My Soul to Keep (20 page)

“Hot and thirsty” didn’t narrow things down much.

I hated to consider the possibility he had been taken outside the city. But local news coverage had been breathless. Relentless. People all over the city were looking under every rock for him. If I’d just snatched a kid, I’d have lit out for Mexico by now. (Sunny, highs in the upper nineties, no rain in sight.)

I stared at the satellite image, willing the clouds to part and reveal some truth—even a tiny bit of insight—that might lead me to Nicholas. It was futile, like throwing a dart in the dark. After a while, the greens and reds and yellows began to run together on the screen and my eyes started to sting. I waved the white flag, abandoned my research, and returned to bed, managing a couple of hours of fitful sleep before my phone rang. I cracked open an eye and groaned. The sun was just peeking through my bedroom shades.

I’ve never had sufficient optimism or even a passable level of anticipation about the day ahead to manage a morning-person attitude. In fact, I find morning people to be obnoxious and off-putting. It’s the eagerness that gets to me, I think.

Since I am not a morning person, I am famously grouchy until well into my third cup of caffeine. Even grouchier than I am the rest of the day, if you can imagine that. I know of only one person on the earth, in fact, who possesses the gall to bother me this early in the morning. He loves to call me at the crack of dawn and jar me out of bed. We both know it is the one time of day I can’t possibly generate an excuse not to answer the phone.

I fumbled for the receiver. “Hi, Dad.”

“Dylan, why must I stalk my own daughter? How many phone calls does it take to get a response?”

“How many is this, Dad?”

“Don’t get flip with me, Dylan.”

“Have you ever heard of the distancer-pursuer dynamic?”

“Dylan, don’t you dare use that psychobabble on me. I’m your father. I have a right to talk to my daughter.”

“People naturally distance when you overpursue.”

“A father cannot overpursue his daughter.” He covered the phone and said something to someone else. “It’s impossible. The daughter is required to respond.”

“If you wouldn’t pester me so much, I’d probably call you back.”

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“It’s like a magic formula. You should try it.”

“The magic formula is that you should treat your father with respect, Dylan.
You
should try it.”

I sighed and sat up, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed.

“Abracadabra, Dad. I’m listening.”

“It’s about Kellee.”

“Is something wrong? Has something happened to the baby?”

“Kellee is receiving the finest prenatal care in the country. Of course, nothing has happened to the baby.”

“Dad, prenatal complications are not a personal insult to you.”

“Dylan, your mother is having no prenatal complications whatsoever. She has the finest obstetrician in Houston. I have personally seen to it myself that—”

The whir of the ceiling fan suddenly buzzed loudly in my ears as the roots of a headache sprouted and began to crawl up the back of my neck. I rolled my shoulders and closed my eyes.

“Dad, Kellee is not my mother.”

“Your stepmother.”

“Kellee is not my stepmother.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Kellee is your wife. That is all she is to me. My one and only mother died of cancer.”

“You’re splitting hairs.”

“It’s not splitting hairs. I’m five years older than she is, Dad. Don’t call her my stepmother. It insults Mom’s memory.”

“You’re so prickly.”

“Dad, can you please tell me why you woke me up at”—I glanced again at the clock—“6:12 in the morning?”

He cleared his throat. “I need to ask a favor.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Shoot.” I began mentally thumbing through my Ready-Made Excuses file.

“Kellee wants you to be in the delivery room with her.”

I almost laughed out loud.

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“I am most certainly not joking. She asked me to personally call you myself and ask you.”

“Instead of personally calling me herself and asking me?”

“Why are you so critical, Dylan? You’re so critical of every single little thing. You’re one of the most critical people I know.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“It’s a very unattractive trait. I can’t stand being around critical people. They’re so negative. You’re such a downer, Dylan.”

The man had all the self-awareness of a jackhammer.

Aspirin. I needed aspirin.

