LITMIR.BIZ

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one.” He sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Make me one of them sandwiches, will you?”

      “Make your own.” She dropped the knife in the mayonnaise jar, picked up the glass of nutritional supplement that was her father’s meal, and went to the study.

      When she returned to the kitchen, Del was still there. He was eating a sandwich, drinking a second beer. The jar of mayonnaise and loaf of bread still sat, open, on the counter. “I’m not your maid,” she snapped. “Clean up after yourself.”

      “I see Colorado hasn’t improved your disposition any.” He nodded toward the study. “How’s the old man?”

      “Okay, considering. He can’t talk yet, and he can’t use his left side much at all, but his right side is okay.”

      “So how long are you staying?”

      “A few weeks. Maybe a couple of months.” She wiped crumbs from the counter and twisted the bread wrapper shut, her hands moving of their own accord. Efficient. Busy. “Just until he can look after himself again.”

      “You think he’ll be able to do that?”

      His skepticism rankled. “Of course he will. There will be therapists working with him almost every day.”

      “Better you than me.” He crushed the beer can in his palm. “Spending that much time with him would drive me batty inside of a week.”

      She turned, her back pressed to the counter, and fixed her brother with a stern look. “You’re going to have to do your part, Del. I can’t do this all by myself.”

      “What about all those therapists?” He stood. “I’ll send Mary Elisabeth over. She likes everybody.”

      “Who’s Mary Elisabeth?”

      “This girl I’m seeing.”

      That figured. The divorce papers for wife number three weren’t even signed and he had a new female following after him. “How old is Mary Elisabeth?”

      “Old enough.” He grinned. “Younger than you. Prettier, too.”

      He left, and she sank into a chair. She’d hoped that at forty-one years old, she’d know better than to let her brother needle her that way. And that at thirty-nine, he’d be mature enough not to go out of his way to push her buttons.

      But of course, anyone who thought that would be wrong. Less than an hour in the house she’d grown up in and she’d slipped into the old roles so easily—dutiful daughter, aggravated older sister.

      She heard a hammering sound and realized it was her father, summoning her. She jumped up and went to him. He’d managed to type a message on the screen

      I’m ready for bed.

      She wheeled him to his bedroom. Some time ago he’d replaced the king-size bed he’d shared with her mother with a double, using the extra space to install a spotting scope on a stand, aimed at the trees outside the window. Nearby sat a tape recorder and a stack of birdcall tapes, along with half a dozen field guides.

      She reached to unbutton his shirt and he pushed her away, his right arm surprisingly strong. She frowned at him. “Let me help you, Dad. It’s the reason I came all this way. I want to help you.”

      Their eyes meet, his watery and pale, with only a hint of their former keenness. Her breath caught as the realization hit her that he was an old man. Aged. Infirm. Words she had never, ever associated with her strong, proud father. The idea unnerved her.

      He looked away from her, shoulders slumped, and let her wrestle him out of his clothes and into pajamas. He got into bed and let her arrange his legs under the covers and tuck him in. Then he turned his back on her. She was dismissed.

      She went into the living room and lay down on the sofa. The clock on the shelf across the room showed 1:35. She felt like a prisoner on the first day of a long sentence.

      A sentence she’d volunteered for, she reminded herself. Though God knew why. Maybe she’d indulged a fantasy of father-daughter bonding, of a dad so grateful for his daughter’s assistance that he’d finally open up to her. Or that he’d forget about birds for a while and nurture a relationship with her.

      She might as well have wished for wings and the ability to fly.

      CHAPTER 2

      You must have the bird in your heart before you

       can find it in the bush.

      —John Burroughs, Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes

       and Other Papers

      When Karen woke the next morning, she stared up at the familiar-yet-not-quite-right ceiling, then rolled over, reaching for Tom. But of course, he wasn’t here. She sat up and looked around the bedroom she’d occupied as a girl. A line of neon-haired Troll dolls leered back at her from the bookshelves beside the window.

      The clock showed 7:25. She lay on her back, sleep still pulling at her. She told herself she should get up and check on her father. The occupational therapist was coming this morning and the nurse’s aide was due after lunch. Today would set the tone for the rest of her days here, so she needed to get off on the right foot. Still she lingered under the comfort of the covers.

      When she did finally force herself into a sitting position, she reached for the phone. Tom would be up by now, getting breakfast for himself and the boys.

      “Hello?” He answered on the third ring.

      “Hi, honey. Good morning.”

      “Good morning. How’s it going?”

      “Okay, so far. Dad’s not as helpless as I thought. He can’t talk, but he can type with his right hand on the computer, and he tries to help me move him in and out of his chair, though sometimes that’s more trouble than if he sat still. The therapist is coming today to start working with him, so I’m hoping for good progress.”

      “That’s good. Don’t try to do too much by yourself, though. Get some help.”

      “I saw Del yesterday. I told him he’d have to help me and he volunteered his girlfriend-du-jour.”

      Tom laughed and she heard the scrape of a spatula against a pan. He was probably making eggs. “How’s it going there?” she asked.

      “Hectic, as usual. We’re starting that big job out at Adventist Hospital today, and we’ve still got ten houses left to do in that new development out near the airport.”

      Guilt squeezed her at the thought of all the paperwork those jobs would entail in the coming weeks. She was the one who kept the office running smoothly, not to mention their household. “Maybe you should hire some temporary help in the office,” she said. “Just until I get back.”

      “Maybe. But I don’t trust a stranger the way I trust you. Besides, you’ll be back soon.”

      Not soon enough to suit her. In nearly twenty-three years of marriage, they’d never been apart more than a night or two. The thought of weeks without him, away from her familiar routine, made her want to crawl back in bed and pull up the covers until this was all over. “How are the boys?”

      “Matt’s doing great. He’s running a crew for me on those subdivision jobs.”

      “And Casey?” She held her breath, waiting for news of her problem youngest child.

      “I got a call from the school counselor last night. He’s going to fail his freshman year of high school unless he can pull off a miracle on his final exams. And he’s decided he doesn’t want to work for me this summer.”

      There was no mistaking the edge in Tom’s voice. He took this kind of thing personally, though she doubted Casey meant it that way. “What does he want to do?”

      “Apparently nothing.”

      “Let me talk to him.”

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