My first instinct, in the hours following the discovery of Spender's body, even without knowing exactly how he'd died, was to give everyone a security lecture. Don't talk to strangers or pick up hitchhikers, make sure you haven't left the keys in the door, make sure you throw the deadbolt, obey your "walk" and "don't walk" signals, don't use the electric hair dryer while you're sitting in the bathtub, wait an hour after eating before swimming, never run with scissors.
But I sensed this was the wrong way to go. It had only been a couple days since the hidden car incident, and now that Sarah and I were speaking to each other again, I didn't want to set things back. My goal was tolerance. I would not let things get to me. I would let things go. Like water off a duck's back. I'd stop telling everyone how to behave. I'd mellow out.
I'd learn to chill.
When Paul and Angie got home, I told them what had happened down by the creek. Angie said, "Are you sure the guy was dead? Maybe he was just pretending to be dead to teach you a lesson about safe hiking." Then she ran for her camera and persuaded her brother to come with her so she could take her first pictures of a crime scene. On their way out, Sarah shoved a twenty into her hand and told her to buy her brother and herself some pizza for dinner, and to eat it at the restaurant, not bring it home.
"Oh God," Paul said under his breath to his sister. "They're going to go at it."
After Sarah and I had picked the drywall out of our fettuccine, and had dinner, Paul's worst fears were realized. There's nothing like brushing up against death to reinvigorate the lovemaking process. My disposition was definitely improving.
My resolve to be less of a know-it-all jerk was tested early the next morning, when I found the front door unlocked. Once Angie and Paul had returned from dinner, Paul had gone back out with his friend Hakim, sneaking from one movie to another at the multiplex, buying tickets for a PG show and then slipping into the theater showing an R-rated slasher pic where women with heaving bosoms kept falling down while trying to run away, so he wasn't in until after midnight. When I went down in the morning to get The Metropolitan, the bolt on the door hadn't been turned. And there, sitting within an arm's reach of it, was Sarah's purse. I nearly mentioned it to him at breakfast, but didn't. Next time, I'd just wait until Paul was home and go down and check the door myself.
Paul left for school at the regular time, but Angie hung in, going downstairs to put the finishing touches to a photography assignment. I noticed a hot smell as I walked past her bedroom. She'd left her curling iron on, which was resting atop her dresser, the cord still plugged into the wall. So I unplugged it. Made no mental note to rent a smoke machine to send dark billowing clouds out of her bedroom window, or arrange to have a fire truck parked at the curb for when she came home.
"Let it go," I said aloud as I emerged from her bedroom on my way downstairs to the study to get to work.
From the basement, she called to me. Her voice, coming from behind a door, was muffled. "Dad! Come down for a sec!"
In the brochure, Valley Forest Estates had called it a "wine cellar" or "cold room," a place to keep fresh vegetables or store fine bottles of white and red. The room was no more than five by seven feet in size, and we had turned it into a darkroom.
"Hang on," she said, making sure her film was safe from any invading light, then opened the door to admit me into the blackness. My eyes adjusted to the soft red light, the smell of developing fluid swirling up my nostrils. I was brought in occasionally as a technical adviser, having spent a lot of time in a darkroom when I worked in newspapers, but this time Angie just wanted me to see what she was doing.
"What's the assignment?" I asked.
"Just wait," she said, moving the white paper back and forth in the solution. Gradually, images began to take shape. "I love this part," Angie said. "It's like watching something being born. A lot of the kids, they've got these digital cameras, they do everything on the screen. It's kind of cool, but there's no suspense, you know? This way, half the fun is in the anticipation."
A street sign came into view. "Chancery Park." Then houses.
"It's our neighborhood," I said. "You took some pictures of the street. Isn't that nice."
But as each shot materialized, it became clear that Angie was up to much more than that. The pictures, all black-and-white, had a starkness about them.
"There are no people," I said. "The streets are empty."
"Yeah," said Angie. "I captured them just the way they are. And see how the trees look like twigs, and in this shot, I've lined up the houses so you can see how they're all exactly the same."
"Very effective," I said.
"I'm calling it 'Dying in Suburbia: A Study in Redundancy.' "
"It's good," I said quietly. "It's very good."
Angie was still on the same theme as I drove her to school later, since she'd missed the bus. She said, "How much longer are we going to live out here?"
"Excuse me?"