Things I Want to Say (22 page)

Karen broke into a run, laughing as she embraced Tammy Collins Wainwright. “Look at you, girl!” Tammy drew back and looked Karen up and down. “I guess living up there in the mountains and working at that landscape business is keeping you young and trim.”

“Denver isn’t really in the mountains, but I guess it does
agree with me. And what about you? You look great.” Except for a few lines on her forehead and around her eyes, Tammy hadn’t changed much since their days behind the wheel in driver’s ed class at Tipton Senior High School. The two girls had been pretty much inseparable after meeting in that class. They’d worked behind the counter together at the Dinky Dairy, and had double-dated whenever possible.

Tammy had been the matron of honor in Karen’s wedding, having already married her high school sweet heart, Brady Wainwright. While Karen had moved to Austin and later Colorado, Tammy had stayed in town to raise four children; her youngest, April, was ten.

Tammy’s smile faded. “I’m so sorry about your dad,” she said. “It must be just awful for you.”

Karen nodded, not quite sure how to respond. It was much more terrible for her father, after all. And it wasn’t as if he’d died.

Or was Tammy referring to the fact that Karen had left everything she knew and loved to come take care of a man she wasn’t even sure liked her?

“I brought a cake.” Tammy reached into the van and pulled out a yellow-and-white Tupperware Cake Taker. “I remember how Mr. Martin had a real sweet tooth.”

“And his daughter inherited it.” Karen took the cake carrier from Tammy and walked beside her toward the house. “Did you make this yourself?” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d made a cake.

“Me and Betty Crocker.” Tammy threw her head back and let out peals of laughter.

Lola met them at the door, her “bag of tricks,” as she called her therapy equipment, in hand. “He did very well for his first day,” she said. “He’s worn-out, though. I imagine he’ll sleep for a couple of hours or so. Just let him be and feed him when he wakes up. And I’ll see you Thursday.”

Karen thanked her, then led the way through the house to
the screened back porch. This side of the house was shady, and two ceiling fans overhead stirred the slightly cool air. “Do you mind if we sit out here and visit?” she asked. “That way we won’t disturb Dad.”

“That would be great.” Tammy settled in one of the cushioned patio chairs. “I wouldn’t say no to a glass of iced tea.”

“Coming right up. And I thought maybe we’d try this cake with it.”

“I shouldn’t, but I will.”

Karen returned a few minutes later with two glasses of iced tea and two plates with generous slices of the lemon cake. “I already stole a bite,” she said as she sat in the chair across from her friend. “It’s delicious.”

“Thank you.” Tammy took a bite and moaned. “Ooooh, that
is
good, isn’t it?”

“So tell me what you’ve been up to,” Karen said. “How are Brady and the kids?”

“They’re doing great. April is going into fifth grade in the fall. Brady’s still racing. Our twenty-third wedding anniversary is next month and we’re going to San Antonio for the weekend.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.”

“I’m pretty excited. I can’t remember the last time we went anywhere without the kids. Which is why I shouldn’t be eating this cake.” She pushed her empty plate away. “I want to still be able to fit into the new clothes I bought for the trip.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Your twenty-third is coming up soon, isn’t it?”

Karen nodded. “This fall. I can’t believe it’s been that long.” It seemed like only yesterday she’d been working as a receptionist at the new hospital and Tom had been hired to do the landscaping work. He caused quite a stir among all the young women when he took off his shirt to plant a row of
shrubs along the front drive. They’d all wasted count less hours admiring his bronzed muscles and tight blue jeans. When he’d asked Karen to go out with him, she’d been the envy of her coworkers.

“We’re thinking about renewing our vows for our twenty-fifth. You and Tom should think about that. You never had a big wedding. This would be your chance.”

Karen and Tom had eloped. They’d gone to Vegas for the weekend and been married at a chapel there. It had been very sweet and romantic, though at times she regretted not having the big church wedding with the long white dress, et cetera. She pressed the back of her fork into the last of the cake crumbs. “Did I ever tell you the real reason we eloped?” she asked.

Tammy’s eyes widened. “Were you pregnant?”

She laughed. “No. It was because I was afraid my father wouldn’t show up for the wedding and I wanted to save myself that humiliation.”

“Oh, honey!” Tammy leaned over and squeezed Karen’s hand. “Of course he would have shown up for your wedding.”

She shook her head. “He wasn’t there for my high school graduation. He was in the Galapagos, bird-watching. When Matt was born, he was in Alaska, and when I had Casey, he was in Guatemala.”

“But surely your wedding…”

“I didn’t want to risk it.”

Tammy sat back and assumed an upbeat tone once more. “Well, it doesn’t matter how you got married. The point is, it took. Not many couples can say that these days.”

