Chap­ter 13: The live­ly par­ty atmos­phere that had ini­tial­ly been filled with the sounds of a jazz trio shift­ed dras­ti­cal­ly into a chaot­ic elec­tron­ic dance scene. The pul­sat­ing beats of the music now dom­i­nat­ed the sur­round­ings, cre­at­ing a deaf­en­ing envi­ron­ment where con­ver­sa­tions became almost impos­si­ble to con­tin­ue. Frank, feel­ing increas­ing­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the fes­tiv­i­ties, found him­self alone at a din­ner table, sur­round­ed by strangers who seemed absorbed in the rev­el­ry around them. As he sur­veyed the lawn, try­ing to locate Mag­gie amidst the crowd, his gaze fell upon odd interactions—two men shar­ing a kiss on a crum­bling chair, while women tossed horse­shoes aim­less­ly into the dark­ness. The chaos of the evening was over­whelm­ing, and Frank could only stand at the edges, feel­ing more out of place than ever.

Even­tu­al­ly, Tam­my appeared, hold­ing a drowsy Abi­gail in her arms. The lit­tle girl, still apol­o­giz­ing for her ear­li­er clum­si­ness, expressed her dis­com­fort with the over­whelm­ing atmos­phere. Tam­my casu­al­ly men­tioned that Mag­gie had been look­ing for Frank but had left after wait­ing too long. This only added to Frank’s ris­ing unease, as he real­ized how dis­con­nect­ed Mag­gie had become from him in the midst of the chaos. Tam­my, notic­ing Abigail’s dis­com­fort, made the deci­sion to remove her from the event. As they walked away, Frank could­n’t help but feel a pang of guilt for not being able to shield his sis­ter and niece from the mad­ness sur­round­ing them, reflect­ing on how much his sis­ter had to man­age amidst the tur­moil.

After leav­ing his seat, Frank wan­dered down to the bon­fire on the beach, his pro­tec­tive instincts kick­ing into high gear. As he walked clos­er, the sight of young peo­ple frol­ick­ing around the fire, some engag­ing in reck­less behav­ior, made him increas­ing­ly uneasy about the safe­ty of the gath­er­ing. Amidst the laugh­ter and music, Frank final­ly caught sight of Mag­gie. She was excit­ed­ly urg­ing him to join the swim­ming par­ty, casu­al­ly men­tion­ing how some guests were micro­dos­ing to enhance the expe­ri­ence. While Frank felt a slight sense of relief at see­ing Aidan absent from the scene, he quick­ly real­ized that he still had no idea where Aidan was or what he was doing at such a cru­cial fam­i­ly gath­er­ing.

Their con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed as Frank voiced his con­cerns about the par­ty’s wild and unpre­dictable nature, ques­tion­ing the peo­ple Mag­gie was sur­round­ing her­self with. Despite his unease, Frank tried to focus on the hope of a qui­et canoe trip the next morn­ing, some­thing to help them recon­nect after years of ten­sion fol­low­ing the death of Maggie’s moth­er. Yet, as he talked to Errol and Ger­ry, the con­ver­sa­tion veered toward soci­etal expec­ta­tions sur­round­ing rela­tion­ships and par­ent­ing, which left Frank ques­tion­ing his own role as a father and the impact these expec­ta­tions had on Maggie’s choic­es. As the con­ver­sa­tion grew more com­pli­cat­ed, Frank’s inner tur­moil deep­ened, unsure of whether he was doing right by his daugh­ter in this sit­u­a­tion.

The chap­ter con­cludes with a chill­ing moment when Frank, still feel­ing on edge, notices a fig­ure lurk­ing behind a win­dow of the lodge. Despite his weari­ness, the sight of some­one watch­ing him inten­si­fies his unease, ampli­fy­ing his con­cerns about Aidan’s absence and the secre­cy hang­ing over the fam­i­ly. The night, once filled with the sounds of cel­e­bra­tion, now seemed to car­ry a heavy air of mys­tery and dread, leav­ing Frank with a grow­ing sense that some­thing dark was lurk­ing just beneath the sur­face of the event. This chap­ter expert­ly cap­tures the com­plex­i­ties of Frank’s strug­gle to bal­ance his role as a con­cerned father with his own feel­ings of doubt and con­fu­sion. It sets the stage for the deep­er mys­ter­ies yet to unfold, high­light­ing Frank’s grow­ing aware­ness of the pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion his fam­i­ly is in.