Chapter One
1. Joe
The strangest memory of my childhood concerns my father's disappearance.
This is what I remember:
It was late September. I was nine years old, and my sister Heather was seven and a half. Although summer was officially over and we'd been back at school for weeks, the weather continued warm and sunny, fall only the faintest suggestion in the turning of the leaves, and nothing to hint at the long Midwestern winter yet to come. Everybody knew this fine spell couldn't last, and so on Saturday morning my mother announced we were going to go for a picnic in the country.
My dad drove, as usual. As we left Milwaukee, the globe compass fixed to the dashboard to me, an object of lasting fascination said we were heading north northwest. I don't know how far we went. In those days, car journeys were always tedious and way too long. But this time, we stopped too soon. Dad pulled over to the side of a country road in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but empty fields all around. ...
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