I had to stop twice for coffee. Having opted to head back, I now found the drive narcotic and was struggling to stay awake. The radio in the rental car was good company. I flipped from station to station, listening to a talk show host, classical and country music, and countless newscasts. Once upon a time I'd smoked cigarettes, and I could still remember the habit as a way of marking time on car trips. Now I'd rather drive off a bridge than light up. Another hour passed. It was nearly dawn and the sky was turning white, the trees along the road beginning to reclaim their color, now charcoal green and dark chartreuse. Dimly I was aware of the sun coming up like a beachball into my line of vision, the colors of the sky shading up from dark gray to mauve to peach to bright yellow. I had to flip down the visor to keep the glare out of my eyes.

By 9:14 I'd turned in the rental and picked up my VW and I was pulling into a parking place in front of my apartment. My eyes felt itchy and I ached from a weariness that felt like the flu, but at least I was home. I let myself in, checked to see that there were no messages, brushed my teeth, took my shoes off, and fell into bed.

For once, sleep descended like a blow to the head, and I went down, down, down.

I woke at 5:00 p.m. The eight hours should have been adequate, but as starved as I was for sleep, I felt I was dragging myself out of quicksand. I was still struggling to adjust to the inverted pattern my life had taken. In bed at dawn, up again in the afternoon. I was eating breakfast at lunchtime, dinner in the dead of night, though often that meal turned out to be cold cereal or scrambled eggs and toast, which meant I ate breakfast twice. I was vaguely aware of a psychological shift, a change in my perception now that I'd substituted night for day. Like a form of jet lag, my internal clock was no longer synchronized with the rest of the world's. My usual sense of myself was breaking down, and I wondered if a hidden personality might suddenly emerge as if wakened from a long sleep. My day life was calling, and I was curiously reluctant to answer.

I rolled out of bed, dumped my dirty clothes, took a shower, and got dressed. I stopped at a minimart where I grabbed a carton of yogurt and an apple, eating in my car as I headed over to the Keplers'. I could have used a couple more hours of sleep, but I was hoping to talk to Lorna's sisters before their mother woke up. Like me, her days and nights were turned around, and I felt a strange bond with her.