Chapter 4 Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe!
Dawn Dugan had never been one for history. That was her husband’s area of expertise. Nathan had a whole room in the basement dedicated to the memorabilia he collected. Once a week, he hosted a group of men who shared his passion. He’d send Dawn down to his man cave to dust the frames and display cases before his friends came over. When they left, she’d gather up all the beer cans and dirty dishes. Nathan locked the door after she was done. He didn’t like anyone messing with his collection. He’d caught Dawn flipping through a book back before they got married. Judging by his reaction, you’d have thought she’d ripped out the pages and lit them on fire. He made sure it wasn’t a mistake she repeated.
History wasn’t her thing anyway. She didn’t see any point in reading about stuff that had happened long before she was born. She wanted to look forward, not back. That’s why she loved books that were written for young people with their lives still ahead of them. She’d been one of them a long time ago. But now she was thirty and her path had been chosen. She wasn’t always sure it was the one she’d have picked for herself. It had gotten off to a rocky start, with an unplanned pregnancy, but now she was on the straight and narrow. Nathan owned his own roofing business and made a good living. She stayed home and took care of Nathan and their thirteen-year-old son.
That son, Nate Dugan, was the light of her life. He’d been born with her black hair and dark eyes, so she’d named him after his father. They both knew it was like naming a house cat Tiger. You can call somebody whatever you want. It won’t change who they really are. And for the first twelve years of his life, that boy had been hers and hers alone. Small and shy, Nate had clung to her whenever his dad was around. It disgusted his father, but Dawn was grateful. She wasn’t sure she’d have made it through without him.
Then, in the space of one year, Nate had grown half a foot. By thirteen, he was five inches taller than his mother, with the end of his growth spurt nowhere in sight. His shoulders broadened and his frame filled out. Dawn still remembered the first time she saw his father hesitate before smacking him. She secretly cheered the day Nate caught his dad’s hand in midair.
For as long as they’d been together, Nathan had collected what he called strays—young men in need of direction. He’d lavished time on them, but he’d never shown any interest in Nate. Suddenly, he was dedicated to bringing his boy up right. They’d vanish into Nathan’s inner sanctum for hours at a time. Dawn was thrilled to see Nathan sharing his interests with their son. Nate, for his part, had never seemed happier. When the two of them talked at the dinner table, Dawn usually took care not to interrupt.
“Mr. Bartlett said the Reichstag fire was a false-flag operation,” Nate told his father one evening.
Dawn thought she might need to explain that Mr. Bartlett was Nate’s social studies teacher, but it seemed that Nathan already knew.
“Yes, ’cause that’s what they’ve trained teachers like Mr. Bartlett to think. The Jews bought up all the newspapers and publishers and Hollywood studios back in the day because they knew if you control the media, you control the message. Once you have all three of those, you can control people’s minds. That’s why it’s so important that we refuse to let our schools spread their propaganda.”
“Isn’t Mr. Stempel Jewish?” Dawn didn’t know why she asked. Everyone in town knew he was.
“What’s your point, Dawn?” Nathan had responded in the tone that told her to tread carefully.
“Nothing.” She kept her own voice bright as sunshine. “He was just always real nice to me. You remember Mr. Stempel, don’t you, Nate?”
After Dawn’s daddy died when she was seven, her mother had gone to work for Mr. Stempel at his clothing store downtown. For a year, the bus had dropped Dawn off at the shop every day after school. Only when she was older did she realize most employers wouldn’t have looked kindly on a little kid running around their place of business. But Mr. Stempel called Dawn the store’s spokesmodel and let her pass out flyers and help with the window displays. Never once had she felt unwelcome. Her mother had to quit after she married Dawn’s stepfather. Dawn couldn’t recall ever feeling wanted in her own home again.
When Nate was little, she’d stop in to see Mr. Stempel every few months. Her parents were both gone by then, and it felt good to have someone gush over her baby. After Mr. Stempel’s wife died, she took him two frozen casseroles and sat with him for a while in his living room.
Nathan was still glaring at her. “I’m waiting for the point.”
“All I’m saying is that Mr. Stempel doesn’t seem to control any media. Not that I can tell, anyways.” Humiliated, she turned back to her chicken. Sometimes she didn’t know when to stop.
“Your mother’s not a serious person,” she heard Nathan tell his son. “She doesn’t know much about anything.”
