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exhaustive understanding of it. As a result, along with the watching came his frequent, although unsolicited, background commentary. He’d seemed content to continue watching for as long as consciousness would allow, but Angie had finally been forced to pardon herself.
    It wasn’t that the show was uninteresting. She simply didn’t have his capacity for devoting so much time to a single activity. Now it seemed, in the absence of someone to share it with, Mark had given up and gone to bed. 
    She hoped she hadn’t hurt his feelings, but at the same time, she couldn’t imagine how it would help his social skills if she were to encourage his every excess. From what she understood, Mark had spent his entire educational life attending a private school for the gifted and talented. She was beginning to wonder if that sort of environment had been artificially tolerant toward certain areas of weakness. Not that she could imagine public school resulting in anything but total immersion in the opposite, soul-sucking extreme.
    Quietly, she made her way across the lower level of the house. Godot laid curled up on the welcome mat at the front door. The contented animal only bothered to half-open his eyes when she passed.
    As she rounded the corner to the base of the darkened stairs, she was suddenly able to make out the seated form of a person. Had she noticed any later, she would have tripped over them. The abruptness of that revelation caused her to jump back in reflexive alarm. She wasn’t sure what had unsettled her more, the stillness of the form, or the oddness of the location given time of night.
    Her body relaxed then, a moment before her brain caught her up to the recognition that the statuesque figure was Rob. The man had apparently fallen asleep there, his right shoulder inclined against the slatted wooden railing of the staircase. His elbow rested against his thigh, forming the support for his palm to hold up his chin. She remembered Sandra once mentioning that Rob had never been able to spend more than three or four hours in bed before having to roam the house. Perhaps he hadn’t made it to the roaming part yet.
    That’s going to take some getting used to .
    Angie managed to slip past without disturbing him, continuing up the stairs to the guest room.
     
June 13,
I got into the city without any trouble, and I’m doing fine so far. Tired, but fine. I enjoy Mark’s family very much. Although, Mark himself tends to leave me a little intellectually exhausted. I appreciate the stimulus, but it’s a bit too much sometimes. I always feel like I’m fighting to remain on an equal level with him. I’m probably just trying too hard. I need to focus more on having fun.
I’m not sure how this will all pan out anymore. Zak sent an email that made it sound like there’s a big problem with me coming to Ottawa. I keep thinking it’s early in the trip...I could still go back home. But giving up so soon would feel like a huge failure. We’ll see how I feel after a little longer in Detroit. Maybe I’m going about this all wrong. My attitude is pretty pathetic at the moment.
I haven’t heard from Don at all. Part of me wonders if I should just leave him alone. All I can do is pray for the best. But for once, I’m going to try choosing hope over realism. Since my personal sense of realism tends to be nothing but thinly veiled pessimism, I figure I’m not losing anything in the venture. But for now, I sleep.
Mileage Log: 890 miles
~Ang
     

Chapter 5
     
    Angeli heaved a sigh as she set the house phone back into its cradle on the nightstand. It was late in the morning, and Mark had been fidgeting in the doorway for the last five minutes of her conversation with Elsie. He was clearly more determined than she was to make it to the zoo before any animals had been fed.
    “I don’t know why I thought talking to her might make me feel better. She’s all excited that she just got another letter from Anne Rice. I couldn’t get a word