Page 7

Voices come down the hall, and hers is one of them, higher and lighter than the rest.

She rounds the door, sees me, and makes a sound. It's a short, glad cry that has me moving toward her before I've decided to, like we didn’t just see each other an hour ago.

She crosses the room faster than a woman her age has any business crossing it and pitches into my chest. I catch her under the arms. Her white head comes to my collarbone and her hands find my sleeves and hold on.

"You came back."

"Told you I would."

She hooks her hand in the crook of my arm and looks up at me shining. "You want a Coke? There's Coke in the machine."

"I'm all right."

"You sure? You want a Coke, Wes?"

There it is. Wes is my father, her little brother. Correcting her doesn't put anything back where it belongs. It only scares her, and I learned that a long way back.

"I'm sure."

"You bring the truck?"

"Not this time."

She lets it go and shows me what she's made in art this week, a clay dish with her thumbprints still in the rim and a folder of penciled birds. She always did make things.

I wash out a cup at her sink while she talks me through the birds one at a time. Whether she's telling it to me or to a dead man, she's happy, and I'm not going to be the one who interrupts it.

"You ready to go to the house? I've got a surprise there for you."

"You know I hate surprises." She swats my arm.

"It's the good kind. The Christmas kind."

"Well, then." She picks up a paperback off the coffee table and drops it in the bag an aide packed for her. "Have you seen the drunk snowman out front? Man's had one too many."

"Haven't we all."

I get her bag on my shoulder, and she puts her hand back in the crook of my elbow.

The clipboard comes back to me at the front desk, and I sign her out for the night. 4:52. Manny slides the pill organizer across the counter, the plastic kind with the days printed on the lids in white.

"Evening's the two on the right." He taps them through the lid. "The oval one goes down with food. Middle of the meal, not on either side of it." He counts the morning dose into a paper cup. "Have her back by nine, and she'll get breakfast here. She likes to flirt with the cook."

"Two on the right. Oval one during the meal. Morning dose back here by nine."

"That's it."

Hildie's already at the front doors with her purse in both hands and her cardigan on.

I keep my eyes on the med sheet. I see Lis Larking and then Mackie Larkin below it. "Lis Larkin get by here much?"

Manny doesn't look up from the counting, but something in him stops for half a second. "Most days of the week."

"Didn't know she had a daughter."

"Lives in North Carolina. First I've met her, too."

"Huh."