Some Measure of Happiness

Lee Wicks

Prologue
Cooper Hill, Vermont
March 2001

When people heard about what happened, they said, Not that wonderful family,
as though somewhere a family existed that deserved such a fate. When Jack Walker
remembers that Sunday, the colors come back to him first: a gray blue winter afternoon
too warm to snow, too cold to rain, golden light pouring out onto the patchy snow from
the windows of their home, because theyd lit all the lamps, dark green pines marking the
wood line that surrounded their clearing, the gravel driveway bordered by dirty snow, and
a dingy kitchen floor.
All that morning hed wasted time wondering if a new coat of wax would do any
good or if he needed to strip it completely. The wood floors bore the scuffmarks of boots
and a dog needing her nails clipped. Wonderful dog. With his usual care, Jack had
researched breeds and chosen a Newfoundland for its gentle nature. Conway Titty, he and
his wife Cate had called her, because she was such a plump round puppy, still eager to
nurse long after her litter mates had been weaned. Their twins, Molly and Zeke, had
learned to walk by hanging onto Conways fur. Conway had simply looked over her
shoulder and then walked forward slowly while the babies toddled along. They should
have called her Nanny, Jack said. Cate thought the dog had more patience than she would
ever possess.
It had been a long Sunday, and after a while, even with all their board games and
stories and puzzles, the kids became restless. Cooking a big dinner had been Jacks idea;
inviting friends to share it had been Cates. Jack started to cook, and Cate made the calls.
Washing the vegetables and taking turns kneading the bread dough had distracted Zeke
and Molly for a while, but then nobody had anything to do but wait.
I wish we had a TV, Zeke said. Jack pretended not to hear him. Everyone has
one but us, Zeke said. Mom wouldnt mind if we only watched videos. This was news
to Jack.
Cate broke an uncomfortable silence and said, Who wants to go sleigh riding?
Jack had cleared the run and the trail that led to it the first year he and Cate
bought the land, even before they began building the house. Hed slashed a narrow lane
through the forest and made a wide clearing about five hundred yards from the house site.
On late summer afternoons when the light filtered down through the leaves, it looked like
the path led to an outdoor cathedral. Hed spent a lot of time tracing the angle of the sun
before he chose that particular place on their forty acres. It overlooked a small pond, and
he made a fire circle there so they could camp out on the spot and then cook breakfast
and watch the fog lift from the water. They brought the twins there when they were just
six months old, strapping on cross country skis and bundling the babies, one each, in
snugglies against their chests. In early spring, the sound of peepers drew them all to the
edge of the pond. Conway swam out and back, always watching the children, ready to
nose them in towards shore if they ventured beyond safety. Molly and Zeke threw rocks
and trekked around in the mud to see what they could find, while Jack and Cate held
hands. Jack liked to say, Im the luckiest white boy in Americaits all blueberry pie
and ice cream, this life we have.
While they pulled on boots and mittens that Sunday, the kids begged Jack to go
with them, but he couldnt and didnt really want to. The bread was on its second rise and
he had to keep an eye on the chicken.
I get to go all the time, he said. Let Mommy have some fun today.
Cate went to town each day to work at a clinic where pregnant women without
health insurance came for prenatal care. She had guided countless lives into the blaring
light of the world, coaxing women in labor to breathe, relax, and let nature take its
course; but when her own turn came, Molly had decided to enter feet first. Cate tried
yoga; she did somersaults in the pool and finally agreed to try a process in which doctors
attempt to turn the baby from outside by pressing and pushing. Nothing worked. She
labored for nine hours and delivered Zeke, and then Jack donned scrubs and held her face
in his hands while a surgeon cut into her and pulled their howling daughter into the cold
operating room. It had been surreal, with Cate smiling bravely at one end of the table and
her body all-open at the other end. He had not expected so much blood, and Jack had a
moment when he thought he might faint, but then he heard Molly cry right along with
Zeke. Both of his bright pink babies got the highest Apgar scores possible and took to the
breast without a bit of coaxing, and when Cate went back to work, they gulped their
bottles, too.
Fatherhood claimed him immediately, as nothing else ever had. Jack never felt a
moment of fear caring for their sturdy little bodies that plumped up on breast milk day by
day. He bathed them, swaddled their wild-waving arms and legs, and brought them to
Cate like neatly wrapped packages; and during the long nights with Molly, who suffered
from colic, he lost all interest in teaching. In the first week of August, he called the
headmaster at Burnside Academy to say he wouldnt be backan unheard of act since
hed already signed a contract, but tolerated due to Jacks long association with the
school. Cate loved the idea. Leaving her job never entered her mind.
And it had been fine, more than fine, but a day can seem long to an adult with two
small children, particularly a man who had the habit of reading long complicated books
while listening to classical music. When he had the chance to spend an hour alone on a
Sunday afternoon, Jack grabbed it.
Daddy, Molly said, It will be more fun if we all go.
But no fun to come home to a burned dinner, Jack answered.
Even Conway wants you to go, Zeke said. The dog was staring at Jack with a
longing look.
You couldnt just put the bread in a cool place to slow down the rising? Cate
asked. You could turn the stew off for an hour; what difference would it make?
 Yeah, Daddy, and we could have hot cocoa and you could go down the hill
fastest, Molly said.
Next time, he promised. Anyway, somebody needs to be here when our friends
arrive.
I wish Lizzie was coming, Molly said. We wont have any fun without her.
You and everybody will just talk and talk. Lizzie was Claire Westfields teenage
daughter from her first marriage, and the twins favorite sitter.
Jack felt himself agreeing with Molly. Four more adults would suck the silence
from the day. It would be hard to get the kids to settle down. Cate would drink too much
and fall asleep the minute she hit the bed, and all day long hed been thinking of making
love to her.
It will be fine, Cate said. Well have fun. But we have to get going now.
Jack watched them wind their way down the path. Cate pulled the sled with the
twins riding. Conway followed. Jack put a little more wood in the stove and lifted the
towel to check on the bread. It had developed a taut, slightly shiny surface, meaning he
could put it on the oven anytime. He used his sharpest knife to make a slash down the
middle of the loaf and brushed it with water, and sprinkled caraway seeds along the
groove. He checked the stew and added a little stock. Then he meandered over to the
stereo and took his time before choosing Brahms, just the right sound for a late winter
Sunday. For months, hed been pecking through Robert Caros biography of Lyndon
Johnson, and it was interesting to find himself liking the man who had been so
demonized during the Vietnam War. With an intoxicating sense of luxury, he pulled an
old quilt around himself and curled up on the sofa.
When he took the loaves out of the oven, almost all the light had faded. Cate and
the kids had been gone more than an hour, which was unusual. Molly and Zeke loved the
idea of sledding, but inevitably got snow in their boots and wanted to come home after a
run or two. He waited another fifteen minutes before heading out, knowing Cate would
be annoyed when they met on the trail. She always accused him of being over-protective.
Still, she might need help with two cold and worn-out kids, and the temperature dropping
fast.
He followed their trail to the top of the hill, and then life as he had known it
vanished.
All the colors were gone, leaving a black dog, black water, grayish ice. Conway
was diving, then surfacing, and then diving again. She had been bred for this and she
would not stop until stopped. Paralyzed, he didnt know whether to run back to the house
or to the pond. He heard the sound of a car bumping its way up their steep rutted
driveway; he heard the car door slam, and then he began to run. In no time, Linda
Brickman was there with Tom, her overweight husband, trudging behind. She shouted to
him to go back and get help.
By the time Claire Westfield and Andy Spenser arrived, Jack had slid out onto the
ice, trying to move carefully towards the hole, but Conway had bared her teeth and a
growl never heard before kept Jack away. By the time the divers pulled the bodies out,
Andy, who was a doctor, knew that it had been too long. Even though the ambulance
screamed away with Jack inside, Jack knew, too. Claire and Andy drove straight to the
hospital. Linda and Tom went back to the house and turned off the oven and tamped
down the wood stove.
 The police examined the sled marks and concluded that they had all had gone
down together. Their combined weight along with the slickness of the hill had made them
go faster than usual. The sled did not stop at the snow bank at the bottom, but raced up
and over it and onto the ice. Jack wondered exactly what part of the Brahms concerto
hed been listening to when they settled themselves on the sled, probably laughing. Jack
wondered when Cate understood the danger. Jack wondered if Conway had barked; and
would he have heard her if the music had not been playing? Jack wondered if he would
ever eat dark bread again or be able to bear the smell of chicken stew. Jack hoped it had
been fast. He could not bear thinking of his children or Cate, terrified and dying slowly.