She nodded. The fact that she and Tom had stayed together all these years was pretty amazing, considering they’d known each other all of three months when they decided to tie the knot. She had been only eighteen, trying to decide what to do with her future. She’d liked Tom well enough, but when
he’d told her he planned to move to Austin at the end of the summer—over two hundred miles away from Tipton—she’d decided to throw in her lot with him.

She’d latched onto him as her ticket out of town, but stuck with him because he’d showed her a kind of love she’d never known before. Now he was the rock who supported her.

“So how is the birdman?” Tammy asked, using the name the towns people had given Karen’s father long ago. “Cantankerous as ever.” Karen sipped her iced tea, then cradled the glass between her palms, letting the cold seep into her skin. “That’s good, I guess. He’s a fighter. He’ll fight his way back from this, too.”

“They did an article on him in the paper last year. Said he was one of the top ten bird-watchers in the whole world.”

Her mother had sent her a copy of the article. “He’s getting close to eight thousand birds on his list now.”

“Good ness. I can’t imagine seeing that many different birds.”

“It’s taken a long time.” More to the point, listing birds had taken
all
his time, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

The doorbell sounded and both women jumped up. “That’s probably the nurse’s aide,” Karen said. “The county is sending one every day to help with bathing and things like that.”

“That’s good. That’ll help you.” Tammy sighed and stood. “I’d better go. Jamie has a Little League game tonight, and April has piano practice. Some where in there I’ve got to figure out what to fix for supper.”

“Thanks for the cake. And thanks for stopping by. It was good to see you.”

They hugged, then walked arm-in-arm to the door. “If you need anything, you just holler,” Tammy said. “And when you can get someone else to sit with Mr. Martin for a while, you come out and have dinner with us. Brady and the kids would love to see you.”

“I’ll do that.” Karen let Tammy out and the aide in, then returned to her grocery list. Maybe staying here wasn’t going to be such a hard thing, after all. She did have friends here, and this was a chance for her to get to know her father better, while he was forced to sit still.

It was a second chance for them, and how many people got second chances these days?

Casey had never ridden a Grey hound bus before, but it was pretty much the way he’d imagined: tall-backed, plastic-covered seats filled with people who all looked a little down on their luck. They wore old clothes and carried shopping bags stuffed with packages and groceries and more old clothes. They were brown and black and white, mostly young, but some old. The woman in front of him had three little brown-haired, brown-eyed boys who kept turning around in their seats to look at him. Their mother would scold them in Spanish and they would face forward again, only to look back in a few minutes, unable to keep from staring at the white kid all alone on the bus.

At first he’d only intended to see how much it would cost to get from Denver to Tipton, Texas. But when he saw it was only a hundred and thirty dollars and there was a bus leaving in thirty minutes, he’d decided to buy the ticket and go. Mom had sounded so sad and worried on the phone. She was down there all alone with her sick father and nobody to help her, really. He could cheer her up and help, too.

The main thing about traveling on a bus was that it was boring. He spent a lot of time listening to CDs on his portable player and staring out the window. Not that there was much to see—the bus stayed on the interstate, mainly, cruising past fields and bill boards and the occasional junkyard or strip of cheap houses. He made faces at the little boys in front of him, until their mother turned around and said something to him in Spanish. He didn’t understand it, but from her tone it sounded as if she was cussing him out or something.

After that, he slept for a while. When he woke up, it was dark, and the bus was stopped at a station. “Where are we?” he asked the man in the seat behind him.

“Salina, Kansas,” he said. “Dinner break.”

At the mention of dinner, Casey’s stomach rumbled. The driver wasn’t anywhere in sight, so he figured that meant they were stopped for a while. He pulled himself up out of his seat and ambled down the aisle, in search of a diner or McDonald’s or some place to get something to eat.

The bus station was next to a Taco Bell. Casey bought three burritos and a large Coke and ate at a little table outside. He thought he recognized a couple of other people from his bus, but they didn’t say anything. They all looked tired or worried. He decided people who traveled by bus weren’t doing it because they wanted ad venture or a vacation, but because it was the cheapest way to get to where they needed to be.

When he got back on the bus, the seat he’d been sitting in was occupied by a thin guy with a shaved head. He had red-rimmed brown eyes that moved constantly. He looked at Casey, then away, then back again. Casey tried to ignore him, and searched for another seat, but the bus was full.

So he gingerly lowered himself into the seat next to the young man. “Hey,” he said by way of greeting.

The guy didn’t say anything. He just stared. He was skinny—so skinny his bones stuck out at his wrists and
elbows and knees, like knobs on a tree limb. His plaid shirt and khaki pants still had creases in them from where they’d been folded in the package, and he wore tennis shoes without laces, the kind skate boarders used to wear five or six years ago.

