Page 23 of Our Last Resort

“Not hungry.”

He plucks a pastry from his plate—a small Danish with a red puddle of jam at its center—and deposits it on a napkin in front of me, along with an unopened container of yogurt.

“In case you get hungry later,” he says. “Not sure when we’ll next get the chance.”

“It’s okay. I really don’t think I’ll—”

I’m interrupted by a yelp. Somewhere at the back of the dining room, furniture clatters against the floor.

“Get off me!”

Guests look up from their tables. Our gazes follow the sound to its origin: the lobby.

More outraged exclamations make their way across the room like storm clouds: “I have rights!” and “I want to speak to my attorney!” Each word more strained than the last.

I spring up from my chair. Gabriel does, too. We’re not the only ones. The influencers rush to the lobby. Around us, a constellation of semi-strangers: theSVUactor, the divorcée, and behind those two, Lazlo and Fabio, who are staying three suites away from us and flew in from Miami.

We reach a collective halt.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

At the center of the lobby, William Brenner struggles against Deputy Harris, both wrists pinned to his back. Harris unhooks a pair of handcuffs from his waist. They zip shut.

“This is ridiculous!”

“You have the right to an attorney,” Harris continues. His colleagues hover next to him, their earlier dynamic reversed: Harris is at the center of the action now, and they are the supporting cast. “If you cannot afford an attorney…”

The suggestion that William can’t afford his own lawyer is required by law, but laughable.Of coursehe can afford his own attorney. He probably has him on speed dial.

How many domestic violence complaints has he made disappear?

How many payments, how much hush money, how many women silenced by a check?

This rich man. This violent husband.

William squeals and protests and strains against the handcuffs. Harris, unflappable now, steers him toward the door to the lobby.

On the threshold, William turns and looks right at me. I swear he does.

Or maybe it’s happening inside my head. Maybe I can’t believe he’d go down like this, William Brenner, without one last jab.

9The Only Town We Knew, Hudson Valley

Eighteen Years Ago

Gabriel and I pawed blindly at what it meant, the possibility of the two of us.

All we knew, in the beginning, was that it felt good. Good to have a someone.

Good to make a common decision:You take the top bunk, I’ll take the bottom one.Good to trade whispers in the dark. Good to find out we were the same age. His birthday was June12, mine December6. We loved our intertwined numbers, his 6/12 to my 12/6. It seemed like a sign. Of what?

We couldn’t wait to find out.

Here’s how life worked, in Émile’s world: You were born. Children were cared for collectively by the women. You never belonged to your mother, or to your father. Émile demanded total detachment. “The family unit is a source of great corruption” was one of his refrains. “Rejecting it is the best thing you can do, not only for yourself, but for the children.”Thechildren. Notyourchildren.

Ideally, your parents did such a good job (in Émile’s eyes) that you never found out who they were. Some (mine, and, as it turned out, Gabriel’s) managed it. It’s amazing, the cruelty youcan coax out of people if you convince them they’re doing the right thing.

Some of the other parents—well, they always seemed to hover over a particular child, or group of children. So there were rumors. Physical resemblances, too. Early in the life of the cult, before I was born, some parents apparently hadn’t been able to play by the rules, so Émile had sent them away.

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