“It wasn’t that big of a fire,” Elle says with her mouth full.
“Fact,” Greg goes on. “He burned papers in that fire. Maybe important papers, like an advanced directive.”
“Objection. Speculation. We don’t know what he burned.”
“I’m finding your attitude juvenile and not helpful,” Greg says. “You want to pay for an attorney to do all this? Or, better stated, can you afford one?”
I squeeze my rebellious hands together in my lap and drop my eyes. “I’m sorry. Please proceed.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. If the power of attorney thing seems like too much for you, I’m willing to do it myself. It makes sense to have somebody a little . . . detached . . . from the emotions. The house will need to be sold, for example.”
“No!”
The mind-picture of strangers sitting at this table, working in Dad’s study, drinking coffee by the fireplace in the winter, is like a knife in my gut.
“I’m not selling the house.”
“See? You can’t be logical about this. You need somebody who is.”
“I am logical. I’ll live here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I live in Kansas City. We can’t share custody over that kind of a distance.”
Despite his dismissive tone, there’s an implicit threat behind those words that makes me bite my lower lip to keep my mouth shut.
A throat-clearing sound draws my eyes to the kitchen door. Dad stands there. He’s wearing a T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. His feet are bare. They look vulnerable and pathetic, the toes twisting into each other, vine-like, as if trying to grow in new and unusual directions.
“This is Leah’s house,” Dad says. “All her things are here.”
He starts to pour himself a cup of coffee, but his hands are shaking, and he drops his half-filled cup. It splinters on the floor, and scalding coffee splatters everywhere. He continues to stand there, still pouring coffee out of the pot in his left hand, staring at the broken mug as if it’s a strange occurrence completely disconnected from his control.
I knock my chair over with a clatter, leaping up to help him.
“Here, let me take that. Don’t move. You’ll cut your feet.”
His eyes take a slow elevator trip from the floor up to meet mine. “I spilled the coffee.”
“Yes, you did. We can make more.” I bend down to clear away the pieces. Elle comes running with paper towels. His feet are reddened where the hot liquid splashed him, but I don’t see any blisters. Greg’s expression is pure I told you so.
I want to kiss the burns better, like I used to do for Elle when she was little. All I can do is take Dad’s hand and walk with him, side by side, down the hallway to his room.
“Come on, let’s find you some dry clothes, okay?”
Mom’s drawers are still full of precisely folded clothes. Dad’s are untidy, dirty socks and underwear stuffed in with the clean.
“Jeez, Dad, you’ve got a college boy system going here.”
“Don’t sell the house, Maisey.” He drops heavily onto the bed.
“Oh, Daddy. I don’t want to.” I kneel on the floor in front of him and press his hands between mine. They are so cold, so stiff.
“There’s money,” he says. “Don’t tell Greg. You can live here. I’ll give you full access to all the bank accounts.”
“I’m not good with money. Maybe it would be better—”
“No!” His vehemence startles me. “Don’t let him. Don’t let Greg do it. You have to stand up to him.”
“Elle.” My throat closes around her name. Everything always comes back to Elle. If I antagonize Greg, maybe he’ll take her from me.
Dad pulls his hands away from me and scrubs them across his face. “It’s Leah’s house,” he says. “She’s here. She’s everywhere.”
“I know, Daddy.”
He seems to have shrunk since my mother’s death. His T-shirt hangs on him, too big. The bottoms of his pants are coffee-soaked.
“How are your feet? Do they hurt?”
“Don’t have much feeling in my feet. Diabetes.”
“We’ll have to watch them. Make sure they heal.”
It hurts too much to look at him, and I turn back to the drawers, throwing obviously dirty clothes into a pile on the floor and rummaging for clean ones.
“Laundry is definitely on the agenda. Here we go. Clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. These socks pass the sniff test. Do you need help getting dressed?”
“I’m not a child,” he says, which I choose to take as an assurance that he can dress himself.
“Okay. Holler if you need anything.”
My feet drag me back to the kitchen and Greg. Elle is down on her knees, scrubbing the floor with the dishrag.
“Thanks, baby.” I keep Greg in my peripheral vision while I load the filter for a fresh pot of coffee. He’s bent over paperwork spread out on the table and starts in talking as if there’s never been a gap in the conversation, as if the horrible meltdown with Dad never even happened.
“We’ve got a couple of Realtor offices to choose from. I spoke to Karen at Frontier, and she sounded like she knows what she’s doing. I’ll give you her number.”
“We’re not selling the house.”
I didn’t know I’d made the decision until the words came out of my mouth, but they have the ring of truth.
“Oh my God, Maisey. Really?”
“He doesn’t want to.”
“Of course he doesn’t. But he’s hardly fit to make decisions. He can’t possibly take care of himself.”
“He was completely clear last night.” I focus my attention on the stream of water running into the coffee pot, as if it is the most important item in the universe.
“That’s how dementia is when it starts. Patches of clarity and stretches of confusion and disorientation. It’s going to get worse, not better.”
“We don’t know that, Greg. Dr. Margoni says it’s possible he’s just confused right now because of grief and shock.”
“And maybe you’re in denial.” His words hang between us, harsh and uncompromising.
Unwanted tears blur my eyes, and I can barely see to pour the water into the reservoir. Some of it misses, puddling on the counter.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Greg says, as I wipe up my mess. “Of course you’re in denial. Your mom died suddenly. The last thing in the world you want is to lose both parents. Which is why it would be best to let me take care of things.”
“No.”
I turn to face him, leaning against the counter for support. “My parents. My job. I’m grateful for your advice and your help, but he wants me to take care of things, and I will.”
“Maisey—”
“Let me finish, Greg. Just this once. Let me talk. There is no urgency to sell the house or make Dad move. He’s better here. It makes sense for me to stay here for a bit until things settle out. I’ll let my apartment go so I have no ongoing expenses elsewhere.”
“And Elle?”
“I’m staying here,” she chirps. “Grandpa and Mom need me.”
“You have school.”
“School is out next week. Do you know what happens during the last week of school? Nothing. Busywork stuff.”
“This is an adult conversation, Elle. Please don’t argue.”
“It’s a conversation about me! I think I deserve to—”
“Enough. If you can’t hush and let us talk, you need to leave the room.”
He doesn’t yell or raise his voice, and there’s nothing horribly wrong with the words. What’s all kinds of wrong is the tone he uses, the same dismissive tone he uses on me, as if my opinion is a slight thing not worth his consideration. Hearing him speak like that to Elle shrivels me on the inside.
Elle, stronger than I am, plants her feet, lifts her chin, and says, “I don’t like it when you talk to me like that.”