Beginner's Luck. Kate Clayborn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ quiet or make yourself useful,” he says, but I take the tray from him anyways, pulling it toward me before I slump on the couch. He grunts his disapproval, shifting slightly in his chair.

      “You want to elevate it for a while?” I ask. In addition to the busted elbow and collarbone, Dad shattered his tibia, and his left leg from the knee down is in a thick, black boot, cushioned by some fancy inflatable bags that are supposed to stabilize the bone, which is now home to a titanium rod and a bunch of screws.

      He waves me off, and I can see the effort it’s taking him to stay awake. Even in the hospital he fought sleep, wanting to stay as close to his longtime routine as possible: asleep at nine, up at five. I had the best luck in the hospital talking to him until he’d dozed off, and I decide I’ll do that here too, just to avoid an argument. If I have to carry him to bed, I’ll do it, but it’ll probably break my heart in half. Seeing my dad—my strong, unflappable dad—in this condition has been a gut check I wasn’t prepared for.

      I tell him about my day at the yard, give him a report on the slate I picked up today, which, aside from the piece I broke on my call to Jasper, was in great shape, and would probably do a whole roof on a smaller house, a good profit if we get a contractor who’s interested. Talking about the yard, I guess, isn’t the best way to make him sleepy, since he looks more alert than he has in a few days. I use the conversation as the grease I need to get him up and moving toward the bathroom, talking as much for his sake as for mine. It’s less awkward helping him undress and getting him settled on the toilet when I’m talking the whole time, even when I’m standing outside the door, waiting for him to finish up.

      Once I’ve got him in bed, I make him take his meds, and he leans his head back on the pillows I’ve propped up—upright sleep for the first days after the surgery, the doctor said, and believe me, I took notes. He looks exhausted by all that bedtime effort. “You’re not going to have trouble at work, being here?”

      “Dad, we’ve talked about this. It’s fine.” I sit in the chair I pulled up by his bed before I brought him home. I’m not leaving until he’s asleep. I even bought a baby monitor on Thursday night, but I’ve stowed it under the bed so he won’t know.

      “Don’t use the f-word with me,” he says. “I know you’re real important over there at your job.”

      I think about how important I stand to be if Jas and I can get out of this non-compete, if we can break out on our own. “You had some work yesterday?” he asks.

      “Yeah, I went to see a possible recruit. She was—not real interested.”

      “I thought you go around throwing all kinds of money at people,” he says, but he’s smiling, teasing me a little. “She doesn’t like money?”

      “I don’t think she likes me.”

      “Can’t say as I blame her,” he says. “With that ugly mug you got.”

      “Jealous, old man?” I tease, and he huffs a laugh. I find myself telling him about my meeting with her, but I’m not even focusing on any of the right things. I skip right over the part where I insulted her by assuming she was someone else. Instead, I’m describing her—I’m talking about the goggles she wore over her black-rimmed glasses, the way I could still see the dark, rich color of her eyes right through them. I’m talking about how she was barely as tall as the steel frame she was cleaning, how she wore a too-big lab coat that had the sleeves rolled up into thick cuffs. I’m not saying anything that has to do with a plan.

      “Mad scientist,” my dad murmurs, and it’s good—he’s getting sleepy.

      “Yeah,” I say, but her lab—it was clean, almost freakishly so, when most labs I visit seem in a constant state of disarray. “She’s working with lots of old equipment, which she wouldn’t have to worry about if she came to work for us. She broke one of her old cabinets while I was there. The thing looks like it was manufactured during the Manhattan Project.”

      Dad perks up, rolls his eyes toward me. “What’d she break?” Typical, that this is the detail my dad would seize on.

      “Storage cabinet, a steel one. Broke the handle off. She seemed used to it—had a piece of rope as a handle for two of the other doors.”

      “I got handles for one of those at the yard, probably. Those cabinets are a dime a dozen.”

      I think about this, wondering what Averin would think if I showed up with replacement cabinet door handles as an apology. Rather than, say, me wearing a dunce cap and having read all her published work, which is what she deserves as an apology. Probably on principle I should also email my women’s studies professor from junior year and apologize for exhibiting gender bias.

      “Hmm,” I say, but I notice Dad’s breathing is deeper, and his eyes are closed. I lean back in my chair, wince at the loud creaks it makes in the room.

      My dad looks so small in his bed, which doesn’t make sense, because at six-three, he’s still exactly my height, and he’s in good shape from working the way he does. I wonder if it’s something about being back in this house, about how when I left eleven years ago, I was still so used to being a kid, used to seeing everything, including him, as bigger than me. It’s not that I never make it back here—I do, at least twice a year, and Dad comes out to see me maybe once every two years. But knowing I’m going to be sticking around for a while has changed my perspective, I guess.

      “Stop staring at me,” he says, his eyes still closed.

      “Thought you were sleeping.”

      “I don’t want an audience. Go to bed; you’re annoying me.”

      I chuckle—this is my dad’s familiar, cheerful gruffness. I stand, looking over things one last time, making sure there’s water by the bed, that there’s a pillow under his elbow, that his sling is in the right position.

      I swallow a sudden surge of emotion. It’s hard not to see this fall as some kind of turning point, some kind of moment of reckoning that means Dad and I have to start talking seriously about what happens in his future. He’s only sixty, sure, and even though he’s got no plans to retire, his recovery from this is going to slow him down.

      Thinking about that now, after the day I’ve had—after the week I’ve had, really—feels too exhausting, and anyways, I’m no help to Dad if I’m too tired to see things clearly. I flip off the light and head down to my room, resolved to apply the rest of my mental energy for the night to thinking through what I’ve got going on with Beaumont, with Jasper, with E.R. Averin. Doing a job here will be a good distraction, will help keep me balanced while I take care of Dad.

      But I still switch on the monitor and set it on my nightstand, listening to Dad breathe until I fall into a dreamless sleep.

      Chapter 3

      Kit

      Monday night, tired from the weekend of unpacking and a long day of work, I’m alone in the house, eating takeout at my dining room table that’s still got a few unpacked boxes stacked on top. It sounds depressing, but for a girl who’s never had a place to call home, right now it feels perfect. I’m happily paging through my favorite issue of the city’s weekly alternative newspaper, which I’ve picked up religiously every Monday since I first moved here. This is the best issue, a once-a-year summary that details what locals have voted as their trusted favorites—everything from eyebrow threaders to heart surgeons. I have this dream—it’s ridiculous, really—that СКАЧАТЬ