The bus jerked forward and Casey folded his arms across his chest and slumped in his seat. It was going to be harder to sleep without the window to lean against, but he guessed he could manage it. Sleeping made the time pass faster, and he had the whole rest of the night and another day before they reached Tipton.

“What’s your name?”

His seatmate’s question startled him from a sound sleep. He opened his eyes and blinked in the darkness. The only light was the faint green glow from the dash board far ahead, and the head lights of passing cars. He looked at the man next to him. “My name’s Casey. What’s yours?”

“My name’s Denton. Denton Carver.”

“Casey MacBride.” Casey offered his hand and the man took it. His grip was hard, his palm heavily cal loused. For someone so skinny, he was really strong.

“Where you goin’?” Denton asked.

“To Tipton, Texas. My mom’s there, looking after my Grandpa, who’s sick.”

“That’s too bad.” Denton didn’t look all that sorry, though.

“Where are you going?” Casey asked.

“Not sure yet. Thought I’d get off in Houston and look around. I used to know some people there.”

“So you’re just, like, taking a vacation?” Maybe he’d been wrong about the people on the bus.

“You might say that.” Denton grinned, showing yellow teeth. “I just got out of prison.”

Casey went still. He told himself not to freak out or
anything. He kept his expression casual. “I guess you’re glad to be out, huh?”

Denton laughed, a loud bark that caused people around them to stir and look back. “I’m glad to be shed of that place, all right,” he said.

Casey wondered what he’d been in prison for, but knew enough not to ask. He settled back in the seat and crossed his arms again. “Good luck in Houston,” he said.

He closed his eyes, figuring Denton would get the message, but apparently once the skinny man had decided to talk, he wasn’t interested in stopping. “I used to have a girlfriend in Houston. Her name was Thomasina. Kind of a weird name for a girl, but she was named after her daddy, Thomas. She was a big, tall girl, and she could hit like a man. She worked at this little store her daddy owned and once these two dudes tried to rob the place. She punched one guy in the nose and hit the other one upside the head with a can of green beans. He tried to run and she just wound up and threw that can at him. Knocked him out cold.”

Casey stopped pre tending to sleep and laughed. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“Thomasina was something.” Denton shook his head. “Maybe I’ll look her up while I’m in Houston.”

“You should do that. I bet she’d be glad to see you.”

Denton was still shaking his head, back and forth, like a swimmer who had water in both ears. “I guess you got somebody coming to meet you at the station when you get to wherever it was in Texas you said you was going,” he said.

“Uh, yeah. Sure. My mom will come get me.” He hadn’t exactly thought that far ahead. He hadn’t told anyone he was going to do this—not his mom, or his dad, either. Maybe at the next stop, he’d look for a phone and call home, just so his dad wouldn’t worry. Then when he got to Tipton, he’d call Grandpa’s house and let Mom know he’d arrived.

“Ain’t nobody coming to meet me.” Denton pressed his
forehead against the window and stared out into the darkness. “I done my time and the state turned me loose. They gave me one new suit of clothes and a bus ticket to wherever I wanted to go, and that’s it.”

“That’s tough.” Casey didn’t know what to say. He wondered if he could pretend to go to sleep again.

Denton raised his head and looked at him again. “You got any money, kid?”

The hair rose up on the back of Casey’s neck and his heart pounded. Denton didn’t have a gun in his hand or anything, but the way he said those words, you just knew he’d said them before when he
did
have a weapon.

“I got a little,” he mumbled. He had a little over thirty dollars in his billfold in his backpack. Enough to buy meals the rest of the trip, he guessed.

“I saw you eating dinner when we stopped back there, so I figured you had money. You ought to give me some money so I can buy some dinner. You ought to help out a fellow traveler.”

Casey wondered if Denton was telling the truth. Would the state turn somebody loose with no money in his pocket? That seemed like a sure way for someone to end up back in jail really quick. Maybe Denton was just trying to scam him.

“When we stop again, I’ll get some food and we can share it,” he said. He fought back a grin, proud of the way he’d handled the issue. But then, he’d always been good at thinking on his feet. It was another talent he knew would come in handy through out his life.

Denton grunted, apparently satisfied with this answer. He rested his head against the window and closed his eyes and was soon snoring.

Casey slept, too. The rocking motion of the bus and the darkness, punctuated by the whine of passing cars and the low rumble of the bus’s diesel engine, lulled him into a deep
slumber. He dreamed he was wandering through the streets of Tipton, searching for his grandfather’s house, unable to find it.

When Karen returned from the grocery store, the aide, an older black woman named Millie Dominic, met her at the door. “Mr. Martin is carrying on something fierce, but I can’t figure out what he wants,” she said.

