"No, you have to hold it, you have to hold the light on it—"
"I am holding it!"
"You're holding it on the wrong rock!"
"They're all rocks, Jord, it's a game about rocks—"
"It's a game about lighthouses!"
She sat on the bucket in the laundry room with the belt in her lap and put her hand over her mouth and stayed there for a while.
* * *
Caleb found her in the kitchen at eleven, which was where he'd figured she'd be. She had the pencil out, and the pad of paper, and the column of numbers, and she was erasing something when he came in. She looked up, startled, and turned the pad face down on the table, the way she had with the mail back in January, and then she seemed to catch herself doing it, and slowly turned it face up again.
"Hey," she said. "Can't sleep?"
"Not really."
He sat down across from her. She looked at him, and he looked at the pad. He could read it upside down. He was good at reading upside down; it was one of the things he noticed without trying.
Washington trip — 2nd installment — $450 — due April 1.
He looked at it for a long time.