But I sensed this was the wrong way to go. It had only been a couple days since the hidden car incident, and now that Sarah and I were speaking to each other again, I didn’t want to set things back. My goal was tolerance. I would not let things get to me. I would let things go. Like water off a duck’s back. I’d stop telling everyone how to behave. I’d mellow out.

I’d learn to chill.

When Paul and Angie got home, I told them what had happened down by the creek. Angie said, “Are you sure the guy was dead? Maybe he was just pretending to be dead to teach you a lesson about safe hiking.” Then she ran for her camera and persuaded her brother to come with her so she could take her first pictures of a crime scene. On their way out, Sarah shoved a twenty into her hand and told her to buy her brother and herself some pizza for dinner, and to eat it at the restaurant, not bring it home.

“Oh God,” Paul said under his breath to his sister. “They’re going to go at it.”

After Sarah and I had picked the drywall out of our fettuccine, and had dinner, Paul’s worst fears were realized. There’s nothing like brushing up against death to reinvigorate the lovemaking process. My disposition was definitely improving.

My resolve to be less of a know-it-all jerk was tested early the next morning, when I found the front door unlocked. Once Angie and Paul had returned from dinner, Paul had gone back out with his friend Hakim, sneaking from one movie to another at the multiplex, buying tickets for a PG show and then slipping into the theater showing an R-rated slasher pic where women with heaving bosoms kept falling down while trying to run away, so he wasn’t in until after midnight. When I went down in the morning to get The Metropolitan, the bolt on the door hadn’t been turned. And there, sitting within an arm’s reach of it, was Sarah’s purse. I nearly mentioned it to him at breakfast, but didn’t. Next time, I’d just wait until Paul was home and go down and check the door myself.

Paul left for school at the regular time, but Angie hung in, going downstairs to put the finishing touches to a photography assignment. I noticed a hot smell as I walked past her bedroom. She’d left her curling iron on, which was resting atop her dresser, the cord still plugged into the wall. So I unplugged it. Made no mental note to rent a smoke machine to send dark billowing clouds out of her bedroom window, or arrange to have a fire truck parked at the curb for when she came home.