The Last Goodbye (8 page)

Nothing had happened. Nothing was going to
happen. She’d made that clear, and she knew Tyler had heard her.

She combed her fingers through her hair, scattering droplets. Then she grabbed a towel and blotted away the last of the water from her arms and breasts and belly and legs.

Naked, she walked through the silent house and back to bed.

H
IS FATHER WAS SITTING
on the edge of the bed when Tyler arrived at the hospital the following morning. He was dressed in a wrinkled white shirt and a pair of track pants, and his good black leather loafers sat beside the bed. His hair had been combed flat across his head. A small overnight bag was at the ready on the visitor’s chair.

“You’re on time,” his father said.

“I said I’d be here.”

Tyler had been calling the hospital every other day during the week to stay informed on his father’s progress, but he hadn’t once spoken to his father, and his father had made no effort to contact him.

No surprises there.

Now, they eyed each other silently before his father dipped his head in a small, grudging nod.

Tyler glanced at the overnight bag. “Is this yours?”

“Who else would it belong to?”

Tyler ignored the goad and hefted the bag. “Do we need to sign you out or anything?”

“The head nurse, the gray-haired one, said she had some instructions for you.”

“Right.”

He left the bag on the bed and exited the room. Sister Kemp was working at the computer when he approached the nurses’ station.

“Mr. Adamson,” she said as he approached. “You’re here bright and early.”

“My father is pretty keen to get home. He said you had some instructions for me.”

“Yes. The doctor wanted us to be sure to go over your father’s medication with you.”

They spent the next few minutes reviewing his father’s medication, then she handed him some information sheets and a list of numbers.

“If you have any questions or feel out of your depth, call.”

“Thanks, Sister.”

“It’s Carrie. And I mean it about calling. It can be a daunting business, taking care of a loved one.”

He didn’t bother explaining that he’d hired a nurse for the task. “Thanks for looking after him,” he said instead.

“It was a pleasure,” Carrie said. “He’s a gruff old character, but once you get him chatting he’s got a lovely sense of humor. He’s had us all in stitches more than once.”

“Yeah, he’s a real old charmer.”

It had always been that way. The teachers at school, his friends’ parents, they’d all thought his father was an affable, easygoing guy. When he wanted to, his father knew how to lay on the charm.

He’d simply never bothered to expend any of it on his sons.

Tyler walked back to his father’s room.

“Let’s go,” he said, as he collected the bag.

His father shifted to the edge of the bed, wincing a little. Tyler watched as his father slid his right foot into the loafer, only to frown impatiently as his heel got caught on the back of the shoe. He tried again, but succeeded only in depressing the leather beneath his heel.

“Stupid bloody thing,” his father muttered. Then he stuffed his left foot into the other shoe until he’d achieved the same half-assed result and slowly stood.

“You can’t walk out like that. You’ll trip,” Tyler said.

“I’m fine.” His father took a couple of shuffling steps to prove his point.

Tyler put down the overnight bag and dropped to one knee in front of his father. “Lift your foot.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Do you want to go home or not?”

“You know I do.”

“Then lift your foot so I can fix your shoes and we can walk out of here safely.”

Probably there were better ways to handle the situation, kinder things to say. His father’s pride was clearly stinging at the idea of appearing so helpless in front of the son he once dwarfed. But Tyler wasn’t
about to pander to him. Not now, not ever. It was enough that he was here. More than enough.

His father muttered under his breath, but he lifted his left foot out of the shoe. Tyler unfolded the leather, then held the shoe at the correct angle to allow his father’s foot to slide inside. He repeated the move with the second shoe.

Despite his irritation, it was impossible not to be aware of how profoundly the small act reflected the reversal of their roles.

He pushed himself upright, avoiding his father’s eyes. “Let’s go.”

He knew from his consultations with the nursing staff that his father had been walking the corridors each day in a bid to recover his strength, but his father’s steps were still slow. Tyler hovered at his side, one hand at the ready in case his father faltered.

When they reached the entrance, he turned to his father.

“Wait here. I’ll go grab the truck.”

“I can walk.”

