He shut his eyes and forced his mind to calm. Only when he felt the surge of excitement simmer to low boil did he open them again. This time, the neatly penned words flowed smoothly and, beginning with an entry for June the first, he began to read.

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18

The sound of a car door slamming woke Caddie up. Immediately the dream she’d been having—something about being at a concert with Sam and Bree but being unable to find them in the crowd—faded away, but the feelings of disorientation and frustration remained. She glanced wearily at the clock. It was only seven.

She tried to go back to sleep, realized she had to pee badly, and reluctantly threw back the covers. The temperature had dropped during the night, and the room was chilly. Caddie rubbed her bare arms as she walked down the hallway, wishing she’d shut her bedroom window.

Having peed, she decided that she wanted a drink. Her mouth tasted like pot, her tongue thick and pasty and altogether unpleasant. She brushed her teeth quickly and, feeling slightly more alive, went downstairs. As she passed through the dining room, she saw that the table had been cleared. In the kitchen, the dish drainer was stacked neatly with freshly washed dishes. The scrubber in the sink was still wet. He must have gotten up practically at dawn, she thought as she filled a glass from the tap.

She finished her drink, rinsed the glass, and placed it in the drainer. While heading back to the stairs, she noticed that the front door was open and went to close it. Through the screen door, she saw her father standing in the driveway. The rear of his Volvo was open, and the ground around him was littered with what Caddie recognized as dive gear.

She was about to turn away and escape to the safety of her room when her father, looking up, saw her. “Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” Caddie replied. She waited for the accusations she was sure were coming, but her father went back to sorting the gear into piles.

I should probably make nice, Caddie thought, dreading the prospect. Her defiance of the night before was reduced in the light of day to a feeling of vague regret, a transformation brought about not only by sleep but also by her father’s apparent refusal to be angry with her. Goaded on by a stubborn refusal to let him be morally superior to her, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Perhaps if she gave him the opportunity, she thought, she might yet get a satisfying argument out of him.

“How’d you sleep?” her father asked her, picking up a tank and sliding it into the car.