He laughed and sipped his champagne. “I’m not a very exciting guy, Maggie, I know that. Hardly anyone would take me for a complicated man with many layers. They saw one thing—a nice but boring man with a skill for neurosurgery. I was told many times that I wasn’t personable. One patient said he was so grateful for me, I changed his life forever. He also said he wouldn’t want to go to a ball game with me, but he sure was grateful. Most of my colleagues had way too many layers—booming personalities, many needs and desires, more emotions than one genie could stuff in a lamp. They were exciting men and women. I don’t even have much of a sense of humor.
“But I did need things. I wasn’t much fun but that didn’t mean I couldn’t want a fun-loving woman. I wasn’t much of a romantic but I certainly appreciated how important love was. I wasn’t full of great wisdom but I thought I could be a good father. I thought I knew enough and felt enough to raise a child successfully, though you did cast doubt on that idea a million times. There were twenty or thirty empty places inside me that could not be filled by neurosurgery, although that part of me did seem vital. One thing I found objectionable... When you make a steel worker walk again after he can’t even wiggle his toes, he shouldn’t say, ‘You might not have much of a personality, Doc, but you sure know how to untangle a spinal cord.’”
Maggie gave a snort of laughter and realized she was tearing up. Sweet Walter, brilliant Walter, just as complicated as everyone else.
“How in the world did you think you could fill up the empty places inside you with an incorrigible child?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” Walter said. “But up until you and your mother came into my world, I was living only for myself. I needed more. I needed someone to live for.” He chuckled softly. “You certainly filled the bill, Maggie.”
“Weren’t you afraid of being taken completely for granted?”
Walter shook his head. “I didn’t say I was looking to be used. I said, I needed a purpose greater than myself.”
“Enough,” Phoebe said. “Enough melancholy! We should be celebrating! Maggie won her case and is coming back to this part of the world. I’ll get my decorator to go over to your house and make sure everything is like new. I’ll send Carmen and her cleaning crew over. We’ll get back to our lives. Our real lives!”
Walter and Maggie just looked at each other and smiled.
Before Maggie left the club to drive home, she embraced Walter. “Thank you, Walter. You were a wonderful father. And I love you.”
*
Since Cal was driving through Leadville on his way back to the crossing, he stopped at that little hole-in-the-wall bookstore he liked. The bookstore was one of the places he was reminded of things he wouldn’t willingly change—he liked the old classics, he liked maps, he liked paper. He had an electronic reader and he used it sometimes, but he liked holding the book, smelling it. Books equaled freedom to Cal—the freedom to keep a few books of his choice, for one thing. You don’t store much of a library in a converted bus, the family’s favorite home on wheels. It was a little like hiking, like stocking the backpack—if you wanted several books, you had to sacrifice a few other items, like jeans and shoes. For Cal, those choices weren’t hard—he loved his books. Then it was the freedom of thought. Finally the freedom learning presented; the ability to achieve, to move forward.
Once he was in the bookstore, he was in no great hurry. He’d choose with care. He took a few books off the shelf and sat in a leather chair, carefully looking at the cover, copy, binding, first pages.
Someone on the other side of the shelf was fanning pages, sighing and grunting a lot. It sounded like a man who couldn’t get comfortable. But there was something a little familiar about the sounds. Cal left his short stack of books on the table beside his chair and walked around the double-wide shelf. Sitting in the corner, a couple of thick, oversize softcover reference books on his lap, Tom Canaday groaned again and rubbed his head.
Cal chuckled. “One of the kids forget to do a report or something?”
Tom looked up. “They’re all out of school, man. Well, Zach’s got some summer school because he won’t pay attention and he gets behind.” He looked down at the books in his lap. One was about lawsuits and the other—Colorado laws. “I got issues.”
“Need a hand?”
Tom had a pained expression on his face. “I can’t talk about it,” he said. “The kids don’t know anything about this and I can’t tell ’em.”
“Okay.”
“My folks don’t know anything about this. No one knows anything. No one can know.”
Cal sat on the thick table in front of Tom and lifted a book. “Legal issues, Tom?”
He sighed heavily. He looked like maybe he was going to cry.
“Maybe I can help?”
“I don’t think so, Cal.”
“Two heads are better than one,” he said. “I know how to keep a confidence.”
“I don’t know.”
“Whatever it is, you think there’s a book on it?”
Tom nodded. “I got a workbook on divorce in here. But what I need... I don’t know...”
“I’m a whiz at the library,” Cal said. “If there’s a book to help you solve your problem, I can find it for you.”
“You won’t say anything to anyone?”
“It’s in the vault. Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”
They walked down the street and around the block off the main drag to a diner the locals favored. While they walked, Tom talked.