It was a disturbing image. She felt sorry for the whale. She wished it could bring its massive tail down and shatter the boat, pitching the men into the ocean. Then she noticed the sharks. Around the whale, and around the boat as well, sharks stuck their heads above the water. Like the whale, their mouths were open, revealing dangerous-looking teeth.

Caddie shuddered. Why had someone hung something so unpleasant in a bedroom? Why had her father kept it there? She knew the answer to that question; he probably had never even looked at the picture. To him it might as well have been a vase filled with flowers, or a kitten. She was sure that if she asked, he’d have no idea what she was talking about.

She took the picture down. Behind it, in a patch exactly the size of the picture frame, the wallpaper was much bluer, the roses much pinker. Knowing that people had left the ugly image there for so many years made her hate it even more. She climbed off the bed, went to the closet, and leaned the picture against the wall inside. She would find something else to hang in its place, she told herself. Something she actually wanted to have hanging over her head.

Or maybe she’d just wait and see if her father noticed the picture’s absence. He’d have to come into the room for that. She wondered if he would. Was he going to spy on her, the way her mother did? She kind of doubted it. But someone had to come in the room sometimes to clean it. She couldn’t imagine her father cleaning. So who did?

She realized that her father’s entire life was a mystery to her. Not that she cared, really. It had just never occurred to her to wonder how he managed. Did he cook? He’d mentioned having dinner, but he hadn’t said anything about doing the cooking. She tried to picture him doing laundry, or vacuuming. She couldn’t even form an image of it in her mind. It was like he was someone she’d read about in a book; she knew just enough about him to believe that he existed. Everything else was a blank.

The second Valium was kicking in, and that, combined with the warmth of the room, made her sleepy. She yawned. For a moment, she fought against the closing of her eyes. Then she remembered that she had absolutely nothing else to do, nowhere else to be. It was as if she were marooned on an island, alone except for the strange presence that was her father.

She breathed deeply, settling into the mattress. Within moments, she slept.

CHAPTER 5

Ben shut the door to the small office, sat in the worn wooden chair at the desk, and realized that it was the first time since he’d moved into the house three years before that he hadn’t left the door open. How curious, he thought, that now he should do it without even thinking. Certainly he hadn’t been conscious of wanting—or needing—to hide himself away from Caddie. And it wasn’t as if he was going to engage in some activity he wouldn’t want his daughter to see should she come looking for him.