“I’m honored, Dad. I really am.” My lying rhythm was coming back. I could feel it sliding into place. “But isn’t that your job?”

I waited for him to answer.

“Dad?”

“She says I’ll be a liability,” he said at last.

I reached for my bathrobe and shoved my feet into my slippers. “And I thought the woman wasn’t bright.”

“I’m a surgeon!” he shouted. “How could I possibly be a liability in the operating room?”

“Dad, don’t take this the wrong way—”

“Oh, here it comes.”

“You’d be the worst possible person in the universe to have in the delivery room. You’d yell at Kellee if she did one single thing wrong.”

“I certainly would not,” he yelled.

“You’d completely take over. You’d boss the OB around. You’d want to do the epidural yourself. It would be a nightmare.”

“Well, that’s just rich, Dylan. Here I am calling to offer you the highest honor …”

“A Purple Heart?”

“… and you insult me.”

“Oh, come on, Dad. Admit it. Patience and nurturing—not your strengths.”

“Thank you for your confidence in me, Dylan. I’m touched.”

“Is that why she wants me there? To mitigate the ‘you’ factor?”

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “She thinks you’ll have a calming effect. Being a psychologist and all.”

I let out a laugh. “Dad, I’m flattered. I really am. But I couldn’t possibly. What would I do—carry a pager and hop a plane to Houston when she goes into labor? Besides, the baby’s due in July, right?” I reached into my file and whipped out Ready-Made Excuse number 23A. “I’m out of the country for that whole month.”

“It must be nice to be able to leave at the drop of the hat for a month at a time. What are they paying you over there at Southern Methodist University, Dylan? I’ve thought of getting one of those jobs myself, but I’m not sure I could handle the grueling hours. Don’t you teach two whole classes every single semester? With the entire summer off?”

“Who’s insulting whom, Dad?”

“What am I supposed to tell Kellee, Dylan? She’ll be crushed.”

“Kellee and I are barely on speaking terms. Why on earth would she want me in the delivery room?”

“I think she wants you to like her.”

I groaned inwardly. “I’ll work on that, Dad. I really will. I promise.” Lie number three. “But I absolutely will not be in the delivery room when your wife delivers her baby.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m quite certain.”

He sighed.

“Why don’t you ask Guthrie?” I said.

“Your brother? Dylan, have you had an aneurysm? Do you need medical care? Guthrie can’t keep his cats fed.”

“Well, that’s the whole gang, Dad. The entire roster of our dinky little family. I guess you’ll have to go off the list.”

“Thanks very much, Dylan. I’ll keep this conversation in mind next time I need a favor from my daughter.”

“Good talking to you, Dad.”

The medicine cabinet squeaked as I swung the door open and
screwed the cap off a new bottle of aspirin. I should buy stock in Bayer. Over the years I’ve consumed vats of the stuff after conversations with my father. Three tablets at a time, washed down with a desperate gulp of water.

I spend a fair amount of time obsessing about my relationship with him. I’d spent my entire childhood waiting for my real father to arrive. You know, the standard-issue kind who mows the lawn and will come fix a flat for you if you have one. The sort of dad who screens his daughter’s boyfriends to protect her from all the idiots out there.

Imagine the rude awakening when it dawned on me that my dad, to my mind at least,
is
one of the idiots out there. A man to whom I’d prefer not to give the time of day if we were stuck alone in an elevator in the middle of a terrorist attack.

I’ll never forget the moment I first saw him for the man he had become. It was my sixteenth birthday—a milestone birthday, as my mother would say. Sixteen meant a driver’s license, a groovy pair of jeans my mom embroidered herself with peace signs and daisies, and a cake with a car key baked inside as a surprise. Waiting in the garage was my new-to-me baby blue VW bus, complete with a working stereo and those wood-bead seat covers. My dad was supposed to bring the key that afternoon before my mom baked the cake. He never showed up. The man actually stood me up for my sweet-sixteen birthday party. Who does that? And not for an emergency heart procedure either—I could have forgiven him for that, if grudgingly. No, the sad truth is, he stood me up for a round of eighteen on the same course he still plays twice a week.