Two weeks later, after the funeral, after his parents and Cates parents were gone,
after hed worked his way through the casseroles that had been left at the house, and
made one trip to town for coffee and a few other things, he brought Conway to an animal
shelter in Russell, two towns over. She would not stay away from the pond, and he could
not stand it. Hed call and call and finally have to go get her and there shed be looking
out as though she was longing for every fine day theyd spent at that spot. Looking like
she might still jump in and find them. One day, she sat there in an early spring storm and
two inches of wet snow piled up on her head. Her lemon-sized dog brain could not
fathom the picture that lived in her giant heart. She could still smell them. Jack would
coax her back to the house and feed her, but as soon as he let her out, shed be back there,
like a dog in China hed once read about who went to the train station to meet his master
every day and then continued for fifteen years after the man died. He told himself it was
for her own good. She needed another family to care for; she needed a family with kids.
At the shelter they wanted to know his reason for giving her up, a purebred dog
with papers and no health problems. Was she aggressive? Had she bitten someone? They
had a form and couldnt leave any spaces blank.
Im moving, he said. They wont let dogs live where Im going, which turned
out to be more or less true. Conway, who knew nothing but trust, followed the attendant
into the hallway lined with cages. She looked back once. Her deep brown eyes peered
from her soft muzzle, and Jack bent down one last time to fondle the huge head. Good
girl, he said, Youre a good dog. Go now. And Conway did as shed been told.