It stung because it was true. She wasn’t a serious person. When Nathan put on the TV, she’d find something else to do. Dawn just couldn’t handle the doom and gloom. It was too hard keeping track of everyone who was out to destroy America. Even when she tried, she couldn’t tell folks apart. She’d end up feeling bad for somebody sleeping out on the street, only to find out from Nathan that they’d been there by choice. It didn’t make any sense, but as Nathan always said, you could fill the Grand Canyon with all the shit Dawn didn’t understand.
The year Nate started kindergarten, Dawn thought about going back to school part-time. She’d given birth to her son second semester of her senior year and she’d been too busy after that to focus on learning. But once Nate was in school six hours a day, she figured she had time to get her GED and take a few classes at the community college. When she read through the course catalog, everything looked interesting. But Nathan didn’t think it was a good investment. So Dawn had gone to the library and checked out some books for free. The next morning, he’d returned them all without asking.
“You already got a job,” he told her when he got home that evening. “Why don’t you focus on doing that right for once?”
Usually his word was law, but this time Dawn had pleaded with him. He always switched off the Wi-Fi in the morning when he left for work. Now that Nate was gone most of the day, once Dawn’s chores were finished, there was nothing for her to do but sit and stare at the walls.
“Fine,” he’d finally agreed. “You can check out books. But you pass them by me before you start reading. You have no idea what kind of damage the wrong books will do to a weak mind.”
Nathan was a serious person and there was nothing he took more seriously than books. He’d been a fierce supporter of the effort to rid the libraries of communist propaganda. He even helped Lula Dean draw up the list of books to be banned. But he couldn’t get rid of everything objectionable, and it took Dawn a while to get good at choosing books he wouldn’t take back. Pastel-colored covers, she discovered, barely got a glance. Loopy letters and illustrations of teenage girls usually—but not always—ensured a book was safe.
The day she visited Lula’s library Dawn felt like she’d hit the jackpot. Here were books handpicked by the lady Nathan was advising. Dawn had to stop herself from taking them all. The one she chose showed a pretty girl in a fifties-style poodle skirt and twinset standing on a bridge that spanned a canal. A handsome boy waved to her from a boat below. Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe!
Dawn started reading as soon as she got home. It wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting. The book’s narrator seemed a lot younger than the girl pictured on the cover. But she was smart and funny. She had parents who loved her, an older sister and friends. All the things Dawn used to pray for. As it turned out, her name was Anne. She lived in Amsterdam. And she was Jewish. Nobody in the book was named Buffy Halliday.
“What is that?” Nathan asked when he got home, snatching the book out of her hands.
Dawn held her breath while he studied the cover. She was enjoying the book more than anything she’d read in quite a while. “This looks like it’s a hundred years old.”
“I think it might be. I got it from Lula’s library.”
He set the book down on the counter with a grunt. “It’s Friday night. The boys are coming. You got the den ready?”
“I’ll do it right now,” she said, taking her book with her when she left the room. Before she headed downstairs, she slipped it behind the dresser in her bedroom. Just to be safe.
Dawn and Nate usually played Life on Friday nights. She got the game set up and made some popcorn. She was just about to take her first spin of the wheel when a shadow fell across the board. Nathan’s latest stray, Logan Walsh, had come up from the basement with a message for Nate.
“Your dad says it’s time for you to join us,” he told Dawn’s boy.
Nate rose from his seat as though he’d been summoned by God. Dawn didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want his father to have him. But she could feel Logan’s eyes boring a hole through her, so she said nothing. He was young, and most women would have called him handsome, with sandy blond curls that reminded her of a fairy-tale prince. She’d heard Nathan say he’d inherited a fortune. The men in her husband’s group were all a bit scary, but Logan was the one who made her squirm. She sensed something desperate about him. Like he was searching for something, but he didn’t know what. Whenever he looked at her, she could imagine him cutting her open to find it.
As soon as he was gone, Dawn took the popcorn to the bedroom, locked the door, and pulled her new book out of its secret spot.
That night, the tale took a very dark turn. Anne and her family had gone into hiding and were forced to stay indoors at all times. If the Nazis discovered the family, they would all be arrested. Much later, they heard that many of their friends had been loaded on trains and sent to concentration camps. Rumor had it, they’d all been gassed. Which meant executed. But that couldn’t be true, Dawn told herself. Why would the Nazis kill children? Maybe adults who could fight against them. But kids? It just didn’t make sense.
