Copyright © 2009 by Linwood Barclay

T HE MORNING OF THE DAY I LOST HER, my daughter asked me to scramble her some eggs.

“Want bacon with it?” I shouted up to the second floor, where she was still getting ready for work.

“No,” Sydney called down from the bathroom.

“Toast?” I asked.

“No,” she said. I heard a clapping noise. The hair straightener. That noise usually signaled she was nearing the end of her morning routine.

“Cheese in the eggs?”

“No,” she said. Then, “A little?”

I went back into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and took out eggs, a block of cheddar, and orange juice. I put a filter into the coffeemaker, spooned in some coffee, poured in four cups of water, and hit the button.

Syd’s mother Susanne, my ex, who’d recently moved in with her boyfriend Bob on the other side of the river in Stratford, would probably say I was spoiling her, that our daughter was old enough at seventeen to be able to make her own breakfast. But it was such a treat to have her stay with me for the summer I didn’t mind pampering her.