As I looked closer, I could see that he looked a little mangy, some of his fur matted. But I figured that made sense—if his owners had been really on the ball, they probably wouldn’t be letting their dog wander around at night on his own.
“Go,” I said again, even more firmly this time. “Now.” I kept making eye contact, like the show always advised. The dog just looked at me for a second, then his other ear dropped and he seemed to sigh. But he did stand up—which actually didn’t change much, heightwise, since his legs were a little short for his body. He gave me one more long look, but I tried not to show any signs of wavering. And after a moment more, he turned and started slowly down the driveway.
The dog walked to the end of the gravel, paused, then turned left and headed down the street. And even though I’d intended to go right in, I watched the dog getting smaller and smaller, hearing the jingle of his tag growing fainter, until he finally rounded the curve in the road and disappeared from view.
chapter six
THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE WITH A START. I BLINKED AS I LOOKED around the room, for a second not remembering where I was. Then my eyes fell on the penguin on my dresser, and it all came back to me. I groaned and rolled over again, but even as I closed my eyes, I could tell that I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep.
I sat up and squinted out at the sunlight that was streaming in through my window. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, for all the good that was going to do me. I got out of bed, and after looking at the penguin for a moment, I stuffed it on the top shelf of my closet and shut the door, so it wouldn’t be the first thing I saw when I woke up every morning.
I headed down the hall, throwing my hair up into a messy pony-tail as I went, noticing that the house was incredibly quiet. I glanced at the microwave clock when I reached the kitchen and realized why—it was eight a.m. In the not-so-distant past, my father would have been up for hours by now. He would have brewed a pot of coffee and would be halfway through answering that morning’s e-mails, already settling down to work. The sight of the empty coffeemaker was enough to remind me that things had changed. That the normal I somehow kept expecting things to revert to was not going to come back again. I might have made a pot myself, but I had no idea how to make coffee—that had always been my dad’s responsibility, along with remembering important information.
Not really wanting to hang out alone in a silent house, I headed outside. I would usually have gone to the dock, but after my encounter with Henry the day before, I wasn’t sure I was going out to the dock ever again. So instead, I stepped into my flip-flops and walked down the driveway, figuring that maybe by the time I got back from my walk, other members of my family might be awake, and then we could…
I paused in the middle of the driveway, realizing that I didn’t know how to complete that sentence. I had no idea what I was going to do this summer, except witness the end of my world as I’d always known it. The thought was enough to propel me forward, as though I could somehow leave it behind me, along with the house and its silent coffeemaker.
I deliberately turned and started walking in the opposite direction of Henry’s house, and noticed for the first time that we appeared to have new neighbors there as well. At any rate, there was a Prius in the driveway and a sign I didn’t recognize that read CUT TO: SUMMER.
Dockside Terrace, our street, was empty this early in the morning, except for a sleepy-looking man walking an energetic golden retriever. As I walked, I found myself noticing the signs in front of all the houses, and realizing how many of them I remembered. Almost all of the houses in Lake Phoenix had names, not numbers. But our house had never had a sign, since we could never reach a consensus about a name. We used to take a vote every summer, but nothing had ever seemed to quite fit.
I’d been walking for maybe twenty minutes when I decided to head back. It was starting to get hotter out, and the more joggers and dog-walkers who appeared, all waving cheerfully to me, the more aware I was that I had literally just rolled out of bed, and wasn’t wearing a bra. I was turning around when I noticed a gap in the woods that ran alongside the road. My memory was a little foggy on the details, but I was fairly certain that there was a path through here that ran almost directly back to my house.