“Wait here,” Tyler repeated.

It wasn’t until he was unlocking the door that he noticed his father had ignored him and was slowly shuffling his way across the parking lot.

Stubborn old bastard.

Tyler had a premonition of how the next few days were going to pan out—his father belligerently trying to do everything as though he hadn’t had major sur
gery and a life-changing diagnosis, Tyler playing umpire and trying to curtail his excesses.

Fun and games, to be sure.

By way of rounding off the experience, his father attempted to get into the truck on his own when Tyler pulled up alongside him, ignoring Tyler’s order to wait for assistance. By the time they were on the road, Tyler was grinding his teeth with frustration.

“I’ve arranged for a nurse to visit you twice a day, starting tomorrow,” he explained as they drove into town. “She’ll check your wound and your medication and help you shower. And there’s a meal service I’ve organized to bring you your meals.”

“Don’t need a meal service. I can still cook. I’m not dead yet.”

“You can’t live on canned food.”

“What do you think I’ve been living on?”

Tyler bit his tongue on the observation that his father’s current situation was hardly an advertisement for his dietary choices.

“Canned food is full of sodium and additives. The stuff I’ve arranged for you is fresh.”

His father set his jaw. In the old days, it would have meant a flare-up was in the offing, and Tyler and Jon would have made themselves scarce in the hope of avoiding the inevitable fallout. Today, his father merely crossed his arms over his chest and sulked.

When they pulled up in front of the house, his father peered through the windshield, frowning as
he spotted the shiny new handrails on either side of the steps.

“Where did those ugly things come from?”

“The hospital wanted them installed before they’d let you come home.”

“Nobody asked me.”

Tyler threw his hands in the air. “Fine. I’ll rip the handrails out and you can go into the hospice.”

He was so exasperated, he actually started the truck again, ready to follow through on his threat. He knew he was overreacting, that it was stupid to let himself get fired up by his father’s pointless objections, but this was new territory for him, too, and he was acutely aware of the contradictory emotions shoving and tugging at him every second he spent in his father’s presence. Pity, anger, guilt. And, as much as he hated to admit it, the echo of old fear.

Perhaps that was why he responded so easily to his father’s small acts of defiance—deep inside, there was a part of him that still flinched when he saw those expressions of anger and impatience in his father’s face.

Some lessons were impossible to unlearn.

“You Adamson blokes don’t muck about, do you? I didn’t think you’d be home until the afternoon.”

It was Ally, standing on the pavement, smiling through the open window.

His father made a disgruntled sound. “Did you see what they’ve done to my place? Put a bunch of ugly metal all over it. Looks like an old people’s home.”

Ally pulled a comically concerned face. “Oh, dear. If you don’t like those I don’t want to be around when you see what they’ve done to the bathroom.”

“The bathroom?” his father said.

“Oh, yes. Safety rails up the kazoo. A veritable forest of shiny chrome. You’ll need sunglasses every time you go in there.”

His father frowned. Tyler waited for the outburst—the angry words, the insults, the quickly raised fist. Instead, his father’s mouth quirked up at the side. Then he gave a little chuckle.

“Is it that bad?” his father asked.

“Worse. And here’s the best bit—it’s partly my fault because I let the guy in and told him what to do.” Ally made another comic face, as though she was bracing herself for the condemnation about to rain down on her.

His father chuckled again. “You’re a bloody cheeky thing. Come on, help an old man out.”

Tyler watched as his father let Ally support him as he slid from the pickup. It was the first time he’d seen them together and he noted the soft light in her eyes as she looked at his father, the gentle way she held his arm.

He transferred his gaze to his parent, trying to imagine what she must see when she looked at him. But it was impossible for him to remove the filter of his own experiences from his perception. He might be older, frailer, but the man making his way up the side
walk was still the same man who had filled Tyler’s childhood with fear and emptied it of certainty.

He got out and grabbed his father’s bag from the truck bed.

Ally and his father were standing at the bottom of the steps when he joined them. His father stared at one of the rails for a long beat, then reached out and rested his hand on it.

“Might as well use the bloomin’ things, I suppose. Since you’ve wasted my money on them.”

