A Month of Summer (29 page)

“She misses her mom,” Kyle said, and I felt the words cuddle me tightly.

“Thanks,” I said. “Kyle, I . . .” For just an instant I was tempted to apologize for the fight, to say
I love you.
Then I remembered Susan Sewell, and it seemed ludicrous. The tenderness in my mouth turned bitter. “I
am
trying to wrap things up here and get back to the office. If Bree needs me, she can always call me on my cell.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Kyle muttered absently, the tone delivering a sting of disappointment. He was already getting back to business.

Why should that surprise me? Why did I keep setting myself up for this—opening the door, fostering hope just so he could rip it out from under me? “I’d better go. I have a woman coming for an interview at ten, and I’m hoping she’ll be the one. They’re supposed to discharge my father at three o’clock, and I have to take Teddy by the nursing center to see Hanna Beth before then. He’s been upset for days because he told Hanna Beth he would come feed her lunch again, and we couldn’t. I called the nurse and told her to explain, but that isn’t enough for Teddy. He’s worried about breaking a promise.” The profoundness of those words, of my saying them to Kyle, struck me hard. My father’s mentally challenged stepson understood the importance of keeping a promise, but my husband had no problem holding another woman’s hand in broad daylight.

Kyle hesitated on the other end. “Rebecca?” he said finally, his tone tentative, as if he were about to broach a subject I wouldn’t like.

I swallowed hard.
He’s going to tell me he’s leaving. He’s going to say it’s over.

“Yes?” The word was barely a whisper.

“Have you considered the idea that this caretaker who was working for your father and Hanna Beth—what did you say her name was? Kay something?” I didn’t answer right away. I was still catching my breath, reeling to a stop after having hydroplaned into dangerous territory.

Kyle went on, completely unaware of my tempest of thought. “It’s possible that this caretaker might have gained access to your father’s bank accounts—that her sudden departure after Hanna Beth’s stroke might not be entirely coincidental. Maybe she was afraid family members would be coming in, asking questions, and she got out of there. Maybe that’s the reason there’s no money, and you can’t find any bank statements around the house, or any contact information for the caretaker. You remember we did the title work on that case up by Tahoe last year, the one where the hot little blonde bilked the old car dealer out of all his money, his businesses, everything. Remember that?”

My mind took a moment to adjust to the conversational switch. I was stuck on
hot little blonde
. Rage flamed in a tinder-dry place inside me. “I’m not stupid, Kyle.”
I know all about hot little blondes and the men who fall for them.

“It was just a thought.” His words were impatiently clipped, the
Well, bite my head off
tone.

Stop,
I told myself.
Get control of yourself. Now isn’t the time for this.
“I’ve looked into it, all right. The bank won’t tell me much, but the guy did take pity on me and tell me there’s no indication that anyone other than my father and Hanna Beth had access to the accounts. My father has been doing most of his banking via automatic drafts and over the Internet. If I can find his passwords, I can log on to his accounts and see where the money’s going. It’s anybody’s guess where he’s hidden that information or what happened to his computer. He has things stashed all over the house. I find mail in the freezer, food under the bed. The file cabinet is full of washed clothes. He hides things, and then he goes on tirades saying somebody stole them. Clearly, he’s had a very limited grasp on reality lately.”

“Hence my question about the disappearing caretaker.” The comment was falsely light, intended to sound like a joke while backhandedly making the point that he thought I was being naive. “If this were one of my clients, the first thing I’d do would be—”

“This isn’t one of your clients, Kyle.”

“You’re too close to this thing.” His tone was flat, pacifying, the one he used with hysterical women involved in disputes over estate property.

“This is my
family
, Kyle! How could I not be close to it?” I exploded, then was immediately struck that I’d used the word “family” at all.

“You don’t owe those people, Rebecca.” How many times had I said that to Kyle over the past few years? I’d reiterated it right before I left for the airport.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I owe these people anything.
“You’re just reacting to losing your mother—looking for a replacement. A year ago, if this had happened, you wouldn’t have dropped everything here and gotten on a plane.”

