Rundown by Michael Cadnum Page B

experimented mentally with a prepared statement, sounding like something Mr. DaGama would say: None of it is true .
    Dad makes the gentlest noise when he knocks on my door, an excuse-me-for-living tip-tap.
    I felt a ripple of guilt as he peeked in.
    I said, “You’re supposed to be gone.”
    â€œI told them I’d come down in a day or two.”
    He sat on the end of the bed, the mattress canting subtly with his weight.
    â€œI think it must be in the chromosomes,” I said. I felt a little wobbly. I had taken two very large capsules, choked down with not enough water. Once I had heard Dad reading the warning leaflets that came with the pills, possible seizure and coma if you overdosed.
    He made the pleasant expression he wears when he doesn’t get what I’m saying.
    â€œI inherited your headaches,” I said.
    I didn’t mean this reproachfully, but Dad put a hand to his head.
    â€œMy mother had them, too,” he said. “About one Sunday a month she couldn’t get out of bed.”
    â€œI thought she never got sick.” It was a family legend, Grandma’s iron constitution, until she smoked so many Kools they had to hook her to an oxygen tank.
    I thought, I’d rather get double pneumonia than another migraine.
    â€œYou’ll never guess what I have for you,” he said.

Chapter 12
    The dashboard clock said 4:36.
    Summer afternoon, plenty of sunlight, lawn sprinklers chattering, a breath of spray across the windshield. If you rarely swallow painkillers you know why they call them drugs . I felt about three pages behind everything that happened, the sun too bright.
    â€œI told you keep your eyes shut.”
    I shut them an exaggerated way, bunched up my face, and then feathered one eye open just a bit
    â€œShut tight,” he said.
    Dad was prime at times like this, in control. I’ve seen him sweep into his restaurant five minutes before opening, the regular chef out with the flu, the staff rattled, all elbows and feet. One of Dad’s pep talks and the evening is won.
    I used to want to be a chef, soups my specialty, the kind you make from a simmered beef broth, so thick it’s honey. Then I wanted to be an architect, but I’m terrible at math. My test scores are a range of spikes, off the chart verbally, below average at telling which cube nestles into which hole. Mom said it was hard to follow in Cass’s wake, and never fought to change any of my grades.
    It wasn’t a long drive, but the car was pulling uphill, cresting, my stomach feeling airborne with the sudden descent.
    You can tell when you’re traveling through a grove of eucalyptus. The air smells clean, like mothballs and fresh, spice countryside. The tires crunched and whispered up a dirt road, shadows playing across my eyelids. Jays called, smart birds who know exactly what a car is and probably count the passengers.
    I caught a whiff of manure, a golden, sun-ripened scent, and the hollow wooden buildings echoing the breathy thrum of Dad’s car as he eased it along, the independent suspension handling the heavy ruts.
    I told myself, surely not.
    It was just my imagination.
    â€œStill shut?” Dad was saying.
    I gave a tentative laugh, knowing my face was comical, squinched up, but committed to the rules.
    My vision was having trouble adjusting to the patches of black shadow, scissor-bright sun, light reflecting off a water trough and the arcing blades of eucalyptus leaves.
    I knew Sandalwood Ranch well, only a mile and a half from our new house, but another world. I was delaying, blinking, pretending, letting my sight settle on the comfy, boxy black interior of a stable, two horses gazing out, white muzzled pintos who had nothing to do with me.
    The horse Dad was indicating was dancing sideways, all loft and spirit, at the limit of a long, looping bridle.
    She was wheat yellow, with a blond mane, her nostrils brunette. When a fly touched withers her skin jumped,