The Memory of You (Sanctuary Sound #1)(32)
Owing her any gratitude felt like swallowing sawdust. He’d been angry for so long he didn’t know how to let that go and move on. But he had to learn, and soon. For everyone’s sake.
Chapter Seven
“Steffi, I forgot to pick up my prescription yesterday and I need my Coumadin. Can you run to the pharmacy for me before you go back to work?” her dad asked as she pulled up to the curb in front of her childhood home. She noticed him squinting behind the cheap black eyewear the ophthalmologist had given him to protect his dilated pupils.
Still, he had a way of making those flimsy sunglasses look cool. Her dad had always had a Clint Eastwood vibe about him. Intense, quiet, unconventionally attractive. Even now, in old Levi’s, brown suede Keens, and a white cotton collared shirt, he seemed pretty hip for a guy with cataracts.
“Let me help you inside first.” She walked with him into the house.
The gray-and-white Cape Cod home hadn’t changed much. Her mom’s old flower beds had been replaced with a rock garden. It didn’t surprise her that her dad had opted for something low-maintenance, but part of her knew he also couldn’t watch the daffodils bloom, or smell the roses, without missing his wife. Other than the river rock, it looked just as it had in the nineties. Smelled pretty much the same, too. Equal parts salt water, coffee, and Irish Spring.
The only other big difference was the quietude. Four rambunctious athletes and their friends had kept things lively, even after her mom had died. One by one, her brothers had flown the coop, and then she did, too. Did her dad miss the noise, or enjoy the silence? Maybe a bit of both, like her.
Steffi settled him on the faded leather sofa, glancing at her watch because Claire would be expecting her soon, to meet with that new client buying the house on Hightop Road. “I guess you can’t watch TV yet, huh?”
“Nope.” He stretched himself out along the cushions. “I’ll just catch a catnap. Kind of nice to take a break midweek.”
Benny had mentioned that their dad had been working fewer hours this year. She supposed he was getting up there. His seventieth birthday was just around the corner. In fact, she needed to organize something with her brothers to celebrate that milestone. Finding a date when they could all travel home would be a challenge. She couldn’t recall the last time they’d all been together—probably two Christmases ago.
If her mom had lived, she’d be turning sixty-eight this winter. The last birthday they’d celebrated together had been her forty-ninth. Peyton would be thirty-one on her next birthday. Steffi shivered and refocused.
She looked around at the “senior” bachelor pad, which looked a little worse for wear since he’d lived alone. Cleaning the house had always been her mother’s chore, and then hers, because none of her brothers cared if they lived in a pigsty. Her dad kept it neat enough now but probably hadn’t mopped a floor or wiped down the woodwork in the past year. If she weren’t racing to finish the Quinns’ family room, she’d come over on Saturday and spend the day with soapy buckets and a scrub brush. Soon, she told herself. “Can I get you anything else? Something for dinner?”
“Nah.” He shifted slightly. “I’ll make a sandwich.”
Eating a cold sandwich for dinner by oneself sounded a little pathetic. Then again, she’d done that more often than not over the past few years. “You need to go out more, Dad. It’s not healthy to spend your time alone here every night.”
He grunted. That was all he would say about that, as she well knew. It wasn’t the first time she’d made the suggestion, although it had been at least a couple of months since the last time.
It seemed a shame he’d never met anyone after her mom died. Never really tried, either. He’d burned through his fifties raising teens, and then his sixties running his hardware store. At sixty-nine, it seemed as if he didn’t even care about women anymore. She could still picture the lemon face he’d made when she’d suggested he take Mrs. Langley, a widow, to the Prescotts’ annual literacy gala.
“Fine. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Thanks.” He must’ve closed his eyes. Still a man of few words, but in a crunch those words always counted for something.
By the time she got through the pharmacy line, she was late for her meeting with Claire and the new client. Steffi jogged across the parking lot, hoping she could cut through some back roads to drop the meds off with her dad and still get to the client meeting before it ended. Just as she opened her van door, a nearby motorcycle engine roared to life.
Her body stilled as if she’d been flash frozen. The biker let loose a catcall whistle before his deep voice called out, “Nice sticks, little mama.”
In her mind, she flipped the guy the bird, yet somehow she knew she hadn’t done it. Her ears rang, and darkness crowded her vision. Sweat beaded along her hairline as her heart pulsed faster.
Gun.
Stop. Please . . . No!
Fly away . . . you’re not here.
You’re not here.
Blackness.
“Miss?” A hand on Steffi’s shoulder startled her.
She awoke from her daze to find herself on the ground by the side of her car, the prescription bag fallen to her side, one hand clutching the open door. She blew on her scraped knee. It looked worse than it felt, although she wanted to cry. To scream. To understand why the hell her brain wouldn’t heal faster. At the very least, she wanted to remember where her mind wandered during those lapses.