“I don’t like your ideas,” he mutters.
“You might like this one.”
He cuts his eyes to me and waits.
“The dining room,” I say.
“What about it?”
“You don’t need it anymore. You eat all your meals in that recliner. We can convert it into a bedroom.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t think so.”
“Listen—”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t have to use the stairs anymore.”
“I like my bedroom. Thank you very much.”
“I know you do and …”
“End of discussion.”
I lean back, crossing my arms. “What if we moved your bed downstairs?”
That gets his attention.
He frowns. “What?”
“Your bed. The one you and Grandma shared.”
His eyes flicker, and for a beat, he doesn’t say anything.
“You’d bring it down here?” he asks quietly.
“Of course.”
“That bed’s heavy. I carved the headboard for your grandmother myself as a wedding present.”
“I’ll get a crew to come move it. They’ll be real careful.”
He studies me. “They’d set it up in the dining room? What about the table? It’s an antique, you know.”
“I’ll have them wrap it good and store it. And they’ll bring down the rest of your furniture and set everything up exactly like your bedroom upstairs.”
He looks toward the hallway. Then toward the staircase and back at me.
“That way, you wouldn’t have to climb the stairs every night,” I say gently. “Especially after surgery. I can have a nurse and physical therapist come out here instead of sending you to a rehab facility for recovery.”
Silence stretches between us while he considers it.
Finally, he sighs. “You’re a stubborn son of a gun.”
“Runs in the family.”
Another long pause.