“It was my country-club audition, for crying out loud!” he’d shouted when I challenged him about it. His big chance to impress the committee.

That was the day I knew he’d sold me out. That was the day we became the disposable family.

I got up and put the kettle on, then shuffled over to the rabbit hutches. Eeyore and Melissa were both awake, so I picked them up and took them outside to relieve themselves, keeping an eye on them to
guard against the lethal reptile who had taken residence under my back porch.

I turned my face to the sun and sighed, determined to enjoy the cool of the morning, if only for a few moments, before reality set in. Morning sounds are so heartening—sparrow songs and the occasional squawk of a jaybird. No rattles today.

I let the rabbits inside, fixed myself a quick breakfast, changed into shorts and a tank top, and laced up my running shoes. A three-mile run, a hot shower, and a second cup of tea later, I felt almost normal.

Around midmorning, I called my former exterminator, Randy of Randy’s Right-Now Rodent Removal.

“I don’t do snakes, you realize,” he said.

“But you’d know what to do if you saw one, right?”

“Seeing ain’t the same as exterminating, if you get my meaning. I got no experience in this area.”

“Well, what do you recommend?”

He chuckled. “I’d get myself a garden hoe if I was you.”

“What for?”

“Chop that sucker right in half.”

I winced. “I don’t think I’m up for that.”

“Well, it’s not my area, ma’am. Good luck to you.”

Strike one. My next move was to call my favorite hardware store, Elliott’s, which, of course, I should have done in the first place. Going to Elliott’s is like going to the mountain. If there’s an answer, they know.

“What you need is a Snake Guard Snake Trap,” the man said.

“You have them, then?”

“In stock on aisle eleven. I’ll set one aside for you. Name?”

“Dylan Foster.”

“You might also want to consider a can of Snake-A-Way snake repellent, Miss Foster. Once you get rid of the sucker, you’re going to want to create an environment that’s inhospitable for creatures of this nature.”

“Snake-A-Way will do the trick?”

“Every time.”

“Thanks very much. I’ll be by this afternoon.” I hung up the phone and smiled to myself. The right hardware store can fix almost anything.

The rabbits were scratching at the back door. I got up to let them out again, but stopped in my tracks.

I cocked my head and listened, wishing like mad I was wrong. But there it was. The unmistakable buzz, loud and angry. But this time the rattle wasn’t out in the yard, where a snake should be if a snake shows up uninvited. This time it was in my house, my sanctuary.

And it was coming from underneath my kitchen sink.

I
DON’T KNOW WHAT
Peter Terry’s obsession is with my kitchen sink, but he has chosen it, apparently, as the front-line headquarters of his little war against me. That’s where I was standing when the flies came one at a time and began to dive-bomb me. That’s where the infamous rat incident occurred—the one I still have nightmares about. And now that stupid snake was parked under there, rattling away, sending a chill into my bones that could freeze-dry me solid in no time flat.

I’ll spare you the details of the previous vermin episodes. Suffice it to say, both the fly and the rat incidents were traumatizing. For me and for them, though they didn’t survive the experience, thank the Maker. Now here I was facing yet another plague. Peter Terry must be high-fiving himself about now. He loves this sort of thing.

Maybe the geography was a hint from the Lord. Truth be told, I treat my sink like a sacred shrine in my home. I scrub. I polish. I disinfect. I wipe it out with a soft towel every single time I use it, buffing away every last droplet to avoid leaving even the tiniest water mark. In fact, if I’m willing to be honest with myself, I must admit that I’m possibly guilty of sink worship.

The sad truth is, if I paid as much attention to my soul as I do my sink, I’d probably be a whole lot better off. My sink is pristine. My soul could use a can of Comet and some elbow grease.