I sat down on the bed, feeling wounded. “That’s not true.” Was it? Was Kyle right? All this time in Dallas my one underpinning, my salvation, had been the belief that I was doing the right thing, a magnanimous thing, one that proved I was all grown up, bigger than what had happened in the past, no longer the little girl locked in the back of the car steeped in righteous anger. I was mature enough now to do the right thing just because it was the right thing. “I’m not . . .” Something on the other end of the line made me stop. I heard a voice, a laugh, Bree’s laugh. “Is Bree in there?”

“Yeah. We’re setting up for a deposition.”

“You’re in the meeting room?” My cheeks instantly burned with humiliation. He was in the meeting room with Bree, letting her hear everything we’d been talking about? Letting her listen in on our private conversation?

“We’ve got people coming in ten minutes,” he said blandly.

I felt betrayed, wounded, embarrassed, both personally and professionally. How was I supposed to return to the office, command respect, after the staff heard my husband lecturing me over the phone? “I have to go. My interview should be here soon.”

“All right. Talk to you later,” Kyle answered, seemingly oblivious.

I hung up without giving a reply. Perhaps Bree would be pleased that the conversation ended with a simple
Talk to you later
. No
I love you
s to complicate things.

I tried to put it out of my mind as I waited for my interviewee to arrive. On paper, she looked like a perfect fit—fifty-seven, single, a woman who had stayed home and raised a family, then returned to home health care work. A nurturer. Exactly what my father, Hanna Beth, and Teddy needed. She was available now because her last client had moved into a nursing center.

I hoped she would be the one. She had to be. I was running out of time and options. Even though Dr. Amadi had reported that my father was doing well, behaving much more calmly and rationally now that his electrolytes were in balance and the mixed-up concoction of medications was working its way out of his system, I didn’t think I could handle the house on my own again. If today’s interview went well, I would hire my father’s new employee, effective immediately. I’d pay for it from our account for now, and settle with my father’s accounts as soon as I gained access. If, by some miracle, my father became capable of giving a satisfactory approval by authorizing a bank signature card, all of that would happen much faster.

The apartment and the rest of the house weren’t ready for a new employee, but I’d tidied up as much as I could. I could only hope that, when my father met his new caretaker, he would react well to her, that he wouldn’t relapse or decide she was one of
those people
. I hoped Teddy would like her. Looking out the window, I watched him moving among his benches, watering his plants, talking to them and tenderly petting the leaves. He’d been out there all morning, patiently passing time while he waited for me to conduct the interview before we went to see Hanna Beth and pick up Daddy Ed.

I straightened the living room while I waited for my interviewee to arrive. By eleven o’clock, it was becoming clear that either she had a severe problem with promptness or she wasn’t coming. I called the home health agency, and they confirmed it. The recruiter apologetically informed me that the woman who was going to solve all my problems had taken a job yesterday. The agency had called earlier that morning and left a voice mail canceling the interview. They’d probably called while I was in the shower.

“Don’t you have anyone else you can send?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“No, ma’am.” The recruiter, Amanda, sounded sympathetic. “But we have you on the list. We have people coming into the system all the time, but it takes a few days to process the paperwork and the background checks. I’m scanning our listings every day.” Amanda sounded about twenty-three, years away from understanding the monumental task of caring for aging parents. She added, “I’m sorry, Rebecca.” After so many phone calls back and forth, we were on a first-name basis.

“Thanks,” I said glumly. Hanging up the phone, I sank into my father’s recliner and tried to think. What now? There was no more time for searching this morning. If Teddy and I didn’t head out, we wouldn’t be able to go by the nursing center before we were due at the hospital. I had to be in my father’s room when Dr. Amadi made his rounds this afternoon, if I wanted to talk about medications and discharge instructions with the doctor rather than a nurse.

I stepped out the back door and called to Teddy. He emerged from the garden house, waving and smiling, enthusiastic about our day.

“Comin’,” he said, then began the painfully slow effort of removing his Home Depot apron and placing his tools on the potting bench by the garden house door. He carefully lined them up in a pattern only he understood.

