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My shoulders jump up to my ears.Is that…
“I’m Rory McEvoy. I’m here for Dr. Chaplin?”
Dad shakes his head. “There’s no doctor here.”
“This is the Chaplin house, correct?” Rory desperately replies. I have to say, I don’t mind hearing him squirm. “I’m the new Wabash County Sheriff.”
“You’re not in uniform,” my dad says warily.
I try to peek around my father’s form, but it’s impossible given his broad shoulders and height.
“Uh, yes, that’s true. I have my credentials on me if you’d like to see them.”
“Dad, would you open the door?” I ask, grabbing the door and pulling.
My dad whips around. “You know this man?”
I finally get a look at Rory; yep, no uniform, just a flannel and jeans. “Hi, Rory.”
“Hi, Dr. Cha?—”
I give him a look. This will be the one and only time Constance will do.
“C-onn-stance,” he says, clearly taken off-guard mid speaking the forbidden name.
Dad’s unruly eyebrows furrow. “Connie?”
I attend to my father with a docile smile. “Yes, I know him, could you just?—”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
Rory and I simultaneously exclaim, “No!” then look at each other. He was much too eager to reject that idea. As was I, but still.
“I don’t like young men visiting my daughter this late at night,” Dad interjects, trying to impose himself between Rory and me. Good to know despite my lack of adolescent romance that his protective “what are your intentions with my daughter” instinct has always been there.
“Me either,” I say, throwing a glare toward Rory. Whatishe doing here so late at night? And how did he get my address?
Cops.
The worst thing about my father’s dementia is how unwilling it bends to reason. Sometimes, I have to play his game, which never feels good. I don’t like to make things up. “Dad, it’s fine. Rory and I… school project. We are working on a school project and he’s just here to discuss something with me before our presentation tomorrow.”
“Yep, that’s right,” Rory says.
Dad glances between the two of us, still suspicious, but softening.
“Go back to bed, Daddy,” I say with a squeeze of his arm.
Thankfully, he starts to nod. “Right, right. It’s late.”
“Yes, it’s late. You need to sleep, okay?”
Dad continues to nod, then turns and heads back up the stairs.
I turn back to Rory with pursed lips. He’s illuminated by the yellowing porchlight, standing so squarely on the doormat that needed to be replaced years ago. All the colors have faded. You can barely tell it used to look like an American flag. Good thing I’m not having Rory inside. We don’t live in squalor by any means, but the family bungalow isn’t what it used to be. Peeling paint, missing shingles. I don’t even want to imagine what Rory thought pulling up the driveway through the thickening hickory trees.
No need to give him any more fodder for thinking we’re all country bumpkins.
What am I saying? The only person who needs to be embarrassed right now is Rory for showing up in the middle of the night on my doorstep. “You know, this is very odd of you.”
