Day eighteen. That’s what Aunt Rita is marking through on the calendar when I open the kitchen cabinet where the cereal is kept. Stephen is already gone. No one else is up yet.
“You ever see where your uncle goes on his morning run?” Rita asks me.
“Behind the house, I guess.”
“Hmmm, kind of rocky on that side. Not a place I’d run.”
I hadn’t thought about it before, but it does seem strange that I never see him running.
“I saw him doing pushups one time, down by the water,” I tell her.
“I gotta check this out.” My aunt walks down the short hall to the back door. The house is built on a hill, a rocky one, so the downslope on the front side leads out onto a deck on stilts and slopes down to the sand and sea. The back door leads out on the high side straight onto land.
“I can’t see anyt
