arm and face as she moved past, like a glowing, disembodied specter.
“Good night, Mommy! Love you!” Rebecca called, just after the hallway had blinked dark again.
Corinne had headed straight into the bathroom without uttering another word, shutting the door quietly behind her. Daniel could deduce this from the recognizable clicking noise the latch made as it sprung back out into the strike plate.
Daniel and Rebecca gave each other funny smiles trying to not make the first sound. Rebecca broke first, starting to laugh in the fakest and truest of ways. Daniel tickled her sides as punishment, making her suck for gulps of air given the laughter’s long duration.
“Okay, okay. Lay down for me and I’ll go get your blanket,” Daniel laughed out.
“Alright…G’night Dad. I love you,” Rebecca’s response came while enduring the jaw-locking effects of another great yawn. She lazily rolled over and settled down, satisfying Daniel’s lone stipulation regarding her near-constant companion.
“Night Rebecca. I love you too,” he said softly, tucking his daughter’s flaxen hair behind her ear. He turned on the hand-crank LED lantern, blinking at the sudden brightness. Turning away from the bed he retrieved his light and headed for the basement in search of her pink support system.
Daniel found that he needed to replace the lids on the last of the precious paint jars and rinse out the fuzzy-topped, battered paint brushes before he could even start looking for her blanket. It amazed him how quickly the little girl had gone through almost an entire art classes’ worth of supplies. He eventually found Rebecca’s blanket tucked behind her table, only after he had searched everywhere else for it first.
Daniel had collected the art supplies, the shelves of books in the front room and all of the other scavenged items in the garage and basement during the years he spent breaking into the local homes, businesses and schools. He could still remember thinking that he would never be able to use it all. Of course that was well before he had a wife and child. Nowadays, he found himself trying to stem the tide of when the stored goods would run out.
Upstairs, blanket in hand Daniel crept back into Rebecca’s pink room, gently placing the fuzzy material over her legs. He snuck back out and continued down the hall to the master bedroom. Corinne was just setting down a wind-up alarm clock on her nightstand as he entered.
“You getting up early?” Daniel asked, having completely forgotten that Corrine had been told to start working on Mondays again.
“Seriously? I swear…You must not listen to anything I say…”
In a flash, it all came back to him. Her mood today suddenly made all the sense in the world.
“…Oh um. You sure you don’t want a ride in?” he added quickly, trying to get back on her side. “Rebecca would probably love to take a last ride in the truck. I mean, it only has a little…”
“I can drive myself,” Corrine said flatly. “Besides, I was gonna get up early…get ready there…” she added.
Daniel could tell that his wife was looking forward to pampering herself in the morning. Making the fact that she had completely ignored what he was trying to say about the truck hurt a little less. Why shouldn’t she look forward to a little time alone with electricity and a blow dryer?
“You mind if I read a while?” he asked softly, a smile almost showing.
“I can’t sleep with those candles…” Corinne replied, weariness filling in her voice.
Daniel grabbed the book on mountaineering that he was currently struggling to finish from a side table. The book was a complete disappointment filled with dialogue and fluff, while hardly any useful information had been gleaned from it. Taking the only light source with him, Corrine had just snuffed her lantern, he left the room with a nonchalantly spoken, “Alright, Babe. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
There was really no need to upset her about such a trivial thing, even though he felt somewhat annoyed about never being able to read in his own bed at night. Reading had become Daniel’s form of escape during the years he spent alone, and it usually mattered very little to him what the subject matter was about. Where learning about different knots and traps was amazingly fun and time consuming to him, the books about architecture and needlepoint held just as much allure. Knowledge was a standalone goal, especially to a socially-deprived adolescent.
Knowing that Corinne had to get up early to leave for work