Katy’s current major was psychology.
“And?”
“They love the stuff.”
“Did you enroll for next term?”
“Yep.”
“Home stretch?” Pete and I were bankrolling our daughter twelve semesters to allow her to discover the meaning of life.
“Yep.”
“Are you at your dad’s place?”
“Actually, I’m at yours.”
“Oh?” Katy usually preferred her childhood home to my tiny townhouse.
“Boyd’s with me. Hope that’s O.K.”
“Sure. Where’s Birdie?”
I leapt forward two yards.
“On my lap. Your cat’s not crazy about Boyd.”
“No.”
“He stays permanently fluffed.”
“Is your dad out of town?”
“Yeah, but they’re coming back today.”
They?
“Oops.”
“It’s O.K.”
“He’s got a new girlfriend.”
“That’s nice.”
“I think her bra size exceeds her IQ.”
“She can’t help that.”
“She doesn’t like dogs.”
“She can help that.”
“Where are you?”
“Montreal.”
“Are you in a car?”
“Flashing along at the speed of light.”
I was now rolling at twelve miles per hour.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I told her.
“Why not use the real skull?”
I told her about Diaz and Lucas and the purloined skeleton.
“I had a sociology professor named Lucas. Richard Lucas.”
“This one’s a Hector.”
I knew what was coming as soon as I said it. Katy adored one nursery rhyme the entire year she was four. She recited it now in a singsong voice.
“Hector dissector should be hung by his spleen,” I cut in.
“That’s bad.”
“It’s a first draft.”
“Don’t do a second. Poetry shouldn’t be made to suffer because you’re frustrated.”
“Hector Protector is not Coleridge.”
“When will you be back in Charlotte, Mom?”
“I’m not sure. I want to finish what I started in Guatemala.”
“Good luck.”
