Page 109 of The Grumpy Defenseman
“Tell her I’m bringing someone home.”
I walked back to the truck with Ranger at my heel and the wind coming up behind me.
My mother was still in her scrubs when I walked into the kitchen.
She had been home from nights for maybe twenty minutes. Her badge was clipped to her pocket, her hair was up in the functional twist she wore on the unit, andher white nursing shoes were by the back door where they always were.
She had been waiting.
Lena had called her.
Of course Lena had called her.
She did not hug me at the door. Not at first. She looked at me for the length of time it took her to read me, which was the length of time it took most people to say hello. Then she put both hands on my face, pulled me down to her five-foot-three height, and kissed my forehead.
“You look like him,” she said.
“I know.”
“Not always. Today.”
She let go, turned to the coffee, and started a fresh pot without asking if I wanted one, because this was her kitchen and the question was settled.
Ranger went straight to the water bowl by the back door. It had been Dad’s dog’s bowl, and she had never thrown it out. He drank as if he lived here, then lay down on the rugby the stove.
“He remembers,” she said.
“He remembers everything.”
“Smart dog.”
“Lena’s dog.”
“Technically. Emotionally yours.”
She set a plate in front of me. Toast, a fried egg, two strips of bacon. I had not said I was hungry. She had not asked.
I ate.
She sat across from me with her coffee.
“Tell me,” she said.
So I did.
The short version. The contract, the number, the choice.
She listened the way she listened to everything: completely, both hands around her mug, eyes not leaving my face.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, “Your father would have lost his mind at that number.”
“I know.”
“For about twenty minutes.” She took a sip. “And then he would have agreed with you.”
I felt the smile before I stopped it.
