17. The Acres

The Acres

When we hit the upper Hudson Valley, we are surrounded by farmland.

I tap out an email as we glide past creek bridges and post offices, American flags and steel trailers. Much of the landscape covered in old snow. I lower the window enough to let in just a little of that cold winter air, fresh and crisp, the sun streaming down despite it.

We've been making calls on the way out here, in the hopes of getting eyes we can trust on the police report and the autopsy. On Detective O'Brien's incomplete investigation. I didn't want to reach out to Elliot again, as if that would somehow remedy last night's conversation with Jack. As if that will help realign my loyalty. So, instead, I reached out to a neuroscientist with whom I often collaborate to see if she could put me in touch with an expert she trusted. She put me in touch with a neurocriminologist, who steered me toward two forensic pathologists.

As Sam drove, I emailed the two forensic pathologists all the information I have—the autopsy report and the police report, the Windbreak property map, and the geology report on the cliff itself. I forwarded Detective O'Brien's shaky investigative findings on which I hope they can shed an impartial light.

"Something's been bugging me since last night," I say.

Sam turns and looks over at me. "Just one thing?"

I give him a smile.

"Paul's reaction to Cece was pretty intense," I say. "It feels like it could be related to why Joe didn't want us talking to her."

"Meaning?"

"Uncle Joe was clearly worried she would tell us something we weren't supposed to know about Dad. And I keep thinking that maybe Grace, at some point, told Paul the same thing… We need to keep that in mind when we get to Tommy's."

"Why? What does that have to do with Tommy?"

"I think that should be the first thing we ask him."

Sam turns down a long gravel road still sporting a large sign for ROSE VALLEY APPLE ORCHARDS.

A much smaller wooden sign hangs beneath it, announcing itself in dark block letters. THE ACRES.

We drive past a working farm complete with an apple orchard and a large chicken coop, several hiking trails circling around it.

Sam pulls into a small roundabout, turning off the ignition. I step out of the car and take in the main entrance to the property with its beautiful gravel walkway and the enormous open-air porch house, a central meadow just beyond it.

The porch house is still midconstruction, but the bones are stunning: twenty-feet-high lofted oak rafters, wood-framed furniture, and large indoor trees, all organized around a central firepit.

But what's most spectacular is the vista—the expanse of that central meadow and the ridge—the property dotted with steel and wood cabins, in varying degrees of completion. I can see the amount of work they are putting into those cabins, clad in reclaimed wood, offset gabled roofs. And, even midconstruction, they're remarkable. They're rustic and gentle, not disturbing the land but very much a part of it.

I'm struck by the entire build-out for that reason. It isn't dissimilar to a project I worked on not too far from here in Woodstock, New York. It's a family compound where the owners asked for a modern take on the eighteenth-century farmhouse on property. I created several vernacular buildings, a central communal firepit for family gatherings—a perfect and peaceful family retreat in the Catskill Mountains.

"Remind you of Woodstock?" Sam asks.

I turn toward him. "How did you know that?"

Sam hands me a hard hat. "Dad held up the photograph of your property in the Record at the first concept meeting. And he said, something like this ."

I put the hard hat on, feeling his words in my chest. In my gut. My father's pride in me, in all of us, was immovable, even when we weren't in the room to witness it. If I had been in the room, would I have figured out how to tell him that he deserved credit for anything he liked about what I built? That I became the kind of architect I did in part from watching him work? He took joy in building meaningful spaces. He took joy in making things work and feel right. I don't think I'm the kind of artist I am without that influence. I never told him that. I gave that to my mother. Her attention to rhythm and to beauty. But it was him too. It was him. Suddenly, it feels like another injury that he'll never hear me say that.

Sam motions toward a larger (and completed) cabin toward the side of the meadow, and we walk that way.

"That's the Ridge House," he says. "Tommy's staying there."

"You're going to run out of time."

"For what?"

"To tell me what's going on with the two of you before we see him."

He shakes his head, like there's nothing to say. "Did I not mention that we haven't really spoken in about six weeks?"

I stare at him in disbelief. "No. You didn't."

He shrugs. "It's complicated. I don't think he was particularly happy to hear that Dad left both of us in charge. As opposed to just him."

"You told him that you were coming here, though, right?"

