The Stroke of Winter(63)

She chuckled and took the lid off the fry pan where she had been browning the sausage after the water had evaporated. “Sausage, too.”

“I had all of this stuff on hand, just waiting to be made into a gourmet breakfast?”

“You just needed someone to throw it together.”

“That was my ulterior motive all along,” he said.

He opened the cabinet, slid two plates out of it, and grabbed silverware, setting it all on the table. Then he looked around. “The dogs are suspiciously absent,” he said.

“They’ve been out and fed, and trotted off to points unknown in the house,” she said. “I’m guessing the den.”

Wyatt refilled his coffee mug and topped hers off, too. “You can come over anytime,” he said.

She bent down and kissed him on the cheek. “Oh, I intend to,” she said.

Tess cut the omelet in half in the pan and served it up on their plates, along with the breakfast sausage, and then sank into the chair next to Wyatt.

“Will you make this omelet for me every day?” Wyatt said after taking a bite. “Good Lord, this is delicious.”

Tess smiled. This was homey, she thought. Having breakfast with someone you were falling for. It had been so long, she had forgotten what this feeling was like. Even though so many other things were tapping at the corners of her mind—the house, the studio, the paintings, Daisy and Grey, the blood—she took a lesson from Joe and concentrated on the moment. This moment. Sitting next to a man she was peacefully, contentedly excited about letting into her life, eating a delicious meal, drinking a rich cup of coffee. It was everything.

They ate in silence for a moment, but something else about Joe was nagging at her. Something she’d been wondering about since the day before. She wasn’t sure she should bring it up, but in the end, she did.

“Can I ask you a question that’s highly inappropriate and really none of my business?” Tess asked.

Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “Those are the best kind. Fire away.”

“How did you decide it was time to move Joe into senior living? I don’t want to sound, I don’t know, insensitive or even accusatory, but I’m just sort of wondering how that process happens,” she said. “You came back here to help care for him, and he seems pretty capable still, so I’m wondering if something happened or . . .”

The look on Wyatt’s face—guilt, mixed with sadness—made Tess wish she hadn’t asked. Maybe it was too personal. She didn’t want to seem like she was judging Wyatt or making some sort of comment about his ability to care for a grandfather he obviously adored.

“He is pretty capable of taking care of himself during the day, you’re right,” Wyatt said, taking another sip of coffee. “At night, it’s another story. He’d regularly wake up and go wandering around the house, thinking it was daytime, even though it was the middle of the night and pitch dark outside.”

“Oh no,” Tess said. Thinking about dear Joe, such a great man, being so confused, tore at her heart.

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. He’d wake up and think it was morning, get dressed and ready for work, and head out of the house to his old office, the mayor’s office. In the middle of the night.”

She leaned over and put a hand on Wyatt’s thigh. “I’m so sorry. And sorry I brought it up.”

“Not at all,” Wyatt said. “My parents were doing the heavy lifting with him for a couple of years on their own, but they’re getting up there in years, too. It was really hard on them, especially my mom, watching the father she looked up to all of her life fade, bit by bit. That’s why I came back full time. They needed help helping him. So I came to give them a break, to let them be off the clock for a while. Back then, they’d go to Arizona for a couple of weeks to a month in the winter. I’d be caring for Pop by myself, and that’s when things started to get tougher.”

“How so?”

“Sometimes, I’d wake up when he got up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I wouldn’t. And he’d be outside on the dark streets, lost. It got so I barely slept at all. I tried everything. I’d stay up until well after midnight, just so I’d be up when he got up. I put a digital clock in his bedroom with huge numbers on it, and a sign next to it. ‘Check the time. It is night, not day. Not time for work until morning.’ I put different locks on the doors, thinking that might confuse him. It didn’t do any good. I even hung a bell on his bedroom door, as if Pop were a damn cat or something. I didn’t know what else to do. I was terrified.”

“Oh my God,” Tess said.

“There were times when I’d be watching The Late Show, and he’d come downstairs all ready for the day. He’d say, ‘Good morning!’ with a big smile on his face, happy as a clam. I had long since stopped trying to convince him it was nighttime. So, I’d say good morning, ask if he wanted a glass of wine, which he always did, and we’d sit and watch The Late Show together. After about ten minutes, he’d announce it was time for bed, and he’d go back upstairs. Those times were kind of sweet, you know? He was just so damn happy.”

“Oh, Wyatt.” It became clear to Tess that Wyatt wanted, and needed, to talk about this. Maybe he hadn’t felt comfortable enough with anyone else to let it out.

“Nick and his officers knew about it,” Wyatt went on. “They started to ride around on patrol at night, just to look for him. Especially when they knew my parents were out of town. It was getting to be a huge burden on them, but nobody ever said that.”