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  After twenty minutes where I showed a frustrating lack of progress, Sheree suggested that we try something else. We tried an arabesque, but I just couldn't seem to keep my balance during the portion of the lift where Jackson picked me up and put me above his head. I was pretty sure that Jackson was as rock steady as anyone could possibly ask for, but once I got above a certain height I started shaking too badly to get my back leg up into position.

  Cindi suggested basket tosses next under the assumption that, at least initially, I wouldn't have to worry about actually doing anything, so I could just enjoy the ride as they threw me into the air. I kept closing my eyes, which meant that I came down awkwardly and made it harder for the three of them to catch me.

  When Sheree finally told us that she needed to get home, I was surprised to find out that we'd been at it for nearly an hour and a half. I thanked Jackson and Sheree both and then Cindi and I went back into the school for our books before heading home.

  It wasn't until we'd been walking for a couple of minutes in complete silence that I remembered that she'd been wanting to get home and study for her history test.

  "I'm sorry, Cindi. I didn't realize that we'd been at it for so long."

  "It's okay, one bad test probably isn't going to pull my grade down in the class by too much."

  I opened my mouth to say something else apologetic, but I knew her well enough to know that she was more pissed off than she wanted to admit. She wasn't going to listen until she'd had a chance to calm down and work through things on her own.

  We made it home a few minutes later only to find that Dad and Mom were in a huge fight.

  "It's just a couple pairs of jeans and a few tops, John. Honestly, do you want your daughter to run around naked?"

  "That's not the point and you know it. Adri had clothes. They may not fit very well now, but you should have talked to me before going out and charging three hundred dollars on the credit card like that."

  "What do you want me to do? Should I start selling camera lenses in order to keep our daughters fed and clothed?"

  "Yes, if that's what it takes. Maybe if you had to sacrifice a little to keep the wheels from coming off around here you'd appreciate what I go through keeping you in lenses and photography supplies."

  Cindi and I hadn't meant to sneak into the house, we'd come in through the front door just like always, but Mom and Dad had been yelling so loud that they hadn't heard us arrive. Mom's voice was getting really pitchy just like it always did when she was nearly to the point of tears.

  "That's not fair, John, and you know it—to me or Adri either one. Why should Adri have to settle for the cheapest clothes we can find while Cindi gets designer labels? As for my equipment, you haven't had to lay out a single red cent in years. I pay for my supplies and whatever else I want out of my own earnings."

  "Fifteen thousand dollars."

  My dad's voice was low enough that I almost couldn't make out what he'd said, but my mom obviously heard him and it apparently was a long-standing point of contention between them.

  "Not that again."

  "Yes, that again. We spent fifteen thousand dollars on your hobby six years ago. You said that it would be a fun thing you could do on the side to bring in money while the girls were at school. The truth is that every miserable penny you've earned has gone right back into buying yet more gear and it's so far beyond a simple hobby that the girls and I hardly see you anymore. It's become an obsession."

  "You're a fine one to speak of obsessions. How many hours did you work last week? Seventy? Eighty? I turned to my photography because you were never around. The girls have each other and their friends at school. You have your coworkers and your work, my photography is all I have"

  I opened my mouth to tell them that we were here but Cindi grabbed my arm and shook her head. Dad responded to Mom's latest allegation before I could tell Cindi that I thought it was a really bad idea for us to be listening to them fight.

  "I took this job specifically for you. I took a pay cut because you were singing this exact same song back then."

  "And how long exactly did that last? You're working just as many hours now as you were six years ago."

  "I started working more hours because you were never around, and putting Cindi through cheer camps and keeping her in those damn designer jeans was eating into what little savings we had left. If I can close this project out at work then I'll finally have something to show for the last few years. I'll be able to move back up into the kind of position I had at my last job."

  "There will always be another project, John."

  "Just like there will always be another print that needs developed?"

  I was saved from hearing Mom's response by the fact that Cindi burst into tears. She ran through the house and slammed our bedroom door with a crash that was too loud even for Mom and Dad to miss.

  Chapter 10

  The next hour or two was kind of a blur. Mom yelled something about Dad being an insensitive jerk and stormed down to her cave. Dad came into the living room for just long enough to give me a hug and then he followed Mom down into the basement. He shut the door on the stairs, so I couldn't hear much of what was said after that. Even when they were shouting at each other I couldn't make out more than a word here or there.

  I didn't want to eat, but between the calories I'd burned off in the dream the night before and the calories that got consumed at practice, I figured that skipping dinner wasn't an option. I made myself a club sandwich and then pulled out my English homework. Normally I was a pretty big procrastinator, but between normal cheer practices and the extra Tuesday practices that I'd just agreed to, I figured I'd better keep my nose to the grindstone homework-wise or I'd be in pretty big trouble.

  The yelling downstairs went on for nearly another hour without much in the way of pauses. I heard Cindi come out of our room to use the bathroom at some point, but she went back into our room without saying hi, so I decided to continue giving her space.

