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Show 24 as they were all able to walk out their front doors at any time of night without their parents minding. For me, the driver had to park three houses down, which was important because the Eldridges owned six or seven vehicles already, and were the least likely to be proactive about a suspicious van in front of their house at eleven or midnight or one. Then someone with a cell phone had to call my house and let it ring once only-so that I could hear the ring without anybody upstairs picking the phone up and demanding to know who was calling this late, with a reminder that unless it was an emergency, no phone call after ten PM could ever be any good. I did the rest from there, but sometimes it took a while. I was sixteen years old and lived in the basement of my parents' house in Pleasant Grove, Utah, and though I had an understanding regarding late night exits with my permanently basemented older sister who didn't care what I did, my father liked to stay up late on Saturday in order to prepare lessons for church the next day. The window he would study by opened out onto the front street without obstruction and he always seemed to be looking out there as if for inspiration. On the first night up to the waterfall since Alan's return, I could hear my father walking around. He had a strict, triangular routine that took him to the kitchen for a snack, then to his room to find a book or old notes he had taken, and back to the living room. Since he was moving, that meant he was probably still alert, and wouldn't be asleep any time soon. But everyone was together for the first time since the week Alan left for Brazil, and I could feel a breeze of possibility through the crack in the basement window. When I heard the phone ring, I was determined to make it out. |