She’d prayed for that easy connection.
Before the woman could announce that their visitor was a stranger to her, Josie offered her hand. “Hi, I’m Sarah. Sarah, ah, Thomas.” She’d used her middle and Gabe’s last names. As she turned to grasp her father’s hand for the first time, she said, “If you’re Roderick Blume, I’m here to see you.”
Lying about her name didn’t feel half as strange as saying his. Her mother had always referred to her father as him, that fool man or Rick. Josie’s Internet search had been lengthened by days, until she had followed yet another wrong path and discovered she should be searching for a Roderick and not a Richard.
“I’m Rick Blume and this is Brenda,” he said. “Can we help you with something?”
“Invite her inside,” Brenda urged. “You’re late taking your pills and I’m too hungry to keep dinner waiting tonight.” After unlocking the door, she pushed it open and spoke gently to the dog as she made her way inside.
The man…Rick…her father—Josie wasn’t even sure how to think of him—knit his brow. “You’re not selling anything, are you?”
“No, I—”
“You’re not from the county? The dogs get fresh water three times a day, and Brenda feeds them an expensive, high-protein food she buys online.”
“I’m not here about the dogs. I’m visiting from Augusta,” she said, deciding to stick to a version of the truth. “I know your relatives there.”
Her father backed up a step. Josie got the impression that he’d prefer dealing with the dreaded salesperson or an animal welfare worker, rather than someone snooping around about his past. “You mean Ella?” he asked, studying Josie. “Or the girls? They’d be ’bout your age, I guess.”
“All of them.” Josie forced a calm expression.
Rick’s eyes grew dark, and she waited patiently while he wrestled with the worries or regrets he should have dealt with a long time ago.
After a moment, he opened the door. “Down, Gracie!” he told the dog as he waved Josie inside.
Gracie sniffed Josie’s hand, then trotted to a floral armchair near the window and stood, as if to communicate that this was the preferred spot for guests.
“Have a seat,” Rick prompted.
She did so, folding her sweater across her lap. When Gracie sat at her feet, Josie leaned forward to rub the dog’s silky ears. Her father crossed to the end of the sofa nearest the kitchen and yanked a blue tea towel from between the cushions. Bending slightly, he spread it across the worn armrest and tucked it in at the back. Then he sat down, sighed and knocked it half off again with his elbow.
He must sit in that same spot all the time. He must repeat those motions several times a day.
Questions were being answered without any need for conversation. Rick Blume was fair-skinned, cautious and methodical.
Nothing at all like her.
When Brenda returned to the living room to offer Rick a glass of water and a handful of pills, he grinned wryly at Josie’s concerned gaze. “When you get to be my age, the pharmacist has to help keep the old heart ticking.”
Heart ticking. Could this problem be seizure related? And he’d been driving. Did that mean anything?
Josie hmmmed her concern, hoping to draw explanations.
“I was always strong as an ox,” he said. “Years of eating fried bologna and kraut dogs gave me a heart attack coupla years ago. Now I live on pills and greens.”
It didn’t sound as if he had a seizure disorder, but she couldn’t be certain without asking specifically. Josie watched her father swallow the pills and return the glass to Brenda, and a new worry invaded her thoughts. What if the shock of learning her identity canceled the effects of those pills? What if the man died here and now? From a seizure. A heart attack. Shock.
“Would you drink some coffee or iced tea?” Brenda asked Josie on her way to the kitchen.
“No, thanks.” Josie wished she could follow Brenda and escape out the back door. Her father had just said he’d always been as strong as an ox. He drove a truck. If he’d suffered from epilepsy or some other disorder, it must be well under control.
Josie’s sister and brother-in-law would work until Lilly’s condition was controlled or extinguished. Why disturb an old man’s contented life? Perhaps Gabe and her sisters were right.
“How are they?” Rick asked, causing Josie to jump. He leaned forward on the sofa, as if eager to hear the answer.
This was her opening. Ella died seven years ago, but her children are great, she might tell him. Then, Enjoy your life. And Goodbye.
“They are fine,” she said. “More than fine, actually. They are amazing people.”
“Are they?” He peered into Josie’s eyes, nodding slowly. “Brenda’s cousin read about Ella’s passing in the Kansas City paper several years ago. I thought about contacting the children then, but figured I was too late.”
“You did?”
He sat back in the chair, his hand trembling when he lifted it to remove his glasses. As he directed his grimace downward to rub the lenses against the tea towel, he said, “Ella didn’t want me to come around and disrupt her plans for those girls, but I missed knowing them.”
Whatever had happened between her parents to split them up, the man didn’t act monstrous now. Perhaps he’d simply fallen victim to Mother’s fierce personality, as Josie and her sisters had.
“Do you want me to tell you about them?” Josie asked.
He readjusted his glasses over his ears and nose, then stared across at her. A moment later, he gave another nod.
There was so much to tell. Josie was proud of her sisters. They were exceptional. She sometimes wondered if she’d have survived her childhood if Callie and Isabel, the middle sister, hadn’t been around to buffer the experience. It would be tougher to brag about herself, but Rick’s reaction to that particular description should be interesting.
“Callie’s a research scientist who lives in Wichita with her husband, Ethan,” she began. “They have a kindergarten-aged boy named Luke and a baby girl named Lilly.”
She might have mentioned Lilly’s seizures then, but her father pulled off his glasses again. Josie realized they had fogged. He blinked a few times, then wiped his index finger against the corner of his eyes. Was their conversation affecting him? God, Josie hoped so.
“Calliope was smart as a whip,” he said as he laid the wire-rimmed spectacles atop the towel. “I could tell that by the time she was old enough to talk.”
His sweet, tremulous smile was encouraging. Without his glasses, she could see that his eyes were a soft gray, like Callie’s, and that his eyebrows had the same wide and pleasing arch that Isabel’s did.
She’d definitely found her father.
“She’s still smart.”
Josie remembered the billfold she kept in her truck’s glove compartment. She’d crammed the accordion-style photo sleeve full of niece and nephew pictures. Should she go out and get them? Was this the right moment to tell her father the truth?
“And the youngest girl was only a tiny thing last time I saw her,” her father said.
Josie thought for a moment he was speaking about her. She was about to mention the fact that he’d actually left before she was