  Dad finally came back up about the time the sun went down. He looked tired, but then he always looked tired lately. This was something more than that, he looked like someone who'd been fighting a battle for a very long time. Someone who'd just realized that maybe the battle wasn't worth fighting after all.

  "I'm sorry that you girls had to hear that, Adri."

  "It's okay, Dad. I'm sorry you and Mom are struggling."

  Dad gave me a sad smile. "It's not your fault, sweetie."

  "Isn't it?"

  He grimaced. "This fight wasn't about the clothes. Honestly I wish I could dress all of us in the height of fashion, but with the economy going the way it is right now things are just too tight."

  "I understand, Dad."

  "I'm not sure you do, not really, but I appreciate you being so willing to forgive. I'm sorry that I haven't put my foot down before now and made your mother stop buying Cindi such outrageously expensive clothes without doing the same for you."

  "What are you going to do now?"

  The look of exhaustion was back on his face. "I'm going to go talk to your sister and try to convince her that I still love her despite what she heard when the two of you got home."

  "That's probably a good idea, Cindi could use some reassurance right now, but that wasn't what I was talking about."

  I made an awkward gesture that I hoped took in the fact that I wanted to know more, wanted to know what the future held.

  "I don't want to drag you into the middle of the fight your mother and I are having, Adri."

  "Are the two of you going to get divorced?"

  Dad rubbed his eyes, but I was pretty sure it was more just to buy himself time than anything else.

  "You know, when you were little anytime you asked me a question I didn't want to answer I just distracted you with a toy. Sometimes I miss those days."

  "That's a yes, then."

  Tears started pooling in my eyes, but my dad grabbed my hand before I could run out of the room.

  "I
don't know, Adri. I'm sorry, I wish I could give you an unqualified no, but I can't any more. If you'd asked me even a couple of months ago I would have said no without hesitating, but I'm just not sure now."

  "What happened? Is there someone else?"

  I was old enough to understand that divorces happened, that it didn't have to necessarily be my fault or Cindi's fault, but I knew that they'd loved each other when we'd been little if nothing else. That, seemed to demand that someone be at fault.

  "No, sweetie, there's nobody else. You heard the summarized version earlier. Your mother feels like I've been an absentee husband and father while I feel like she's been an absentee mother and wife. The truth is that we're both right. And we're both wrong. It's just one of those things."

  I knew my dad better than anyone else except for maybe my mother. I could tell when he wasn't telling me the full story and this was one of those times.

  "What else? That's not the only reason."

  Dad nodded. "You're going to think less of me for saying this, Adri, but I'm tired of working and having nothing to show for it. I've been in this profession for nearly two decades and at various times I was making pretty good money, but even after all of that your mother and I don't have enough in savings to cover a few hundred dollars' worth of clothes for you. Our retirement is in just as bad a situation. Honestly, at this rate I'll be working until the day I drop dead of a heart attack."

  "Don't say that!" I managed to keep my outburst down to little more than a whisper, but it took nearly every ounce of self-control that I had. I managed it only because I knew that it would destroy Cindi if she overheard what Dad was saying right now.

  "I'm sorry, Adri, but it's the truth. I tried to tell myself otherwise for the longest time, but over the last few months things have gotten even worse. We've gone from having only a little saved up to starting to rack up credit card debt. The balances are small still, but they get a little bit bigger every month. Your mother has nearly a hundred thousand dollars in photography equipment down there."

  I didn't even try to hide my surprise. Dad tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear as he nodded.

  "She's been quiet about it, but every time I go down there to talk to her she's got another lens or a new camera. She might wish otherwise, but I can read our tax returns and last year alone she made nearly forty thousand dollars. The truth is that I've been keeping a close eye on her equipment as a way of proving to myself that she's reinvesting all of her earnings. As bad as her current actions are, if she started socking away tens of thousands of dollars into a separate bank account somewhere that I didn't know about, that would be worse."

  "Because it would mean that she was getting ready to leave you."

  "Yes. I hate to admit to having those kinds of doubts, but there it is."

  My stomach hurt and I suddenly wished that I hadn't eaten. If I'd skipped dinner like I'd been thinking about doing then there wouldn't be anything in me to come back up.

  "I'm sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean for Mom to buy all of those clothes for me. I try not to ask for very much."

  The tears that had been threatening to escape earlier started down my face now as my dad pulled me into a gentle hug.

  "You haven't done anything wrong, Adri. I love you and Cindi both. I don't begrudge you the money we spent taking care of you. You've been a real trooper and hardly ever asked for anything, and even some of the extravagant spends on Cindi aren't her fault. I should have reined your mother in years ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to deny her any more than I could refuse you when you said that you wanted to join the cheerleading squad. This is as much my fault as anyone else's."

  "What are you going to do?"