I checked my watch, took in and exhaled what my relaxation tape referred to as a patience breath, and went back inside. I’d learned not to interrupt Teddy’s routines, no matter how time-consuming they were. It was as if his programming allowed only one rigidly defined way of doing things. Any deviation caused a system failure.

As usual, he’d left a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and milk for me in the kitchen when he made breakfast. For a change, my stomach reacted positively to the idea, so I ate the sandwich, then poured out the milk before Teddy came in. I explained our plan for the day while he meticulously washed his fingers, staring in fascination as the water ran over his hands. He loved the play of light on water. Finally, I turned off the faucet, and when all the water was gone, he was ready to dry his hands.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. It was almost noon, and he’d probably eaten his usual breakfast early that morning, two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and about eight bowls of cereal.

“Not lunchtime yet. Not lunchtime,” he said cheerfully, checking the clock over the mantel. I hadn’t established whether Teddy could really tell time, but he knew where the clock hands should be to signal breakfast, lunch, and supper. At home, he adhered meticulously to the schedule. Lunch was at twelve thirty.

“All right,” I said. “We can get a hamburger on the way to see your mom.” Away from the house, Teddy would eat anytime, anywhere. The mealtime rule only applied at home.

“I like a hamburger.” Grinning, he licked his top lip enthusiastically. “And I like ike cream. Chocolate wit’ Oreo.”

“We can get ice cream,” I agreed.

Teddy snort-laughed with pure joy. After the fact, I realized I’d known he would do this, and I was looking forward to it. Patting me tenderly on the head, he added, “You a good girl, A-becca.”

I felt a flutter of Teddy’s happiness inside me. “You’re a good boy, Teddy.”

As we walked out the front door, he snorted again, threw his head back and shouted, “I like ike cream!” at the sky, then listened for an echo.

While watching Teddy eat a burger and ice cream at Sonic, I almost forgot to brood over my troubles. Teddy, I’d noticed, often had that effect on people. In the hospital, at the pizza place, in the grocery store, wherever he went, his smile, his awkward, honking laugh were always close to the surface, always contagious. Small things brought him overwhelming joy, and he radiated it, shared it, lived most of the time within it.

On the way into the nursing center, he paused to again experiment with the automatic door. I stood in the lobby and waited, thinking that no matter how hard it was, how long it took, I had to find the right person to assume the caretaking at Blue Sky Hill—someone who would allow Teddy to be who he was, rather than trying to manage or fix him.

There was nothing in Teddy that was broken. The more time I spent with him, the more I understood how much the rest of us were slaves to schedules, ambitions, resentments, appointments, expectations, reservations, preconceived notions of what life should be. I’d created a rigid existence in which there was no room for detours off the path, no time to walk in and out of the automatic door more than once just to see how it worked, no space for someone like Teddy.

Yet here he was. Here we all were.

A potent regret grabbed my chest. It shouldn’t have taken thirty-three years and a call from the police to bring me home. I shouldn’t have waited until my father’s mind was gone, and the house was falling apart, and Teddy was spending his days hiding in the backyard. This was my family, and no matter how much I wanted to deny it, to root it out and throw it away, a part of me would always feel the need for a connection, the yearning for an understanding. It was as natural as drawing breath, and in trying to suffocate it, I’d suffocated a part of myself.

“I do that, too, sometimes.” A voice startled me, and I turned to find Dr. Barnhill behind me, watching Teddy experiment with the door. His face was familiar, pleasant and friendly beneath tousled brown hair that looked like he hadn’t taken time to comb it.

“Dr. Barnhill,” he reintroduced himself.

I nodded, remembering his face. “Good to see you again. How’s Hanna Beth doing?”

His pager beeped, and he paused to glance at it, then pressed the button and hooked it on the pocket of his lab coat. “Not as well the last few days, I’m sorry to report. Miss Hanna Beth hasn’t been in the mood to cooperate with her therapy. She’s been refusing to try the wheelchair, for one thing.” His lips quirked to one side, his brows rising over dark eyes with thick lashes. “I have a feeling, though, that you two will be just what the doctor ordered. She’s been worried about you.”