He nodded and folded up the newspaper. “I told Mom I’d stay here, but you get everybody else.”
“Who’s ‘everybody’?”
“Mom, Al, Tony, Vic the Father, Vic the Son, and Vic the Holy Terror.”
A tiny terror of its own ran through me. “I just saw her downstairs, and she said she was flying out this afternoon.”
He nodded and stretched his back. “I guess she found a way out of it, too.” He stood, squared his shoulders, and placed his cap back on his head. “I guess it’s just you and the family.”
“Sounds interesting.”
He laughed. “It’s always that.” He tucked the paper under his arm and covered a yawn with his hand. “I’m going home to take a nap; see you here around seven?”
He turned back to Cady, squeezed her hand, and left.
I sat in his chair, pulling it a little closer to the bed, I covered my face with my hands and again listened to the screaming that now resonated like the strings in a piano. I listened to their vibrations, to the chords and the melody that connected all of us. I thought about Henry’s brother, Lee, about Dena. I thought about Vic, about her family. I thought about Cady.
I pulled her book from the backpack, from its spot between the printed dossiers and depositions Gowder and Katz said I had to read through before my meeting with the district attorney’s office and the fifth district court. I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and her book in my hands. Like a lot of things in my life, I’d just about worn it out, but it was worn out with love, and that’s the best kind of worn-out there is. Maybe we’re like all those used cars, broken hand tools, articles of old clothing, scratched record albums, and dog-eared books. Maybe there really isn’t any such thing as mortality; that life simply wears us out with love.
It took a while for my eyes to focus, but when they did, the words were familiar. “‘Long, long ago, there was a king and queen…’” I felt a squeeze on my hand but tried to keep my attention on the page. “‘…who didn’t have any children.’”
“Da-ddy…?”
I continued reading. “‘One day the queen was visited by a wise fairy…’” My eyes blurred like they always did, and I watched as the drops hit the wrinkled page where they had struck so many times before.
“Da-ddy…”
Her voice was not strong, and Rissman said the pronunciation will continue to get better. We had a legion of hours in rehabilitation ahead of us, but if she continued to improve at the rate she had so far, the neurosurgeon said I might be able to take her back to Wyoming next month. I continued reading. “‘…who told her, you will have a lovely baby girl.’”
“Da-ddy…ish okay.”
I look up at the clear and beautiful gray eyes, at the winning smile of youthful invincibility, at someone far more courageous and determined than I, and sometimes I make it through the entire story.
But most of the time, I don’t.
