Hawthorne thought back to Ambrose Stark’s appearance in the window of Adams Hall; he didn’t believe he’d seen a ghost but he couldn’t help feeling that the dead headmaster embodied all the anger of everyone whose life was being changed at the school. Then there were the news clippings that someone had put in the faculty mailboxes and the anonymous letter to Kate’s ex-husband. Surely the anger would surface again. Hawthorne hadn’t discussed these incidents with anyone, for the reason that almost anyone could have done it. The unfortunate result was to further separate him from the people at Bishop’s Hill. So even though Hawthorne trusted Skander, he listened to him with an extra ear, as it were, the ear of his suspicion.

“I’m afraid it can’t be done,” said Hawthorne. “If I changed my position, the students would feel betrayed. I know this is hard for you and the faculty, but the students must think this is their school. They must believe that they and their actions matter.”

“Doesn’t there need to be discipline?”

“What I object to is punishment. What does the victim learn except fear?”

“People say you were angry at Chip because he hasn’t attended your meetings and also because he had made that remark at my little party.” Skander looked embarrassed. “About that woman, I mean. Obviously, it was in bad taste.”

“I would have reprimanded him about the meetings, but I wouldn’t have dismissed him. As for his remark, it hardly registered.” Not entirely true, Hawthorne reminded himself.

“Several people have also suggested that you overreacted because of your injury. I must say I’m surprised that you were out there playing a game with the students.”

“Basketball. I used to coach it. Several other faculty were also playing.”

“Yes, well, Roger Bennett.” His tone indicated that nothing Bennett did would surprise him.

“My skinning my knees in no way affected my actions. Chip literally hurled the boy across the hall.”

Skander’s furrowed brow suggested that furious debate was being waged inside him. “Who’s going to teach Chip’s classes? And he was swimming coach. Who’ll take that job?”

“There’s a substitute there today. I’ll take one of his classes. We can divide up the others. As for the swimming, I can do it if I can get someone to help me.”

“You already have a job.”

“It’ll be all right. I’ll find the time. After all, it’ll only be temporary. I minored in history at Williams. I can do the ancient and medieval history. Where is he up to, the early Greeks? I can teach that, perhaps not as well as Chip, but I can do it.”

Skander pursed his lips and looked worried. “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”

Hawthorne didn’t answer.

“Is it this book you’re writing?”

“Good grief, Fritz, I have no intention of writing any damn book!”

Skander tilted his head and looked vaguely skeptical. “Do you know how frightened people are? They think you’ll fire us all.”

“That’s silly. I’ve talked to several teachers, and I think most will stand by me. I caught Chip physically abusing a student. Twice. That’s why I suspended him. Are you saying they all hit students?”

“Of course not.”

“Then they have nothing to worry about.”

“Ruth Standish said you had words with a student on Friday. There was a quarrel.”

“There was no quarrel. I spoke to a girl about burning candles in her room and the need to treat her roommate with courtesy. She yelled at me. We talked a long time. You know the girl. Jessica Weaver. She’s the one who started the semester late.”

“The stripper.”

“Yes, she did that for several months. Anyway, I told her I meant nothing personal. Those cottages could go up in a second. I think she understood my position. We shouldn’t even use the fireplaces. You’ve seen those insurance policies.”

“I can imagine you’re particularly sensitive about fire.”

“Even apart from that,” said Hawthorne more quickly than he had intended.

“I can tell it’s something on your mind. That’s only natural. That boy who set the fire at Wyndham School, what was his name?”

“Stanley Carpasso.” There was no pause before Hawthorne’s answer. It was as if he had the boy’s name always on his lips.

Skander again looked as if he were undergoing some intense inner discussion. “You had no idea how this Carpasso might behave?”

“No.”

“But he was, what do you say, emotionally disturbed? Aren’t children like that especially dangerous? Of course, I’m no professional.”

“It wasn’t that simple. I’d worked with him for several years. He wasn’t a fire starter. There was nothing like that in his record.”

Skander spoke in a whisper. “And there was nothing you could do?”

“You mean once the fire started? I couldn’t get back to them. The hallway was on fire. What do you mean? The whole place was burning.”

“Weren’t there ladders?”

“I expect in the garage. Certainly the grounds crew used ladders.”

Skander shook his head. “I’m sorry, it must have been chaos. One can never know what such an event is like unless one lives through it. I once heard about a father who watched his son suffocate. An awful story. The boy was stung by a bee and had an allergic reaction. They were in their own backyard. The father tried to pry the boy’s mouth open. After several minutes, he even cut into the boy’s windpipe with a knife. Nothing worked. His throat had already swollen shut. Then, oh, at least a month after the funeral, the father woke up in the middle of the night. He had dreamed the whole thing again and realized that the garden sprinkler had been on. If he’d been quick, he could have cut a portion of the hose before his son’s throat became blocked. He could have saved his life. It must have been like that for you, thinking about the ladders.”

Hawthorne didn’t speak for a moment, then said, “There was no time to get ladders. Anyway, they wouldn’t have helped.”

After Skander left, Hawthorne sat at his desk going over his notes for a talk he had to give at a Lions Club meeting in Plymouth later in the week. He had presented two other such talks to acquaint groups with changes at the school and to raise money. Several others were scheduled for later in the fall. All required a charm and enthusiasm that Hawthorne found difficult, a heartiness more appropriate to Fritz than to himself. As he tried to edit his remarks, he couldn’t keep his mind on them. He kept thinking about the fire at Wyndham and Skander’s questions. He knew that if he hadn’t been pulled out of the burning hallway, he would have died as well. For months he’d been sorry that he hadn’t died. Now he felt that way less often. Sitting at his desk, Hawthorne felt how he could reach out a hand and almost touch Lily’s blond curls. He even knew how they would feel, their softness, how they would tickle his palm. It was as if his hand were separated from them by a fraction of an inch. He pushed and labored but he still couldn’t cover the last, minuscule distance.

—

Later that morning Hawthorne had a shock. He had gone to the faculty lounge for a cup of coffee around eleven and when he returned to his office he discovered an eight-by-ten framed picture of his wife and daughter on his desk. The shock was that he had no such picture; it must have been put there within the past ten minutes. It showed Meg and Lily standing in front of a decorated Christmas tree. They wore matching green robes from L.L. Bean that Hawthorne had given them for Christmas six weeks before the fire. The picture had appeared in several of the San Diego papers. The frame was cheap—maroon plastic patterned to look like leather. It stood next to the telephone at the corner of the desk as if it had been there for months.

“Mrs. Hayes!” Hawthorne called.

There was no answer. Hawthorne got up to look in the outer office. Mrs. Hayes was not there. He returned to stare at the picture. Meg and Lily looked happy and loving; both had blond hair but Meg’s was darker. Lily’s curls, which Hawthorne had recently been thinking about, were now before him. Hawthorne had no idea how long he looked at the picture—perhaps ten minutes, perhaps thirty. He was interrupted when Mrs. Hayes came into his office.