Always the Last to Know(93)

He didn’t. The words were infrequent, but they were words. That brain elasticity was coming back.

For the rest of the day, we hung out. Took a slow walk around the town green, saying hi to some people we knew, stopping in the library to breathe in the good smell. I took out a book about real-life dog rescues and brought it home, made lunch and read to him. We went out onto the patio, and I deadheaded the flowers Mom had planted and made myself useful while narrating everything I was doing. Mom didn’t seem to talk much to him, and Juliet didn’t either. I made up for that.

Dad didn’t try any more words, and his expression didn’t change much. Those little flashes were few and far between, but at least they were progress.

Jules texted me a picture of her and Mom in big white robes, both of them looking a lot happier, and I texted back hearts and make sure you get the aromatherapy facial. Yes, it would be expensive, and no, I didn’t care. It felt nice to be the generous one. I didn’t even mind that the two of them were bonding (yet again) without me.

When Dad started to yawn, I brought him back inside, where he settled back into his recliner and promptly fell asleep, Pepper curled at his side, pressing herself against him. It was three thirty.

I wandered through the house. I didn’t have a lot of downtime when I was here, since I tried to keep moving forward with the work LeVon did, making sure we took walks now that the weather was nice, did art therapy, worked on motor skills and all that. It felt like a long time since I’d really seen the house.

Mom had done a lot of work here. Every picture, every piece of furniture and art was thoughtful and well chosen. She even had a small acrylic I’d done in college (hanging in the downstairs bathroom, since it matched the wallpaper). Pictures of the family were framed and placed at even intervals up the stairs.

It was a lovely house. Sunny and classic, homey and elegant. Not my style, but really pretty. I should tell my mother that. She’d like hearing it.

My room had been remade into the guest room before I’d even graduated from college, and that was fine, too. Still, it was a little strange . . . nothing of me remained anymore. The horse figurines I collected in middle school had been given away, the bulletin board that had been plastered with pictures of my high school friends (and Noah) gone. The room was painted pale yellow now; when it was mine, two walls had been black, two purple. Couldn’t fault Mom there.

I lay back on the bed. Ah, there was something familiar. The ceiling. That fuzzy-looking paint they used to use. I’d always liked that—it looked like a snowfield, and when I was little, I’d imagine tiny people crossing it, upside-down nomads huddling down for the night, coming to sleep under my pillow if it got too cold.

One time when I was about nine, I’d been really, really sick with strep throat, the bane of my elementary school years. This time was extra fierce, though. My throat had hurt so much I had to drool into a towel, completely unable to talk, let alone swallow medicine. I was limp with dehydration, and the doctor told me to push fluids when I couldn’t even swallow spit, or I’d have to get IV hydration.

Mom made me a vanilla milkshake and told me to drink it down. “It’ll numb your throat, and you have to drink something, or you’ll end up in the hospital.” I glared at her, sulky and sick, wishing she was more sympathetic, more worried and less . . . resigned. Maybe I should go to the hospital. Then everyone would feel sorry for me.

“Drink, Sadie.” Her voice had been firm, and she was right; the milkshake was so cold, it took the hurt away. When I had finished, she told me there were two raw eggs in there as well as my antibiotics and Motrin, masked by the taste of the extra vanilla extract she’d added. Then she tucked me in and pulled the shades, and I remembered falling asleep to the sounds of the other kids walking home from school and my mother in the kitchen.

I knew I’d never have the same relationship Juliet had with our mom. Truth was, I didn’t really deserve it. I had been Daddy’s girl from the start. But she’d always taken care of me just the same. She always knew what to do, even if she . . . no. She always knew what to do. Full stop. It was time for Barb Frost to get some respect from her younger child.

I called the Mandarin Oriental and ordered flowers and a bottle of champagne sent to their room. Yes, yes, it cost the earth. So what? I didn’t have children. I could afford it. “And for the card,” I asked the hotel clerk, “would you write, ‘To the best mother and sister in the world. Relax and enjoy. You deserve it. Love, Sadie.’ Thank you so much!”

The warm fuzzies I got were only slightly more fun than picturing their shock that I was so damn wonderful.

That night, after I’d made mac and cheese for Dad (it was easy for him to spear with his fork), Dad watched a documentary on the wolves of Yellowstone that made Pepper tremble with the call of the wild (or terror, but I was going with the former). I set up my easel in the little glass bump-out that abutted the living room, having made a run home for some things while Kit, the rather bitchy home health aide, was here earlier. She was efficient, but she wasn’t very nice. I’d have to help Mom find someone better.

But for now, all was well. Call me sentimental, but I was drawing a picture of my dad in charcoal. I wanted to capture him in one of his alert moments, with Pepper against him. His shirt was buttoned wrong, but in my picture, I’d fixed that, as well as the tuft of hair that just wouldn’t sit flat on the left side of his head, where he’d had his surgery.