Karen dropped the bags of groceries on the kitchen table and ran to her father’s bedroom. He was sitting up on the side of the bed, one foot thrust into a scuffed leather slipper, the other bare. When he saw her, he let out a loud cry and jabbed his finger toward the chair. “I asked him if he felt up to going outside for a walk and he
roared
at me,” Mrs. Dominic said.

“I think he wants to go back to his office.” She looked at her father as she spoke. At her words, he relaxed and nodded.

“What’s he gonna do in there?” Mrs. Dominic asked as she helped Karen transfer Martin to the wheelchair.

“He can work on his computer. He types with his right hand, so he can communicate.” She lifted his left foot onto the footrest and strapped it in place. “I guess that’s less frustrating for him.”

Once at his desk, he waved away Karen’s offer of a drink, but she brought him a Coke anyway, with a straw to make it easier to sip. He was alarmingly thin, and the doctor said she should try to get as many calories into him as possible.

She thanked Mrs. Dominic and sent her on her way, then began putting away groceries. At home right now she’d be answering phones for their business while trying to decide what to cook for supper. If Casey was around, he’d suggest they have pizza. He would have gladly eaten pizza seven days a week.

How were Tom and the boys managing without her?
Was paper work stacking up on her desk at the office, while laundry multiplied at home?
We need you here.
Tom’s words sounded over and over in her head, like an annoying commercial jingle that refused to leave, no matter how hard she tried to banish it. He’d sounded so…accusing. As if she’d deliberately deserted them in favor of a man who had earlier all but abandoned her.

No matter what Tom might think, she’d never desert her family. They were everything to her. But she couldn’t turn her back on her dad, either. He was still her father, and he needed her. Maybe the only time in his life he’d needed anyone. She might never have a chance like this again.

She decided to make corn chowder, in the hopes that her father could eat some. Though he’d never been a man who paid much attention to what he ate, content to dine on ham sandwiches for four nights in a row without com plaint, she thought the diet of protein drinks must be getting awfully monotonous.

After living so long with three boisterous, talkative men, the silence in the house was getting to her. She started to switch on the television, then at the last minute turned and headed for the study. Her father couldn’t form words, but as long as he could type, they could have a conversation. It was past time the two of them talked.

“Hey, Dad,” she said as she entered the room.

When he didn’t look up, she walked over and stood beside him. “What are you doing?”

He glanced up at her, then leaned back slightly so she could get a better view of the monitor screen. He’d been studying a spread sheet, listing birds by common and scientific names, locations where he had seen them, columns indicating if he had tape-re corded songs for them. Birds he had never seen were indicated in boldface. There weren’t many bold faced names on the list.

“Mom said you had just seen a Hoffman’s Woodcreeper when you had your stroke,” Karen said.

He moved the mouse back and forth, in jerky motions, until the cursor came to rest on the entry for the Wood-creeper. It was no longer bold faced, and he had dutifully recorded the time and date of the sighting.

“That’s great, Dad. You’ve done a phenomenal job.”

He shook his head, apparently not happy with her praise. She wasn’t surprised. As long as she could remember, he hadn’t been satisfied. When he was home, he was always planning the next expedition, making list after list of birds he had not yet seen, counting and re counting the birds he
had
seen, and frowning at whatever number he had reached so far.

In addition to the life list of all the birds he’d ever seen, he also kept a yard list of birds seen at his home, a county list, state list, as well as various regional and country lists. This accumulation of numbers and ordering of names seemed to be almost as important to him as the birds them selves. Maybe more so.

He closed the spread sheet and opened anew file. Using the index finger of his right hand, he slowly typed in a number: 8000.

Karen nodded. “The number of birds you’ve been trying for.”

He typed again: 7,949.

She studied the number, wondering at its meaning. “The number you’ve reached on your list?”

He nodded, and punched the keyboard again. Another number appeared on the screen: 1.

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. What’s the one for?”

He grunted, and typed again: Brazil.

“One more bird you haven’t seen in Brazil.” Her eyes met his, and the anger and pain she saw there made her stomach
hurt. Her father was so upset over a single species of bird that had escaped him in Brazil. Had he ever cared so much about another person? About
her?

She patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to clean up Brazil while you were there. But the doctor says you should be able to regain a lot of function on your left side, and you can learn to talk again. Going back to Brazil and finding that bird can be your motivation.” Never mind staying around to see his grandchildren grow up, or to enjoy his own children in his old age. Some people were inspired by goals like that; for her father, the only thing that mattered was birds.

The next morning, very early, the phone rang, jolting Karen from sleep. She groped blindly for the receiver, her hand closing around it as her other hand reached for the light. “Hello?”