“I’m not an out-loud person, Eudora.”
“Golly bean, you do have some dusty ideas in that brain of yours.”
Golly bean?
“You can be whoever you want to be, Felix. No one is responsible for your happiness but you. What do you do for fun?”
Felix watched two small birds flit in and out of dead undergrowth on the forest floor. Would they be nesting soon, starting a bird family? “I don’t have much free time. What I have is devoted to fixing up the house.”
“Your house doesn’t need fixing up. It’s delightful. You’ve lived there for, what—sixteen, seventeen years? And all that time you’ve been modernizing it, decorating it, changing its very nature?”
Felix raked his fingers through his now permanently ungelled hair. “Trying to bring it up to standard.”
“And will it ever be just the way you want it to be?”
In the forest behind them, the woodpecker hammered away. Rat-a-tat-tat; rat-a-tat-tat.
“No.”
“Well, there you have it. Stop looking around corners, Felix Fitzwilliam. Enjoy the glorious now.”
The sun disappeared behind a cloud; a sudden chill settled on his shoulders and slunk down toward his heart. “What if my wife is dying?”
“If that’s the good Lord’s intention, then even more so.”
Felix stood. Why had he allowed that thought in his head? Why had he allowed it to come out of his mouth? Every day he spun in ever-decreasing circles, trying to eat his tail like the mythical dragon Ouroboros. How could he pick up his life and move on when this fear for Ella gnawed at him constantly? The forest slipped into full shade; the clouds had thickened and re-formed while they’d been talking. It would be dark early tonight.
“My last year with Dahlia was the happiest of my life because I allowed it to be. Did I have days when I wanted to scream and cry at the injustice of it all? I sure did, son. I’m no saint. But I didn’t spend life waiting for death to show up on our doorstep. Her prognosis was very bad, but miracles happen. And those doctors? Heck, they don’t know who’s going to beat the odds and be in that slim percentage of survivors. If you’re too busy worrying about what might be, you forget to enjoy what you have.”
“I miss her—the real Ella. She shuffles around the hospital as if she’s little more than a ghost.”
“She’s still Ella, hon, but she’s been through a life-changing event. Well now, so have you and Harry. Y’all need time to heal. I can help out with Ella when she comes home, but it’s you and Harry I worry about. You need to be looking after each other.”
“And how do you propose I do that if he hates me?”
“Dang. For a smart guy, you don’t listen as well as you should. Just because something’s always been one way doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. As I see it, some adapting needs to be going on, and I’m guessing that’s not your thing. But life just handed you an opportunity. You’ve been given a second chance to be a daddy.”
Felix stared at layers of decaying leaves piled on top of each other. Spring had become a distant fantasy. “Suppose I was never meant to be a father?”
“Bit late to decide that, don’t you think?”
Felix smiled; he couldn’t help it. “Is this your ‘suck it up’ speech?”
“Fatherhood doesn’t come with an expiration date, and that delightful boy of yours will need his daddy until the day you die. This time next year, he’ll be a young man thinking about graduating from high school. An exciting time, but terrifying, I’m sure, for such a homebody. And when he does finally fly the coop, he’s got to know his daddy will have his back. Wherever life takes him.”