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“No, they’ve split up.” Sara shrugged. “No surprise there. She never let the boy have any peace. Talk about a shrew.”
“I’d be a shrew, too, if my husband couldn’t keep his pants zipped or his bank account from being overdrawn.”
“Now, your brother has a good heart. People—especially women—always take advantage of him.”
No, Del had a black heart, and he was an expert at taking advantage of others. But Karen knew it was no use arguing with her mother. “If Del’s so good, maybe he should be the one looking after Dad,” she said.
Her mother frowned at her. “You know your father and Del don’t get along. Besides, for all his good qualities, Del isn’t the most responsible man in the world.”
Any other time, Karen might have laughed. Saying her brother wasn’t responsible was like saying the Rocky Mountains were steep.
She checked her watch again. Eleven-twenty. At home she’d be making the last calls on her morning’s to-do list.
Here, there was no to-do list, just this sense of too much to handle. Too many hours where she didn’t know what lay ahead. Too many things she had no control over. “Do you think he’s ready yet?” she asked.
Her mother stood. “He probably is. I’ll help you get him in the car. Del said he’d meet you at the house to help get him inside, but after that, you’re on your own.”
“Right.” After all, she was Karen, the oldest daughter. The dependable one.
The one with sucker written right across her forehead.
Of course Del was nowhere in sight when Karen pulled her father’s Jeep Cherokee up to the new wheelchair ramp in front of his house. She got out of the car and took a few steps toward the mobile home parked just across the fence, but Del’s truck wasn’t under the carport and there was no sign that anyone was home.
Anger gnawing a hole in her gut, she went around to the back of the Jeep and took out the wheelchair her mother had rented from the hospital pharmacy. After five minutes of struggling in the already oppressive May heat, she figured out how to set it up, and wheeled it around to the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Okay, Dad, you’re going to have to help me with this,” she said, watching his eyes to make sure he understood.
He nodded and grunted again, and made a move toward the chair.
“Wait, let me unbuckle your seat belt. Okay, put your hand on my shoulder. Wait, I’m not ready…well, all right. Here. Wait—”
Martin half fell and was half dragged into the chair. Sweat trickled down Karen’s back and pooled at the base of her spine. She studied the wheelchair ramp her brother had built out of plywood. As usual, he’d done a half-ass job. The thing was built like a skateboard ramp, much too steep.
In the end, she had to drag the chair up the ramp backwards, grappling for purchase on the slick plywood surface, cursing her brother under her breath the whole way. At the top, she sagged against the front door and dug in her purse for the key. A bird sang from the top of the pine tree beside the house.
She felt a tug on her shirt and looked over to find her father staring intently at the tree. “Northern Cardinal,” she identified the bird.
He nodded, satisfied, apparently, that she hadn’t forgotten everything he’d taught her.
Inside, the air-conditioning hit them with a welcome blast of cold. Karen pushed the wheelchair through the living room, past the nubby plaid sofa that had sat in the same spot against the wall for the past thirty years, and the big-screen TV that was a much newer addition. She started to turn toward her father’s bedroom, but he tugged at her again, and indicated he wanted to go in the opposite direction.
“Do you want to go to your study?” she asked, dismayed.
He nodded.
“Maybe you should rest first. Or the two of us could visit some. I could make lunch….”
He shook his head, and made a stabbing motion with his right hand toward the study.
She reluctantly turned the chair toward the back bedroom that none of them had been allowed to enter without permission when she was a child.
The room was paneled in dark wood, most of the floor space taken up by a scarred wooden desk topped by a sleek black computer tower and flat-screen monitor. Karen shoved the leather desk chair aside and wheeled her father’s chair into the kneehole. Before he’d come to a halt, he’d reached out with his right hand and hit the button to turn the computer on.
She backed away, taking the opportunity to study the room. Except for the newer computer, things hadn’t changed much since her last visit, almost a year ago. A yellowing map filled one wall, colored pins marking the countries where her father had traveled and listed birds. Behind the desk, floor-to-ceiling shelves were filled with her father’s collection of birding reference books, checklists and the notebooks in which he recorded the sightings made on each expedition.
The wall to the left of the desk was almost completely filled with a large picture window that afforded a view of the pond at the back of his property. From his seat at the desk, Martin could look up and see the Cattle Egrets, Black-necked Stilts, Least Terns and other birds that came to drink.
On the wall opposite the desk he had framed his awards. Pride of place was given to a citation from the Guinness Book of World Records, in 1998, when they recognized him as the first person to see at least one species of each of the world’s one hundred and fifty-nine bird families in a single year. Around it were ranged lesser honors from the various birding societies to which he belonged.
She looked at her father again. He was bent over the computer, his right hand gripping the mouse like an eagle’s talon wrapped around a stone. “I’ll fix us some lunch, okay?”
He said nothing, gaze riveted to the screen.
While Karen was making a sandwich in the kitchen, the back door opened to admit her brother. “Hey, sis,” he said, wrapping his arms around her in a hug.
She gave in to the hug for two seconds, welcoming her brother’s strength, and the idea that she could lean on him if she needed to. But of course, that was merely an illusion. She shrugged out of his grasp and continued slathering mayonnaise on a slice of bread. “You were supposed to be here to help get Dad in the house.”
“I didn’t know you were going to show up so soon. I ran out to get a few groceries.” He pulled a six-pack of beer from the bag and broke off a can.
“You thought beer was appropriate for a man who just got out of the hospital?”
“I know I sure as hell would want 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.”
She heard him call for Casey, and then her youngest son was on the phone, as cheerful as if he’d been awake for hours, instead of only a few minutes. “Hey, Mom, how are you? I thought about you last night. Justin and I went to see this really cool band. They write all their own songs and stuff. You would have really liked them.”
It would have been easier to come down hard on Casey if he were surly and uncommunicative, but he had always been a sunny child. She reminded herself it was her job as a mother to try to balance out some of that sunniness with reality. “Dad tells me the school counselor called him last night.”
“It’s all such a crock,” he said. “All they do is teach these tests. The teachers don’t care if we learn anything useful or not. Why should I even bother?”
“You should bother because a high school diploma is a requirement for even the most entry-level jobs these days, and Mom and Dad aren’t going to be around to support you forever.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Mom. I’ll be okay.”
Okay doing what? she wanted to ask, but didn’t dare. The last time she’d hazarded this question, he’d shared his elaborate plan to become a championship surfer in Hawaii—despite the fact that he’d never been on a surfboard before.
“What are you going to do this summer?” she asked instead. He had only one more week of school before vacation.
“I thought maybe I’d just, you know, hang out.”
He was fast becoming an expert at hanging out. “Your dad could really use your help. Without me there he’s having to do more of the office work.”
“Matt’s helping him. A friend of mine has a job life-guarding at the city pool. He thinks he can get me on there. That would be a cool job.”
Any job was better than no job, she supposed. “All right, if you get the job, I’ll talk to your dad.”
“When are you coming home?”
