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There had been a time when he’d have said more. Let his father in on his troubles. Caleb had been uncomfortable around his dad since the stroke, unsure how to deal with the situation. Katie gave him a hard time about it. He’s just Dad, she’d say, exasperated. He’s the same.
But he was different, and every reminder of it hit Caleb like a physical blow. He pitied his father, and pity didn’t sit right between them. He didn’t want to feel sorry for his dad any
more than Dad wanted to see it on his face.
So they did this. The short conversations and the companionable silence thing. They’d always worked well together. As the only son, Caleb had been raised fetching tools and accepting his father’s instructions on how to clean up graffiti and get stains out of carpet. How to keep the roof in good shape and the flower beds looking their best. Hundreds of things.
“Dropped by the office on my way back from town,” Derek said, accepting the piece of flooring Caleb passed out of the bathroom, relief cuts completed, and handing him the tub of glue and a putty knife. “Katie told me something interesting.”
“About Levi?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
They were silent for a minute while Caleb spread glue. Finally, he blurted out, “I wish she’d told me. I could’ve helped her get home to Camelot after he walked out, at least. But I wish she’d told me back when she married him.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“I could’ve helped,” he repeated.
“Everybody has to make their own mistakes.”
Caleb had certainly made his share, but he’d have preferred to keep Katie perpetually eight years old, untouched by anything hard and dangerous in life. Untouched by Levi Rider, that was for sure.
Not exactly realistic, but that was how he’d always felt about her.
“She tell you not to say anything to Mom?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.”
Mom was going to give her seven different kinds of hell when she found out. “She seems all right, though.”
“You know Katie. Tough as nails, that girl. Takes after her mother. She’ll be fine.”
Caleb spread glue. His dad was probably right. Katie was tough. When he handed the tub back to his father and received the flooring again, Derek said, “I’d like to hang that Rider kid from the nearest yardarm.”
“Draw and quarter the little asshole,” Caleb agreed.
They began to ease the vinyl in place, lining up the factory edge with the long, uninterrupted wall so the pattern wouldn’t come out crooked.
“Make soup from his guts,” Derek said after a few beats.
“Break all his bones, one at a time.”
“Mess up that smarmy smile of his.”
“Cut off his balls and make him eat them.”
Derek laughed. “Now that’s just plain disgusting, son.”
Caleb smiled, and for a while, he forgot about the stroke and simply enjoyed his father’s company.
By the time they finished up, it was two o’clock, and he needed a shower. He stopped home, cleaned up, ditched the black shirt, and went to his office. Katie seemed disappointed that he’d taken away her comedic inspiration.
She dispatched him to pick up Nana Short from her new place and drop her by Carly’s, which he did, and then Nana asked him to drive to the Village Market for groceries. After that, it was home again for dinner with Katie, a casserole to take to Carly, and he was beginning to feel like an errand boy.
“Stay for dinner,” Nana said. She carried the casserole into the kitchen and emerged to say, “Over at the home, I never get to eat with hot young things like you.”
“Don’t call it ‘the home,’ ” Carly said from the couch. “You make it sound like we’ve stuck you in one of those nightmare nursing homes from the movies where they neglect you and you get bedsores while they steal all your money. You picked this place out, for crying out loud. It looks like freaking Palm Springs. It’s the nicest condo in the county.”