Shortly after eleven, Dawn heard boots on the stairs. Her husband’s friends were leaving. Heart racing, Dawn immediately slipped the book behind the dresser. Then she hurried down to the basement to clean up after the meeting. Usually, she paid no attention to the books on the shelves or the weapons in the cabinet. The blandly handsome mannequin who wore a black uniform and clutched an old pistol was in the same corner he’d stood in for years. But this time, Dawn felt him watching her as she gathered beer cans and picked stray potato chips off the carpet. She jumped out of her skin at the sound of someone bounding down the stairs. Seconds later, her son rushed into the room. He paused for a moment when he found Dawn frozen in terror. Then he grabbed a book off the couch and disappeared up the stairs to his room.
Sunday morning, while Nathan was off fishing, Dawn went to church and prayed for Anne’s family and her own. After the service, she stopped by the grocery store. When she arrived home an unfamiliar car pulled in the drive after her. She was surprised to see Mr. Stempel behind the wheel. When she waved, he didn’t budge. He seemed uncertain of what to do next, so she left the groceries in the back of her car and walked round to greet him.
“Mr. Stempel,” she said when he finally opened his door. “It’s so good to see you!”
As he got out, Dawn was struck by how old he looked. His hair was no longer gray but white, and his shoulders curved inward.
“It’s nice to see you, too, Dawn,” he said. “Or do you prefer Mrs. Dugan now?”
She couldn’t understand why he was being so formal. “It’ll always be Dawn for you,” she told him.
“Thank you.” He sounded relieved. “Well, Dawn, I wish I was here for a friendly visit, but I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad news. I woke up this morning to find the front door of my house had been vandalized.”
“Oh no!” Dawn cried. “I’m so sorry to hear that!”
“May I show you a picture?’ He pulled out his phone and scrolled through photos until he found the one he was looking for. Then he passed the phone to Dawn.
“That’s a swastika,” Dawn said. She’d seen the same symbol every week for the past fourteen years. She’d shaken dust from flags that bore it—and wiped off black-and-white pictures of men saluting it. She’d cleaned cases filled with hats and medals and documents with the very same icon. Dawn wasn’t dumb. She knew the Nazis were bad. But they were villains from a story so far removed from her own life that it might as well have been Star Wars.
But now she knew what that sign meant and what it could do. And she knew why it had been drawn on Mr. Stempel’s front door—to hurt an old man who had been nothing but kind to her. And when she looked in his face and saw he was scared, she felt her heart break because she felt very certain she knew the person who’d done it.
“It is a swastika,” Mr. Stempel confirmed. “I’ll admit, it’s been a while since I saw one in person. I was hoping I never would again.”
“Do you know who did this?”
“I do. And that’s why I came here instead of going to the police.”
Dawn braced herself. It had to be one of her husband’s friends. At that moment, she knew in her heart it was Logan Walsh.
“One of my security cameras recorded the person responsible.” Mr. Stempel clicked on a video and passed the phone back to her. The film was so grainy it looked like it had been shot in a snowstorm. A male in a black hoodie approached the house. His hand emerged from the hoodie with a spray can. Five seconds later, he was sprinting back across the lawn.
Dawn hadn’t braced well enough. She felt her knees buckle. “Dear Lord. That’s my son.”
“I know,” Mr. Stempel said sadly.
She started to cry because it was all her fault. She should never have mentioned Mr. Stempel’s name at dinner.
“I am so sorry,” she told him.
“I am, too,” he said.
“What should I do?” It wasn’t fair to ask him. Dawn knew that. But there was no one else she could turn to.
“I can’t say,” Mr. Stempel said. “I don’t know your son well. But I do know you, and I trust you. That’s why I’m deleting this video.”
She wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve. The tears had already stopped. Now a rage was bubbling up inside her. “Thank you, Mr. Stempel,” she told the old man.
“It’s Joel,” he said, putting his hand on her arm.
As Dawn marched toward the house, she could see Nate standing at the living room window. He tried at first to stare her down the way his dad always did. To prove her emotions meant nothing to him—that she wasn’t worth a response. But he was still her boy, and he broke before she burst through the door.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” he said, backing away.
“Why would you do that?” she demanded. “Why would my son be the kind of person who hurts someone for no reason?”
“They control the world! We have to fight back!”
She might not have been a genius, but that was the dumbest crap she’d ever heard. “Mr. Stempel controls the world? A sixty-nine-year-old man who lives here in Nowhere, Georgia. You’re telling me he controls the world?”
“His people do.”
“His people?” she was yelling now. “What people? His wife died two years ago and his son lives in Austin. We are his people! The people who live in this town are his people!”
“He’s a Jew, Mom. He’s not one of us. You don’t know anything!”
