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I spoke, “Testing one, two,” the red record light came on, stayed on a few moments, and then went out because I wasn’t saying anything.

Chapter 8
    I got up early, after watching the Discovery Channel until three in the morning, sleepless as usual. You can watch the bower bird knit his wedding decor from parrot feathers and monkey hair, but the documentaries hurry on to the meatier footage we are all supposed to prefer, cheetahs getting full extension, zero to sixty in no time at all, zebras zigzagging all over the veldt.
    You wonder what the wildebeest thinks, a family of leopards chewing on her hindquarters, the grazing creature looking around panting, nowhere to go, still very much alive.
    Sometimes I start to watch what is happening in the distance, if a documentary or the plot of a movie is too violent. Off at the edge of the screen there is usually a tree full of long-necked cranes, or a blurry, bovine shape just standing there. In the goriest gangster movie, in the forefront you might see extras ducking for cover in their thirties overcoats, but at the same time, beyond everything, a finch that doesn’t belong in the movie, or real wind fluttering a leaf.
    I had slept a couple of hours, the cheap sleep you get on an airliner, my mouth hanging open, head full of thoughts. My hand was stiff and sore. I laced on my running shoes, the left one stained with a kiss of blackberry. It would not smear, and spit wouldn’t make it rub off.
    My left foot tends to overpronate, rolling in too much with every step. It isn’t a serious problem except that my left shoe starts to lean in a little when it’s flat on the floor. I burn through shoes, and I try all the brands, every major company. I wear a dual-density midsole in my left shoe, taking it to a sport-tech store to be redesigned before I do any serious running.
    I wrap white adhesive tape around the aglets, the plastic tip of the shoelaces. Otherwise the aglet often splits after about a week of nipping the street. The laces get that frayed look, which I hate. Miss Friday, the track coach at Lloyd-Fairhill School, says the thicker the sole the more likely you are to develop tendon trouble, especially shin-splints. I suspect Friday is one of those coaches who would like to see athletes run marathons barefooted.
    Predawn hush greeted me, five A.M., a few neighbors out jogging with their dogs and hefty neighbors running off those calories from fat. This is a safe place to run, and I make it even more safe by keeping to the streets with plenty of light and doing most of my miles at the junior high quarter-mile loop about a mile away, a nice crushed brick track that glows in the rising dawn.
    I kept stopping to look back, car-poolers picking up passengers with briefcases, ready for the long drive to Silicon Valley. The sky was the color of dark steel, and sometimes this early you can look at things more easily than you can at full noon; there is less glare. But there were more shadows down each street than I had ever noticed before, more dark, lightless shafts behind the sycamores. What could have been a commuter wiping the dew off his sports car looked like a figure crouching at the starting blocks, getting set to race after me.
    Dad had his postworkout glow, after three miles on his machine in the exercise room. He had a white towel around his neck and wore one of his old, premegabucks sweatsuits, baggy gray cotton.
    He snapped his cell phone shut and tossed it onto the coffee table. “I’m furious,” he said. He sounded calm, but I knew better. “I finally got hold of Cassandra.”
    â€œHow is she?” I asked, dropping into the sectional sofa, fat white pillows with an ivory pattern, duck bills, or—once you were informed—lotus leaves.
    â€œShe’s pissed I woke her up. She says she is sorry to hear about your ‘incident,’ and she’s coming home tonight about ten, as planned.”
    â€œThere’s