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Chapter One
Carson Vance lifted a bale of twine-tied newspaper to his shoulder and heaved it onto the burn pile. It displaced a plume of fresh snow that winked and sparkled in the morning sun before settling again just as he tossed a second bale on top of it.
He dusted off his gloves and shoved both hands deep in his pockets, heading back toward his father’s house. The thermometer outside the kitchen window read five degrees, and he’d been carrying bundles of newspapers and magazines from the carport since before the sun came up. Long enough that his thighs and ass had gone numb.
Best get inside before he froze something off he might need one day.
He left his boots on the cold porch and shouldered the door into the kitchen open as gently as he could. Dad had been up late. He didn’t want to wake him. But when he padded into the room, there was Martin, bent over a Sudoku book, the last cup of coffee steaming away on the table.
Carson started a second pot. The hand that reached out to press the button fascinated him. So rough already, after eight days’ hard work and cold. Two of his fingers were cracked, the pads seamed with grime even though he washed them with Lava soap.
He’d been getting soft.
The songbird clock on the wall ticked over nine o’clock with a warble. Outside, his parents’ feeders sat empty. The birds were in South America. They, at least, knew better than to winter in Potter Falls, New York.
“You want toast?” he asked.
“Ate already.”
“What did you eat?”
His father glanced at him from over the rim of his mug. “Little Debbies.”
When Carson’s lip curled, his father chuckled. Score one for the old man.
He’d set the whole thing up beautifully, stage-managing a decline so precipitous, Julie had been forced to send an e-mail. Your father’s going feral. He needs looking after, and I’m not up to it.
Carson had suggested a housekeeper.
He needs you, she’d said. Just you.
Two days out from breaking ground on a new embassy building in the Netherlands, he hadn’t been able to travel right away, but he promised to come as soon as he could.
A week later, he got another call. The old man had slipped on the icy front porch and banged up his leg, and the hospital social worker echoed Julie’s opinion. Lengthy recovery for a man his age … I think he’d benefit … No family in town capable …
Carson came home.
It was so much worse than Julie had said.
The house looked like a badger was living in it. Random junk spilled over every available surface, and his childhood bedroom housed a floor-to-ceiling assortment of discarded furniture and old copies of Life magazine. Dad kept the thermostat too low, survived on convenience-store food, and smelled stale.
Less than six months since Carson’s mother had died, and Martin Vance had turned himself into a shambling, grumbling, Sudoku-obsessed cry for help.
“Just about got the front room cleared out,” Carson said. He opened the bread bag and grabbed two pieces of bread to slot into the toaster. “I’m going to tackle the spare room next.”
Work, don’t think.
That was the motto.
No glancing at his backpack where it leaned beside the front door. No speculating about when he’d be released from small-town bondage and allowed to return to the real world again. Speculation got him nowhere, and there was so much to do.
“What do you mean, you’re going to tackle it?” Martin asked.
