by Barbara Ebel
“She’s a good runner. You have a fine teacher.”
“Dad, like Nancy, I’m thinking about medical school after college. Do you think I could tail you around your office next month? See what it’s like?”
“There are countless specialties in medicine, Annabel. You would only be watching a neurosurgeon in an office.”
The young man came back with three plastic glasses and a pitcher of iced tea with lemon wedges floating on top. He smiled at Annabel, displaying two hollows at the edge of his mouth.
“Cute dimples,” Nancy said to Annabel when he left.
Annabel turned to Danny. “I understand that, Dad. I still want to do it.”
“Okay. Call the office and correlate a few hours after school when I’m there.”
Danny handed the last sandwich to Annabel to hold at the cash register when they finished. The boy handed Danny his change. When Danny handed him a five-dollar tip, the young man stared at Annabel. “Thank you,” he said. “Please come back.”
“You going to eat that later?” Annabel handed the wrapped sandwich to Danny.
“No, it’s for Dakota. Restaurant handouts started serendipitously. They’re just treats. He still gets dog food.”
“Wow, Dad, that’s like so cool of you,” Nancy said. “Can I feed it to him?”
Danny unlocked the car. Nancy giggled as the pork on a bun disappeared into Dakota’s mouth and then he licked her fingers until they were practically sterilized.
___________
Dakota pounced from the car as the girls scrambled out. The dog led the way vigorously in the chilly air. He tugged at the loose end of the leash.
Danny wrapped his fingers around his keys as they hovered at the front door. He dangled the leash for the girls to hold, and inserted the key. He stepped backwards perplexed. It was the right apartment number, eight. He tried the key again, but it wouldn’t budge into the keyhole.
“Brrr,” Nancy said, locking her arm into Annabel’s.
Danny mumbled under his breath as he tried to force the key. He jimmied the doorknob, then pulled and pushed the door.
“Here, try this.” Nancy blew into the keyhole. “Maybe dirt got in it while you were gone.”
“Stupid,” Annabel said. “Fat chance.”
Danny left the girls to their petty comments and walked around to the office. The door was unlocked, but office hours were over, and no one was inside. Danny checked the clubhouse for the old man, who must have returned from vacation, but that door was locked. Danny peered in the bay window. There were no functions taking place and it was also empty.
“Come on girls,” Danny said, resuming his spot in the breezeway. “I can’t show you the inside tonight. I’ll bring you both home and figure this out when I come back.”
On the way to Sara’s, the girls’ attempts at explanations became almost plausible. Danny defended himself humorously, camouflaging his concern. No, Danny did have the right key. No, he didn’t have Alzheimer’s causing him to stumble to the wrong building. No, Dakota hadn’t eaten the correct key. He had not dead bolted the inside and sneaked out a window. No, he didn’t know how this could have been somebody’s prank.
Silently, however, it was getting late to be solving a mystery and he wasn’t in the mood.
Chapter 24
Before plodding with Dakota towards the office on his return, Danny tried one more time to open his apartment door. This time he found the office also locked. He pressed his forehead against the window and squinted to read the emergency maintenance number on the counter, but he couldn’t decipher it.
Semi-plastered on the door and window were photocopied flyers. Twist your attacker into a pretzel in just three months read a martial arts studio ad. Another below it proclaimed Dispose of your bread handles with our diet dinners delivered to your door. Eventually, he spotted a shiny laminated sign at the bottom of the bay window, which displayed office hours and the telephone number, including one for after-hour emergencies. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called.
“Hello,” said a sleepy voice. “Maintenance.”
“This is Dr. Tilson. Apartment number eight. I’ve got a problem.”
“Mister, which apartment building? We service three complexes. I ain’t a mind reader.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I am locked out of my apartment. Actually, my key doesn’t seem to be working.”
“You say you’re number eight?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Danny said.
“Let me check.” There was a thud as the man put down the phone. “Yup, I guess it’s you that’s supposed to be locked out. That was our locksmith that changed the lock this evening.”
Danny’s blood boiled. “I live there. What are you talking about?”
“The office told us, we’ve got a service slip. They don’t do anything unless it’s warranted, so you talk to them tomorrow.”
“But my personal things are in there. What am I supposed to do?”
The man hung up.
___________
Dakota gleefully jumped again into the back of Danny’s hatchback. Except for the recent addition of meaty sandwiches, two car rides in one night was doggie heaven. Danny put his hands on the wheel. Even his pager was in there. He pushed the consequences of not getting in out of his mind, started the engine, and headed to Mary’s. He could spend the night there before blowing up at that manager and handling the wretched affair the next day.
After the hasty drive, Danny parked, let Dakota out, and rang Mary’s bell. After pressing the bell for some time, he finally knocked. A dim light shone from the back of the house, but still no answer. Had Casey mentioned something about going away? He had a key to the house, but it sat in an apartment drawer. “Shit,” he said.
Dakota sat, and then laid down on the doormat. “Let’s go boy.” But the dog balked. Danny tugged the leash. Dakota stood, but refused to go forward or backward.
“I’m tired of this and want to lie down, too. But we need somewhere to sleep and it’s almost midnight.” Finally, they walked to the car, the bitter damp cold making him thankful for the layers he wore.
Danny wished he knew about area hotels. He drove toward the interstate where hotels were likely, stopped at the first one off an exit. A logo-vested employee sat in a room behind the counter, watching television. Danny pushed the little buzzer bell at the front desk and the woman poked her head out. Slowly she came forward. “Can I help you?” She put her glasses on from a dangling lanyard and moistened her chapped lips.