  As much as I didn't want to hear the answer that I suspected he was going to give me, I had to know. It would be better to know what was coming than to have it hit me completely by surprise.

  "Your mom and I are going away for a week. We don't have the money for anything fancy, but we need some time away from everything else to try to reconnect. Your mom has all of the hiking gear we'd need and she's agreed to pay down the credit card debt and buy a tent out of her photography money, so we're going camping. We'll go up to St. Croix and try to keep the distractions to a minimum. I'll bring my cell phone but no way to recharge it and your mom will bring her camera but no way to recharge it either."

  "So work will be able to call you if there is a real emergency, but they won't be able to steal you away very much and Mom has a limited number of pictures she can take before she's out of juice too."

  "Yes. We'll bring your mom's cell phone and a solar charger for it so that you can get ahold of us if something happens, but other than that, it will just be the two of us with nothing to do but talk to each other."

  "What about your big project at work?"

  "They'll just have to get by without me for a week. Your mom suggested this trip I think partly because she thought I wouldn't take the time off. My boss isn't going to be happy about losing me on such short notice like this, but you girls and your mom need to come first. I didn't understand that as well as I should have early on in my marriage and this is one of the consequences of that."

  Chapter 11

  Cindi didn't say anything when I finally went into our room to go to sleep. I was a little worried that she'd overheard Dad and me, but there wasn't anything I could do. If she hadn't overheard us, then anything I did to try and make things better would just result in her finding out what he'd said and being hurt as a result.

  Once I was ready for bed, I told Cindi good night and then fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. The dream about the Native American had still bothered me a little when I'd been awake, but once I fell asleep some of the raw terror I'd felt when he'd tried to kill me again came back. It was odd the way that the dreams seemed less important, less immediate, once I was awake.

  It was possible that it was some kind of mental defense mechanism from having come so close to death. The more I thought about it the more sense that made to me. My mind was probably shying away from the sheer distress that the dreams had been causing me, but once I was back in them it was bringing it all back so I'd have the best chance possible of surviving long enough to wake back up.

  I was just outside of the school this time and there wasn't anyone around. I'd been walking, but I stopped and pretended to tie my shoe while I scanned for the telltale shimmer of someone trying to hide themselves.

  A slow turn in place once my shoe was tied satisfied me that there wasn't anyone watching me. I reflexively dusted my hands off and then realized that in the dream there wasn't any dust. I'd put my hands on the ground at one point to steady myself, but the ground hadn't been made up of individual grains of dust and dirt, it had been one single hard surface just textured such that it looked like real dirt from a distance.

  I bent back down to look at the ground in closer detail and watched in astonishment as the ground transformed before my eyes. I ran one finger along it and this time my finger dug a track in the soft dirt and came away just as dirty as I would have expected it to.

  The grass was just as unrealistic as the dirt had been a second ago, but as I focused on it and remembered what it was supposed to be like, it changed too. Individual blades of grass formed where before there had been only a springy mass of green.

  I tickled the sharp, soft edge of a single piece of grass with my thumb and then looked back at the dirt and found to my dismay that it had returned to its former state. A few minutes of experimentation taught me that I could, with great difficulty, simultaneously hold both the grass and the dirt at a state that was close to what they were in real life, but when I did so everything else around me became obviously fake. The school took on a two-dimensional feel and some of the trees in the skyline behind the school became misty and disappeared at random times.

  I let the grass and dirt go back to their normal dream state and watched as everything else around me became a little sharper, a little more
realistic. It was like my brain only had so much processing power when it came to populating my dreamscape.

  All of that manipulating of my surroundings made me wonder what I could do when it came to manipulating my own appearance. I made myself taller, changed my hair color and even changed my shape from the slightly plump version of me that I'd started out as to anorexic skinny and then over to obese before shifting back to the pleasingly skinny version of me that had been staring at me from the mirror this morning.

  Changing how I looked was actually harder than changing my surroundings, and the further I got from how I'd started out the dream the harder it was to hold the change. It was interesting that my subconscious still seemed to think that I was as chubby as I'd been a few months ago. There was probably some kind of big insight there, but I didn't want to dwell on my psychological issues right now. A better use of my time would be to try to continue to learn whatever I could about manipulating the dream. I didn't expect to make any huge breakthroughs, but even small bits of knowledge might be what kept me alive the next time I ran into the wax lady.

  I thought about trying to find the Native American again. Presumably if I was subconsciously pulling him into my dreams somehow then I should be able to do the same thing consciously, but so far neither of our encounters had been pleasant. The first time he'd purposefully let me go, but this last time, when he'd lost control of himself, he'd been trying to hold me there inside of the dream. I was pretty sure that he would have killed me if his wounds hadn't robbed him of the strength required to hold me there.

  I didn't want to run into the Native American right now, but that didn't mean I couldn't still try and acquire the skill of finding a particular person. I might need it at some later point. It only took me a second to settle on Sheree as the one that I wanted to find.