She pushed him against the wall. Her son, who was big enough to hurt her. Another kid might have. But Nate didn’t, and that meant something. “I know one thing for sure. That old man just did you the biggest favor anyone has ever done you. His security cameras caught you on tape. He could have sent you to jail. You’re going to go over to Mr. Stempel’s house right now and clean that nasty mark off his door.”
“No, Mama.” Nate shook his head. He was terrified. But it wasn’t of her. “Please don’t make me. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He opened his mouth but no words emerged.
“I asked you a question!”
“Because Dad’s just starting to like me.” Then he started to cry.
That destroyed her. Because she knew just how he felt. For years, she would have done anything for the slightest sign of affection from Nathan. She’d let her little boy see her scrape and grovel. He’d watched as she let Nathan train her to be the obedient servant he wanted—because she was too scared to think for herself. Nate was only following her lead. It was all her fault.
Dawn didn’t go to bed that night. By the time she finished reading her book, the sun was up. Before her husband could rise and demand his breakfast, Dawn headed out to the hardware store, where she bought a paintbrush and paint.
“I’m here to clean up your door,” she told Mr. Stempel when he answered the bell. The Stempel house was right on Main Street. Everyone in Troy would see Dawn at work. And that’s exactly what she wanted. She’d pay dearly for it later, but it was the right thing to do.
“I was hoping your son would come,” Mr. Stempel said.
“Nate’s got school this morning,” Dawn told him. “And I didn’t think this should wait any longer.”
“I see.” He didn’t sound satisfied.
“Also, I’ve been reading this book, and I had a question I was hoping I could ask you.” She reached into her bag and fished it out.
“Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe!?” he asked. “I have to admit, I’ve never heard of it.”
“Sorry, I should have mentioned—that’s just the cover. There’s a different book on the inside.”
Mr. Stempel opened the book. “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Isn’t this on the banned book list?”
“Have you read it?”
“Oh yes,” he said.
“Lula Dean called it smut at her press conference. But all girls think the kind of stuff that Anne did. I don’t know why we pretend that they don’t.”
“I was never a girl, so I’ll have to take your word for it,” Mr. Stempel said. “You said you have a question?”
“Yes.” Dawn cleared her throat. “Do you know what happened to her? The book just ended without saying.”
Mr. Stempel’s forehead furrowed as though he thought he might be the butt of a very bad joke. Then, slowly, his eyebrows lifted high in surprise. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“No.”
“Anne died. They murdered her.”
Dawn shook her head. That couldn’t be right. Why would they do that? “But she was the hero.”
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Stempel told her. “I thought everyone knew.”
“But she didn’t do anything!” Dawn argued passionately, as though reason could save a girl who’d been dead for decades.
“None of them did,” Mr. Stempel said. “My uncles and aunts didn’t do anything, either.”
“The Nazis killed them?”
“Their children, too. The youngest was an infant. They were murdered at Bergen-Belsen. The same place Anne died.” He paused. “You’ve really never heard of it?” He seemed horrified.
“I didn’t finish school. But I’ll look it up,” she said, but that didn’t feel like enough. “I promise.”
Mr. Stempel stepped back into the house, but Dawn couldn’t let it end there. She needed him to know that she was on his side, not theirs.
“The Nazis were monsters to kill little girls.”
“I know that’s what people say,” Mr. Stempel told her. “But most of them weren’t. They were just ordinary people. That’s what makes them so terrifying. Monsters you can fight. But when the people who come for you in the night are your neighbors and coworkers and classmates... When you never know who’s sick and who’s not...” He shrugged.
“Sick?”
“Hate is a disease, Dawn.”
Dawn felt her stomach heave. She put a hand to her mouth for fear she might vomit. “I think my son has it,” she whispered when she could.
Mr. Stempel nodded. “For how long?”
“A few months. Since his birthday.”
“Then there may still be time to help him.”
“There’s a cure?”
“Yes, and you have it,” Mr. Stempel said. “It’s the truth. It won’t work on everyone. But maybe your son isn’t too far gone.”
Dawn got home just after noon. It took less than a minute to kick open the door of the room in the basement. Now that she wanted in, a flimsy lock couldn’t keep her out. Item by item, she dragged her husband’s “memorabilia” up the stairs. Then she re-created Nathan’s museum best she could on the front yard of their house.
“What are you doing?” a passerby asked. Then the wind caught a flag and unfurled it.
“Sharing the truth about my husband,” Dawn called out as the woman hurried away. “I want everyone in Troy to see just who he is.”
She was done by two-fifteen. Then she drove to the school and picked up her son. After a stop at the bank, they left town, just the two of them. She handed her son the only thing she’d packed. A copy of Buffy Halliday Goes to Europe!