,” he said, meeting my gaze. “You can bring your dog. And I’ll compensate you for your time.”

I shook my head. “No, no. It’s not that. I can do most of my work wherever I am.” A moment ticked by. My brain raced. Me with Paul and his father, in Ottawa. Surely it would be better for me to break with Paul now—a clean, sharp pain, back to my solitary life. But I knew I wasn’t going to.

“All right,” I said. Dumond nodded, as if he’d expected nothing less. Maybe he hadn’t.

It took less than ten minutes to pack: laptop, clothes, passport, leash, dog food, Tiger’s rabies inoculation certificate, and my little digital Canon. No room for my bike, but I could survive without it for a while. While Dumond carried my bags out to the car, I speed-dialed Thomas’s home number, knowing he wouldn’t be there. The coward’s way out, but you can’t always take the high road.

“Hi, it’s me,” I said to the recorder. “Everything’s fine; I’m … um … I’m going to be out of town for a few days, but you can reach me by email and I’ll, well, I’ll try to call.” I hung up guiltily. Thomas deserved better than this. Thomas deserved the girlfriend I was unable to be. Next I called Baker, who wasn’t home either. Another easy out. She’d already done her best to talk me out of going to Ottawa once and might try again. I told her answering machine I was going to Ottawa with Paul and his father and would call later, and would get the borrowed clothing back to her when I returned. I stuck a note on the fridge for Zach and locked the door to my rooms.

Paul and his father were waiting by the car, Paul apparently having assumed all along that I was going with them. In his bright new world, of course the woman who rescued you and delivered your father to you accompanied you to your new home. Paul hopped into the back, with Tiger beside him on an old comforter. Dumond drove smoothly out of town, remembering the turns without my prompting him.

In an odd way it felt right, sitting here in this car, leaving Lake Placid behind, listening to Paul murmur to Tiger in the backseat. Like I was heading to a new adventure.

At the border Dumond told the customs inspector that we were returning to Ottawa after visiting Lake Placid. She glanced at our passports and Tiger’s rabies certificate. Dumond told her he’d bought some children’s clothing, and she waved him through. We pulled into Canada and stopped in Cornwall at a Harvey’s for burgers and fries, the image, I suppose, of a happy little family. Soon after we left Cornwall I fell asleep, and didn’t awaken until we exited from the Queensway into Ottawa.