When we were halfway up the hill, Dante came to an abrupt stop. He sniffed the air, then whimpered.
“What is it? You smell a bigger dog? A squirrel?” He was looking at the street. “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I won’t let a squirrel get you.”
Dante responded by crouching down. His eyes were still focused on the street, trained toward the top of the hill, but I didn’t see anything unusual.
“Come on, there’s nothing there.” I tugged at the leash, and Dante whimpered again. “I can see my house from here. If you walk with me, we’ll stop there and I’ll give you a treat.”
As I was debating whether to drag him up the hill or carry him, a car came into view. Sunlight glared off the windshield, so I couldn’t see the driver. The car crawled forward slowly, as if the driver was searching for a particular address and was afraid he’d go too far and miss it. The car stopped in front of my house. A camera emerged from the side window and the driver snapped some pictures.
I angrily scooped up Dante and stomped up the hill. If some guy was going to take pictures of my house, I wanted to know who he was and what he wanted. But as I got closer to the burgundy-colored vehicle, its driver noticed me. Suddenly, the car lurched forward and sped past me. Dante burrowed in my arms as I watched the car reach the bottom of the street, turn around too quickly and speed back up the hill. Its tires squealed as it flew past me. The darkly tinted windows made it impossible to see anything inside, and the space where the license plate should have been was occupied by a paper temporary tag.
It took only a second for the car to vanish. I stood there, petting Dante’s coarse fur in an effort to calm him down. He was shaking as I carried him into my house and placed him gingerly on a kitchen chair while I searched the fridge for a treat that he would like. My own hands were shaking a little as I sifted through the drawer where we kept the cold cuts. What was going on? Maybe it was a curious fan, but if so, would he have sped away as soon as he saw me?
It’s not the Watcher, I told myself. He’s not driving around in a car. Calm down.
“Oh, good. There you are.” Dad walked into the kitchen and tossed a pile of mail onto the counter. He saw the plastic deli bag I’d retrieved from the fridge. “Making a sandwich?”
“Sort of. But it’s not for me.” I motioned toward Dante, who was still curled up in a quivering ball of rattled nerves. “He got scared by a car,” I explained. There was no reason to tell Dad anything. He had enough to worry about, and if the demented driver was simply an embarrassed fan, I would be causing him unnecessary stress.
Dad sat in a chair across from Dante while I placed a pile of smoked turkey on a napkin. “So, I’ve decided to go see Mom,” he said. “I’m leaving in an hour. Can you be ready by then?”
A trip to see Mom took hours. We wouldn’t return until close to midnight. “I start school tomorrow, remember?”
Dad nodded. “Right. Of course. Your first day of college.”
He had forgotten. I placed the meat in front of Dante, who sniffed at it, then began to lick it. “I guess I could go. If you think we can be back by dinner.”
There was no way that would happen, and we both knew it, but I didn’t want Dad to think I was trying to get out of the visit. We were quiet, both of us watching Dante eat as if it were the most interesting event in the world.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Dad asked.
The question felt like a shove to the chest. I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t prepared. “Couple weeks ago. I went with Annalise.”
It had been a brief visit, one that my sister had insisted on. While she made a consistent effort to see Mom twice a week, I often found reasons why I couldn’t go. During the first month after she had been hurt, I went to the hospital every day. I spent hours in her room, feeling the rhythm of the machines that kept her alive. Her heart monitor was a drum, softly tapping out a beat. Nurses checked her vitals every hour. They would smile at me before reaching for Mom’s limp wrist. She was so pale, so still. She would look exactly the same if we laid her in a coffin, I thought.
Days passed, then weeks. The hopeful doctors decided that they’d done all they could and said Mom would be better off in a long-term care facility. Long-term. The suggestion behind the word terrified me. Would she remain in this motionless state for months? Years? Forever? The doctors didn’t know. She had survived the critical first twenty-four hours. Only time would tell, they said. Head trauma took time to heal. But no one could tell us how much time. And after months of minuscule success—her finger twitched once when I held her hand—a part of me gave up.
How long can a person cling to hope before it becomes too much? I wanted to remember Mom as the laughing, determined person she had been, not the helpless body she had become. Seeing her lying in the crisp white bed, the monitors beeping steadily, reminded me that she was not the person I had always known. It hurt. And I was tired of hurting. I wouldn’t give up on her, but it was easier to hold on to hope when I didn’t have to look at her.
“I know it can be difficult,” Dad said, his voice soft. “But I also know that it matters. Us being there matters. I believe that.”
Did he? Before the attack, Dad had never trusted anything that wasn’t based purely in science. When had he transformed? I almost wished that he hadn’t. Everyone was changing without me.
“I’ll go next time,” I said. “I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.” Dad crossed the room and kissed my forehead. “See you tomorrow, Charlotte.”
“Have a good trip, Dad.”
After he left, I flipped through the mail. A thick white envelope had already been opened. I checked the return address. It was from the insurance company. I stole a glance at the bill enclosed and gasped when I saw the amount due. Dad’s car didn’t cost that much. I resolved to assist Shane more. The looming DVD deadline had to be met.
Dante finished scarfing down his turkey and I walked him back down the hill. Avery’s mom was away for the weekend, so I made sure Dante had fresh water and added some kibble to his dish. Then I took him upstairs and put him on Avery’s bed. He liked to be petted as he fell asleep, a job I hated at first but now found somewhat soothing. As the little dog drifted off into sleep, I looked around at the bare room. Avery had left behind so little. Just pink walls and a depressed pet.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed her number. It went straight to voice mail, but I didn’t leave a message. Before I allowed myself to plunge deeper into pity, I called Noah. He picked up on the second ring, and before he even said a word, I felt better.
“Rough day?” he asked.
“You could say that.” I told him all about the strange burgundy car. Noah was one of the few people I trusted completely, and he was the only one who knew my biggest secret: I had seen the other side, and that brief experience had triggered the Watcher.
“If you see it again, you let me know, okay?” Noah shifted into protective mode, something he seemed to do a lot lately.
“I will.” I looked out Avery’s window. There wasn’t much of a view, just the side yard and part of her neighbor’s house. “What about you?” I asked. “How was your day?”
“Interesting. I spoke to Jeff.”
“Your brother?” Noah didn’t talk about his older brothers much. I knew that they had both left home as soon as they’d graduated high school and enlisted