“Hi, Grandpa,” Katherine shouted, throwing her arms around him.
“Hi, Kitten,” Adrian said, hugging her long and hard.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Katherine said. She loved hearing him call her Kitten, the only one who ever did so. Katherine let Hailey out of the SUV to run. Hailey ran to the open backyard and beyond.
Katherine walked with her grandfather around the house to the back porch, talking all the way, and they sat down in a pair of old wooden rockers. She saw Hailey way up on the hill, but one call was all it took to bring the dog running back, flat out toward Katherine’s voice.
“Your mom will be home soon. She’s called three times already. Let me help you with your stuff.”
“Just leave it all there, Grandpa. We’ll get it later.”
Joined by Hailey, they walked back up the steps and into the hallway leading to the kitchen on the right and the living room to the left.
“Hungry?” Adrian asked.
“Not really. Guess what, Grandpa?” It’s a game they used to play when Katherine was a child.
“What?” Adrian replied.
“On the way home, I had lunch at the Seneca Lodge.”
“Well, I’ll be. Did you see ’em? Jim? Gloria?”
“I saw them both. They send you their regards.” She could see the twinkle in his eyes.
“Did you play it?”
“Luckily, I had a nickel.”
“How’s the track?”
“They said it’s fine. I was in such a hurry to get here, I didn’t have time to see for myself,” she explained. “Grandpa, I want to go up to my room, rest for a while. You think that would be okay?”
“Of course. You’ve had a long day—coming all the way from New York City. You go ahead,” he said, giving her a kiss on her forehead.
With Hailey at her side, Katherine climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor, passed her mother’s room and her grandfather’s room, and continued down the hall and through the door on the right. She marveled at the size of the house, how clean it was, the smell and warmth of the wooden floors, the wooden stairs, and the wooden railings. She thought about the 650-square-foot apartment she’d occupied in the city the past ten months, and the two flights of steel stairs she had to climb, and the noise, and the dirt. She reckoned a house like this would cost at least five million dollars in Manhattan—if you could find one.
When she strolled into her bedroom, she felt transported in time, back to another world. She ran her hand up and down the smooth, carved spirals of the high, four-poster, antique mahogany bed, its laced-trimmed white duvet and matching dust ruffle still in place, and the antique dresser with square mirror nearby.
Katherine sauntered over to her old desk, sat down on the straight chair, and stared at the bare top. The more she looked, the wavier the desktop became. Soon the whole room was uneven and blurry. She knew something was missing from the desk—a framed photo that had been there her entire life. Her mother must have removed it. She knew her migraine would pass. What she didn’t know was whether what caused it would ever go away.
She rose from the chair slowly and made her way to the bed, deciding it was time for a nap. Hailey jumped up on the bed and snuggled up to Katherine, still licking her face. Katherine was asleep in less than a minute.
It seemed to Beth that the twenty-two-minute drive from Rochester General to Marion had taken hours. As she pulled into the driveway, she was excited to see that her daughter was finally home. Beth looked over at the brand-new SUV, filled to the brim, and wondered momentarily how her daughter had been able to afford such luxury. She ran into the house and said hello to her dad, who pointed upstairs. A minute later, Beth found her daughter stretched out on top of the bed, dead to the world. She knew Katherine was exhausted and decided to let her sleep.
Beth went downstairs and found Adrian.
“How’s she doing? How does she look to you? What did she say? Did she seem happy?”
“She’s fine. Let her rest,” he said. “Let’s eat.”
“You go ahead. I’ll wait.”
Katherine opened her eyes, looked at her watch, and looked again, not believing she’d slept for three hours. She looked out the window, saw her mother’s car, and bounded out of the room and down the stairs. Katherine found her mother getting up from her favorite chair in the living room, and moving to greet her with open arms.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Honey. I didn’t want to wake you. You must be hungry.”
“I can’t believe I slept that long.”
“Pancakes?”
“How’d you know?”
They gabbed in the kitchen while Beth made fresh coffee and cooked blueberry pancakes and bacon. Katherine described her day in detail—packing her belongings, the drive, and the stop at the Seneca Lodge.
“Is that a rental car?”
“It’s mine. Preston insisted on giving it to me. Tried to talk him out of it, but Casey, his CFO, persuaded me to take it.”
“I need a father like that.”
“No, you don’t. You have the best father in the world.”
“I heard that, Kitten,” Adrian shouted from his den.
After dinner, Katherine got her suitcase and a few other items, figuring she’d tackle the rest tomorrow, carried them to her bedroom, and joined her mother in the living room.
“What time do you have to leave for work?” Katherine asked.
“I moved some things around, took tomorrow off,” Beth said. “Thought you might need a hand.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
That evening things were like always—sort of. Beth and Katherine talked into the night, covered all the ground—everything except the two most contentious issues. Katherine saw the lines in her mother’s face, how tired she was, and thought it better to deal with all that after her mother had a chance to rest.