Page 67 of The Ghostwriter

While he’s gone, I stand and wander over to the wall of pictures. Some are old, of Mr. Stewart and former students at their graduations, smiling in caps and gowns. Others are more recent—Mr. Stewart whale watching. Another one of him with a surfboard.

I’d looked him up in the 1975 yearbook at the library before coming over. Shaggy blondish-brown hair. A wide, white smile. Handsome. Definitely better looking than the other PE teachers. Next to them, Paul Stewart exuded youth. Vitality. Charm. I could see why my father might not have loved how much time my mother had spent with him. I stared at his photograph wondering if there could have been more between them. It wasn’t impossible to imagine.

He returns, handing me my water. I sit again on the couch, placing my glass on a coaster. He takes a seat in one of the wicker chairs across from me, waiting.

“I apologize for not telling you who I was the other day,” I say. “Asyou can imagine, I’m careful about sharing my name with strangers. Especially in a town where memory is long. I didn’t realize you were the same person who’d been living next door at the time my father’s family lived there.”

“What happened to them was such a tragedy.”

I think of my cell phone, tucked into my purse. I’d set it on record before leaving my car, wanting to capture this conversation. Not caring whether I had permission or not. “When did you move in?”

“I bought the house in March 1975. Back when a teacher could afford property.” He shakes his head. “The middle class has vanished.”

“Did it bother you to live next door to your students?”

“Not at all,” he says. “I loved the Taylor kids. Even your dad. He wasn’t much of an athlete, but he had a wicked sense of humor.”

“My father told me you and my mother were very close.”

Mr. Stewart nods, visibly warming up to the subject. “She was a talented runner. She could have gotten a scholarship to a Division I school if things had been different.”

“What do you mean?”

“After the murders, she stopped running. Quit the team and withdrew from everything.” He looks at me, his expression softening into one of concern. “She loved your father very much. But to be honest, it seemed unhealthy. I saw very little of them after that. They spent most of their spare time at her house, understandably. Then the Taylors moved.”

“Mark Randall told me about a party you had the week of the murders.”

Mr. Stewart gives an uncomfortable chuckle. “I used to have a lot of parties, but that was my end-of-the-year celebration. It was something of a tradition at the time. That was the last year I held one of those.” He looks down at his hands, then back up at me. “After the murders, I realized I needed to do a better job of being a role model to my students and athletes, and not a friend. I got hired in 1969 when I was only twenty-three. Barely an adult myself. Danny was in my very first outdoor survival skillsclass. You know, building shelters. Purifying water. That kind of thing. He loved it.”

“Did my parents go to the end-of-year party that last year?” I ask, hoping to pull him away from reminiscing about his teaching and back to the week in question.

“Gosh, I don’t remember,” he says. “There were a lot of kids there.”

“Can you tell me about that day?”

“The day of my party?”

I shake my head and wonder if his confusion is feigned. “The day of the murders.”

He blows out hard and looks away. “It was the last day of school,” he says. “The kids were wild, and the teachers were exhausted. Just trying to make it to three o’clock.” He gives a quiet laugh. “I came home after school, went for a run, took a shower. My girlfriend at the time, Amelia, made us an early dinner. She was going out that night with some friends to a local bar. I was going to do a lap through the carnival, maybe eat a funnel cake, and make it an early evening.” His voice is low and melodic, but I could imagine it growing in volume as he yelled directions at my mother on the track. Blowing a whistle. Demanding she push herself harder.

“The carnival was held on the high school field and adjacent parking lot. Not a huge space, but it backed up against what’s now the preserve, so you got the sense, walking through, of being delivered into a magical fairyland of rides, music, twinkle lights. I got my funnel cake, joked around with some graduating seniors, and then came across your parents in a heated argument near the back of the venue.” He pauses, as if remembering the scene. “Your mother was crying. Your father was standing in front of her, and I’ve never seen him so angry. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but he was demanding answers, and she was crying too hard to give them.”

I think about what I know. About what my father had learned just a week or so prior.

“I offered to help, a listening ear, you know? Teenagers are all the same. What they really want is to be heard. To be understood. I probably said something to your dad likeI know what it’s like to be in the doghouse. Is there any way I can help?But he didn’t seem inclined to want me around.”

“So how did you end up convincing him?” I know the story well—Mr. Stewart, everyone’s favorite teacher, helping my parents mediate their argument in the oak grove while back at the house Danny and Poppy are brutally murdered.

“It was Lydia who finally convinced him,” he says. “Your father wasn’t my biggest fan. I’d tried to befriend him. Tried to show him I meant no harm, that I wasn’t a threat to him or his relationship with Lydia. But he never warmed up to me. Danny? He would steal my beer and leave the broken tabs all over my back porch. Poppy loved to come play with my cat. But Vince never had any use for me.”

The mention of the cat draws a chill through me, but I push forward. “So my mother wanted you to mediate, and my father agreed?” I ask.

“Reluctantly, but yes. We decided a walk to the oak grove would be far enough away where we wouldn’t be interrupted.” He’s quiet, thinking. Remembering.

“What was their fight about?”

Mr. Stewart becomes guarded. Unsure. “I think maybe it’s best if I let your parents tell you about that,” he says.

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