Sam walks up the front steps of the cabin, taking them two at a time.

"Not in so many words."

"In any words, Sam?"

Before he answers me, the front door swings open and Tommy's wife, Kira, is standing there. Beautiful Kira, who is also very pregnant.

She looks back and forth between us. "What the hell are you two doing here?"

I give Sam a look, which he ignores.

"For starters," Sam says, "your husband's a liar."

"Tell me something I don't know," Kira says.

Then she moves out of the doorway and lets us in.

"How are you feeling, Kira?" I ask.

"Like I have two four-pound babies inside of me. I thought twins were supposed to skip a generation."

"Not all the time," Sam says.

"You think?" she says.

She turns back toward me, looks me up and down. "It's been a while."

It's true. I haven't seen Kira since her and Tommy's wedding six years ago. I attended the ceremony but then snuck out before the reception. (Tommy and Sam's mother's chilly greeting that afternoon was enough to remind me that the ceremony was all that I was really wanted for.) They had been together since their senior year of college—Tommy and Kira—and the longest conversation we'd had was early on when Kira noticed that Tommy's mother harbored nearly as much disdain for me as she usually reserved for her. This was something Kira wasn't used to and couldn't understand. She was an artist, a young and successful designer, self-sufficient and in love with Tommy. How unfair that Sylvia wasn't welcoming. For a nanosecond, it made Kira interested in befriending me.

"You look different," she says now. "Are you pregnant too?"

That moment of her seeking friendship has long passed.

I force a smile. "I'm not, no."

"I guess you don't want kids."

"I wouldn't say that."

I don't elaborate. I'm not about to get into baby planning with my sister-in-law, especially in a moment that feels particularly complicated. Jack and I had been discussing how much we both want a baby. We were discussing a baby and my dreams for expanding the firm and Jack opening a second restaurant. We were discussing everything about the future. Until it started to feel like a jinx to me, to trust the days to lay out before me in that way, to trust them to keep turning up uninterrupted.

"Well, it was a nightmare to conceive these two," Kira says. "So if I can give you a little advice—"

"I'm good," I say.

"I would get on it sooner rather than later," she continues, ignoring me. "No offense, but the clock is ticking for you way more than it was for me."

Then she heads back into the main living area.

I smile at Sam. "She's charming."

Sam lets out a laugh. And we follow her into the other room, where she sits down in the window seat. The uninterrupted ridge is lit up behind her, its hills and trees jutting up against a cloudless hidden valley.

"It's freezing here. I can't handle it."

"Not a bad view, at least," I say.

She closes her eyes and wraps herself tightly in a blanket. "I couldn't care less."

It doesn't feel like it would go any better to compliment the interior design of this cabin and by extension what will be the zeitgeist of The Acres, which Kira is at least partially responsible for. She is the interior design director for Noone Properties, and this one has her signature all over it: reclaimed furniture, antique pieces, and botanical prints, everything bright and vivid and lush, like the ridge it's highlighting.

Kira cups her belly, sighs. "There are waters in the fridge. I have nothing else to offer you but ginger lollipops."

"We're just looking for Tommy," Sam says.

"They're trying to finish up out by the natural playground. Do you even know where that is, Sam?"

He laughs off her overt dig. Her insinuation that instead of Kira and Tommy being holed up here, it should be him. Or, at least, Sam should be there, sharing in the work. Maybe he should be. Either way, Sam is smart to let it lie. If she feels that way, it's being filtered through the person who would be reporting it that way: Tommy. He isn't going to convince her that she's wrong.

"Take a map with you."

"I've got a good idea where I'm going," he says. "Thanks, though."

"Don't be a fucking hero, Sam. Property map is in the crate on the porch. Spoiler alert, it's a hike."

Then she closes her eyes, apparently done with us. So, I walk back out of the cabin, Sam following.

He closes the door behind us. "Wow," Sam says. "That's the nicest she's been to me in a while. Worrying I'd get lost."

I smile. "Is that what that was?"

"Clearly. Plus, you know, the concern she was showing for you."

I look at him, confused.

"She's right. You're not getting younger."

My smile disappears. "Very funny."

"I'm just saying. Maybe you should patch things up with the veterinarian. You really like his kid…"

"Get the map," I say.