Dennis shrugs. “It would be good to see our property.” He eats for a while, stops. Taps his fork on the table. “It’s been a strange day.”

That night they pack their suitcases and prepare the house, in a pre-trip ritual thirty years old. Dennis’s thoughts are scattered and confused, his feelings slide about from disbelief to hurt to fury to numbness to bitter humor to a kind of breathless anticipation, a feeling of freedom. He doesn’t have to take the job at Aerojet, if it comes to that. On the other hand he can. Nothing’s certain anymore. Anything can happen. And he’ll never have to deal with Ball Lightning again; he never has to listen to Stewart Lemon boss him around, ever again. Hard to believe.

“Well, I should call Dan Houston.”

Reluctantly he does it, and is more relieved than anything else to get an answering machine. He leaves a short message suggesting that they get together when he returns, and hangs up thoughtfully. Poor Dan, where is he tonight?

Lucy calls up Jim. No answer. And his answering machine isn’t turned on. “I’m worried about him,” she says, nervously packing a suitcase.

“Leave a note on the kitchen screen. He’ll see it when he comes over.”

“Okay.” She closes the suitcase. “I wish I knew … what was wrong with him.”

“He doesn’t even know what’s wrong with him,” Dennis says. He’s still annoyed with Jim for leaving before dinner, the previous night. It hurt Lucy’s feelings. And it was a stupid argument; Dennis is surprised he ever let himself say as much as he did, especially to someone who doesn’t know enough to understand. Although he should understand! He should. Well—his son is a problem. A mystery. “Let’s not worry about him tonight.”

“All right.”

Dennis loads the car trunk. As they go to bed Lucy says, “Do you think you’ll take this other job?”

“We’ll see when we get back.”

And the next morning, at 5:00 A.M., their traditional hour of departure, they back out of the driveway and track down to the Santa Ana Freeway, and they turn north, and they leave Orange County.

Chapter 80

80

By the time Tashi and Jim return to Tashi’s car, three days later, Jim is a wreck. He has several big blisters, three badly burned fingertips, a cut thumb, a bruised butt, a badly scratched leg, a knee locked stiff by some unfelt twist, a torn arch muscle in his left foot, deeply sun-cracked lips, and a radically sunburnt nose. He has also stabbed himself in the face with a tent pole, almost poking out his eye; and he tried to change the stove canister by candlelight, thereby briefly blowing himself up and melting off his eyelashes, his beard stubble, and the hair on his wrists.