Sitting in the entertainment room of their Seattle townhouse, Warner was unable to keep the concern out of his voice during the call with his parents, who were in Oklahoma.
“What did the doctor recommend?” he asked. Dad’s probably handling this like he does everything else to do with his health. ‘What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.’
“Don’t worry,” his mother said. “Everything’s fine. You know how doctors are. They like throwing big words around. All they did was put your father on new medicine to lower his blood pressure and cholesterol. They did warn him to lose some weight… and quit pushing himself so hard.”
“They didn’t say anything about pushing myself,” Bob corrected.
“I thought you were relaxing now that you retired.”
“Don’t you start in on me too. I’m retired, not dead. And I’m not sitting around watching the boob tube except when something good’s on, like National Geographic. Things were better when I was still on patrol,” Bob said gruffly.
“The ice cream every night isn’t helping either,” Sylvia piped up from the background.
“Now I know where Warner got his ice cream fetish,” Kendra said, jumping in.
“What I’m sure your mother is eventually going to get to is that the doctor wants to follow up with me on the nineteenth,” Bob said.
“And since your father won’t fly,” Sylvia continued, “we can’t get out there sooner to help with the cabin. We don’t want to be on the roads that close to the holiday. Instead, we’d like to come out in early December and stay through Christmas.”
“Okay,” Warner said, trying to hide his disappointment. “It’s more important you take care of yourself. I’ll see if Russ is available for a few weeks to help get the cabin started.”
“No you don’t,” Kendra warned. “We’re already overspent. Unless you’re getting a second job.”
“Building the cabin is my second job,” Warner complained. “And if I don’t get that roof up soon, everything’s going to get soaked.”
“That doesn’t change the fact we don’t have the money right now,” Kendra argued. “That’s what the budget—the one you didn’t follow—was for.”
Remaining silent, Warner realized he had lost the argument—for the moment.
“Hang in there ‘til we get there in December, Son,” Bob said.
“I hope you show up with a hammer in both hands,” Warner said.
Without Dad, the earliest the roof will be up is the end of December—and that’s too late.