I wanted to tell her. That Trevor had been following her the night before, first to the coffee shop where she met the young man, then to the mall, then part of the way out to Oakwood. And I was working up to it, thinking, okay, she could get as mad as she wanted, but it was important that she—

“Jeez, Dad, maybe you should start snooping on him, like you did with—”

The Pool Boy.

I waved my hands in the air. “Okay, okay, okay, never mind. I’m sorry.”

We didn’t speak for a couple of minutes. She ate her toast across from me. I listened to every chew.

“There is something funny, though,” she said softly. “Like, funny weird, not funny ha-ha.”

“What?”

“There were times last night, when I was driving around, when I had this feeling, I don’t know. This is totally weird. Like I was being watched.”

“Really.”

“And I looked around, figuring it might be Trevor? You know? Because he’s been so weird lately? But I didn’t see him.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. I’m probably just freaking out. This is what you’ve done to me. This is the kind of person you’re turning me into.”

Angie rinsed her dish and put it in the dishwasher, then went into the front hall. She called to me, still sitting in the kitchen, “Can I have the new car today?”

“I’ve got to get it looked at today. Half the time, it doesn’t want to start.”

“Great.”

And then I heard the muffled sound of a cell phone, and I could hear her rustling through her bag. “Hello?”

Then: “Stop fucking phoning me, okay?”

I took the shopping bags out of the Virtue and put them up in my bedroom, then locked up the house and got into the car. It started, but I wanted to be sure the problem wasn’t going to recur, so on the way into the office I stopped at Otto’s Auto Repair, and found Otto under a Mustang that was up on the hoist. Otto had looked after our cars, off and on, for the last fifteen years.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I got myself a new car,” I explained, “and I’ve been having a little trouble with it.”

“Let’s have a look,” he said, and walked out the bay doors with me as I led him over to the Virtue.

“Whoa,” he said. “This is one of those hybrid cars.”

“That’s right.”

“Where’s the extension cord?” And Otto started laughing.

“That’s a good one, Otto,” I said.

“You really should have talked to me before you went out and bought one of these. I mean, they’re good on gas and all, but they’re a bit hinky in the electrical department. Sometimes they don’t want to start.”

“Yeah, so I’ve discovered.”