Tyler bit back on the correction that rose to his lips. He’d wasted his own money making the house safe, not his father’s. But this wasn’t about money.

His father climbed the steps slowly, then waited while Tyler unlocked the house.

“Why don’t I leave you to settle in and come back later for a cup of tea and some cake?” Ally said.

She hovered at the top of the porch steps, ready to descend.

“No, no, come in now. Tyler can make us something,” his father insisted.

“Sure. I’ll whip up a batch of scones, maybe a pavlova or two.”

“I have some cake at my place. Why don’t I grab that?” Ally suggested.

For the first time that day Tyler looked at her directly. She was wearing a knee length white skirt with red flowers printed on it and a white tank top. She looked tanned and bright and summery. Her eyes were cautiously warm as they met his. As though she
wasn’t sure of her reception, but was pleased to see him, anyway.

Had he been that much of a bear last night?

“That’d be great, thanks, Ally,” he said.

She gave him a small smile. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

As she walked away, he traced the shape of her hips and backside with his eyes before returning his attention to getting his father inside the house. He needed to stop noticing how sexy she was and start viewing her as his father’s friend. Maybe that way he could keep his unruly body and imagination under control where she was concerned.

“Come on, Dad,” he said, pushing the front door open. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“I don’t want to lie down. I’ve been lying down all week.”

“You need to take it easy. You don’t want to tire yourself out.”

“Plenty of time to rest when I’m dead.”

His father stopped abruptly when he reached the living room.

“What have you done?” He turned to face Tyler, his eyes bright with dawning anger and outrage. “Where are all my things?”

“If you’re talking about those moldering old newspapers you had piled up all over the place, I recycled them. They were a fire hazard and they made the house stink. Not to mention I found a nest of mice in one of the boxes.”

“You had no right. Those were my papers. My property.” His father was red in the face, the tendons showing in his neck.

“It was a bunch of useless junk. I have no idea why you were hanging on to them, anyway.”

“For the crosswords.”

Tyler blinked. Did his father have any idea how insane he sounded? He’d had years—
decades
—worth of newspapers stockpiled. Even if his father lived to be a hundred and fifty he’d never get around to all the crossword puzzles in those newspapers.

“Well, they’re gone now. There’s not much I can do about it, so you might as well get used to it.”

As far as Tyler was concerned, the subject was closed. He turned away.

A hand clamped on to his forearm, the grip surprisingly strong.

“Don’t you turn your back on me and walk away.

Don’t you dare disrespect me after all I’ve sacrificed for you.”

His father was trembling with rage, the movement transmitted to Tyler through the grip on his arm. Spittle had formed at the corners of his father’s mouth, and he had a look in his eye that Tyler recognized only too well.

Violence crackled in the air. It occurred to Tyler that if his father thought he could get away with it, he would have hit Tyler rather than simply grab him. Just like the old days.

Tyler opened his mouth to tell his father in no uncertain terms to get his hands off him.

“I’ve got vanilla cake, and a bit of chocolate fudge, so we can have some of both if you like.”

Ally was standing inside the front door, silhouetted in the morning sunlight.

Tyler wondered how much she’d heard, what she’d seen. If she could feel the potential for violence vibrating in the air.

It took him a moment to find his voice. “Great. I’ll put the kettle on.”

He pushed his father’s hand from his arm. It fell easily. He walked into the kitchen. He stopped in the center of the room, aware that he should be putting water in the kettle but unable to move beyond the sensation of his father’s hand on his arm.

He’d come here intending to get his father settled at home, then get back to his life. But the next few days seemed to stretch before him unendingly.

Every time his father challenged him, every time he grew angry or sulky or demanding, Tyler was going to be staring down the past.

There was so much unresolved between them. So many ugly memories. So much unexpressed grief and outrage and anger.

For a split second the urge to damn duty to hell, to climb in his pickup and hit the road and leave his father to sort himself out was overwhelming. Tyler could almost taste the freedom and relief the decision would bring. He could go home, back to his life, and
push all this crap into the dark corners again. Never to see the light of day.