“Those people skills you spoke of,” I said.

“Yes. I don’t mean to say he was universally popular. There were people like your father, who never liked him from the moment they met him.”

I started to say, “That’s not true,” but it was. Instead I said, “I don’t know why my father reacted the way he did.”

Travis shrugged. “I think some people could sense he was hiding something from them. Some men didn’t like him because women liked him so much. Most women, I should say.”

“The vast majority, as I recall,” I said, thinking back. “And somehow he did it without really flirting. I don’t just think it was his smile or his good looks. If there were two handsome men in a room, your father was still the one with all the women around him.”

Again he shrugged. “He always told me that most men would do better with women if they just listened to them. For him it was natural; without being able to read, he had to listen to people to learn what was going on.

“In any case, my mother took a liking to him. One day, her boss came in while my dad was talking to her. He greeted my dad, who was one of his best customers, and slapped a trade magazine down on the counter. It was opened to an article. ”Take a look at that!“ he said to my dad. My dad did everything in his power not to panic. There were no photographs with the article.

“He did what he usually did in that kind of situation. He tried to base his response on the other man’s attitude. He wanted to say something noncommittal, but still have an appropriate reaction. But I guess my mother’s presence made him feel flustered. ”Wow!“ was all he managed to say.

“ ‘What do you think that’s going to mean to you and me?” the man persisted. My mother must have seen that something was wrong. She said, “Let me see that,” and she took the magazine from my dad and read the first paragraph aloud. It was something about the sale of one pesticide company to another.

“From there, my father could manage to participate in the conversation. He was grateful to her. He took her out to lunch. He admitted to her that he couldn’t read.”

“Who else knew that?” I asked.

“Unless someone guessed and didn’t let him know they’d guessed, not many people. W, Gerald, Gwendolyn and Mr. Brennan. I think he said his housekeeper at the other house knew. I didn’t realize that he couldn’t read until I was about ten.”

“Were you disappointed?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not sure why not, really. It wasn’t a revelation, all at once. I gradually began to realize it, and knew it was a secret. At first, I didn’t want him to know I knew that secret; maybe I sensed it would hurt him, I don’t know. And even then, I thought he just couldn’t read very well.

“But one day, the two of us had been out somewhere together and the road he would usually take to go home was closed. There was a sign saying ‘Detour, use such-and-so street,” but of course, he couldn’t read the sign. When he was working, one of his workers would do all the driving. But with us, he found his way around by memorizing landmarks. Only this time, there were no landmarks. He tried making turns, tried to get back to something familiar. He got lost. I could see he was terrified. Finally, I told him not to worry and pulled out a map and figured out how to get us home. I read the street signs and told him where to turn.

“We managed to get home before my mother came back from wherever she was. He was still shaken by the whole ordeal. So I gathered my courage and told him I already knew he couldn’t read, and I’d teach him if he wanted me to. He started crying. I had never seen him shed a tear before then. It scared the hell out of me.”

I called to the dogs, and we turned, heading back toward the house.

“He told me about a nightmare he used to have all the time,” Travis said. “In the dream he would be driving alone in the car to a place he had been to many times, but then the car breaks down along the way, before he gets to his next landmark. Tough-looking men are watching him- he’s in a rough neighborhood. Suddenly he’s near a phone-it appears out of nowhere, as things do in dreams-and so he calls the operator and asks for help. She puts him through to the police. The police say, ”We’ll send help right way. Where are you?“ He has to say, ”I don’t know.“ They say, ”Read the address on the phone,“ and he panics. He lies and says it isn’t on the phone, that it must have been torn off. The police say, ”Read the street sign,“ and he can’t. ”Read the signs on the stores,“ and he can’t. He finally has to tell everyone, ”I can’t read,“ and the police start laughing at him and hang up. The tough men are laughing at him, too. Everyone is pointing at him, jeering, and then walking away from him, leaving him, as if he isn’t worth bothering with.”

“Jesus,” I said.

Again we walked in silence.

“This morning, you asked about the time just after the murder,” he said. “It was this strange time when we-my father and my mother and I-were actually closer than we had been just before Gwendolyn died. We pulled together to protect my dad. Richmond was the enemy, this monster outside our gates.”

“Your mom already knew about the marriage between Gwendolyn and your dad?”

He nodded. “She found out-I never knew how, but she did. She was devastated. I can remember her staying in her room for days on end, not eating, not sleeping, just staring at the ceiling, crying. Wouldn’t answer the door or the phone. I took care of things the best I could, did the shopping, things like that. I got her to call my school and tell them I had the flu. Maybe it was just a kid’s way of looking at it, but I was afraid to go to school, afraid she’d kill herself if I was away from her too long.”

“But you were only-”

“Eleven. I finally told her I was going to get the priest-she begged me not to. She was so ashamed, thought of herself as everything from the world’s most gullible fool to a home-wrecker. I guess the threat of my telling anyone about it snapped her out of the worst of the depression. I started going back to school, life settled into a routine. But I don’t think she was ever the same after that.”

“Your dad-”

“I was angry at him, of course. She wasn’t the only one who felt betrayed. When she made him move out, I was glad. At the time, I didn’t want him to come anywhere near us. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

“They had hoped to settle everything quietly-for my sake, they said. Mom was going to sell the house, move to where no one knew us, tell everyone she was a widow.”

“Did Gwendolyn know?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think she knew. Mom made him swear he would never tell Gwendolyn. She believed they had both wronged Gwendolyn, but that no good would come of revealing the truth to her. It could only hurt her.”

“Did your father ever try to explain why he didn’t just divorce Gwendolyn? Why he tried to lead a double life?”

He was quiet for so long, I began to regret the question. He looked out over the water.

“He gave different explanations for it over the years. I suppose there is no one answer to that question. He was very young when he married Gwendolyn, and I think his brother pressured him into it-or pressured her into marrying my father, by threatening to expose her as a seducer.”

“What?”

“Gerald Spanning. My uncle. When I was becoming-oh, let’s call it reacquainted-with my dad, he talked a lot about his younger days, the days before he was married. I’ve never met Gerald, though.”

“Not even when you were little?”

“No. Gerald was part of my father’s other life. Introducing us would have meant revealing his secret family.”

“But after the secret was out in the open-”

“I don’t think Gerald had much to do with my father after the murder. The Kellys weren’t the only ones who disowned us.”

I let that go by. “Gerald was his older brother?”