“Any rooms available?”
“Sure,” she said. “Smoking or non?”
“Non, but enough room for a big dog.”
“Sorry sir. We have a no pet policy.”
Danny’s patience waned. “You’re kidding.”
“No sir. We’re no different than most hotels.”
“Do you know any hotel that takes them?”
“Not really. Hotels around here do pretty well. No one really has to. Plus, dogs create disturbances for most guests.”
Danny longed even more for a bed with white, crisp sheets with high cotton thread numbers. Even a cot would do. He was plum out of ideas. No bright notions of what to do or where to go. He got in the car, gripped the wheel, and aimlessly drove. After a while, he veered onto I-40 by sheer intuition. In a half hour, he stopped at an overnight drive-through and bought a coffee, then kept going.
At two in the morning, he slowed the car down a hill and parked in the grass. He let Dakota out without his leash; they both relieved themselves in the brush, and walked to the water’s edge. The outline of a three-quarter moon was sharp and defined. Individual stars of Orion’s Belt brightened, then dimmed, as if a light dimmer controlled them. Light bounced off the Caney Fork as Danny breathed in the cold air, marveling at the celestial heaven. The stillness, the water, the expansiveness of the sky was even more peaceful than during the daytime.
Dakota stood alongside Danny’s leg, the dog also seemin
gly composed by the magnificent night. The memories of this place. He remembered what his father had said, something about letting your life get so bad, you would have to fish here for your dinner, not for the fun or sport of it. He almost qualified. He missed Greg and realized his father wouldn’t be proud of him right now. Danny turned, the dog at his heels, and went to the car.
Danny slid the front seats forward and collapsed the back seats. He wadded a rain jacket from a door pocket into a pillow and lay down. Dakota lengthened, his back providing warmth and comfort, and he soon twitched from his deep sleep dreams.
Within an hour, Danny’s desire for fine comforts kept depreciating: a freshly made bed, to a cot, to a sleeping bag and tent, to the wholesome shelter of his vehicle. At one point, Dakota’s dreaming intensified and he let out a muffled woof. Danny lightly laughed. Homeless at the Caney Fork in the dead of winter, sleeping with a dog. He thought back to Melissa’s first ER visit for asthma and the subsequent weekend he’d brought his family fishing. The trip surfaced to the forefront of his mind like it had happened only yesterday …
It blanketed the Caney Fork. Fog like wispy cotton teased into miniature waterspouts. Greg and Annabel squatted in the gray gravel, poking at rocks in pools of water. Melissa pulled her white sunhat further back from her forehead and joined them as Danny and Sara unfolded three chairs. Annabel wore the new Alaska baseball cap her aunt had mailed her, with a long brim, like her grandfather’s.
“That’s a green mussel,” Greg said, picking it up, putting it in the palm of his hand for display.
“Slimy green thing,” Annabel said, taking it with amusement.
Melissa rolled over a mollusk in the water. “What’s this one, Pop-Pop?”
“An olive nerite.”
“How can I learn what you know?” Melissa asked. “About animals and things?”
“Well, sweetheart, I studied these things in college, besides business. If you want to work with animals and nature, then you study biology, like your mom.”
She tilted her head to view a great blue heron sweep over the circular area of deep water in front of the Dam. “Then that’s what I’ll do when I grow up.” Greg saw her nod to herself, resolute in her conviction.
“Poles are here,” Sara said. “Chairs are ready.”
Danny and Greg cast while Sara sat on the cooler, showing her small lure to Annabel. Nancy’s hazel eyes grew wider when she saw her sister poke at the tiny sharp hook. She took a step back, throwing her arms in the air, chasing two turkey vultures that had landed on rocks behind them. The beasts raised their great black wings and flew heavily across the imitative cloud cover on the narrow part of the river.
“Any more news from the pediatrician?” Greg asked his son.
“No. Just confirmation. The blood work came back supporting the diagnosis of asthma,” Danny said as Melissa fished around in the plastic container, selecting salmon eggs.
“Pop-Pop, it’s okay. I have a special little puffy thing in case I can’t breathe.”
“An aerosol,” Danny said. “Did you bring it?”
“It’s in my bag, Daddy.”
“Good girl.”
Nancy ignored the chairs and sat on the coarse ground, causing her pants and underwear to be soggy within minutes. She fingered the rocks and crushed seashells, not knowing the peeking pictures in them were fossils from ancient times.
Danny and Greg watched her, nodding approval. “Some things children do, don’t change,” Greg said.
Both men cast again, the fine lines swallowed into the water after breaking the dark surface.
“Dad, I did some good cases this week. All my craniotomies went home except for the emergency I did yesterday. Maybe one of these years Bruce will make Harold and me partners.”
“He’s probably not ready yet to go out on a limb for you guys.”
Danny watched Sara cast, her right arm fluid with motion. She stepped forward to the water’s edge while Annabel copied her movements.
“Come on, Melissa,” Danny said. “Unless your hip wader has leaks, we’re not fishing in this spot for the next hour. It’s going to be in the eighties before we know it.” He glanced at Greg, who already had underarm sweat stains on his swimming tilapia T-shirt.
“Let’s have breakfast at Cracker Barrel on the way home,” Sara said, raising her voice just enough for the family to hear. “I’m working up an appetite for scrambled eggs and blueberry muffins.” She reeled in her line. “False alarm,” she said, inverting her left palm, offended.
Danny thought she was a riot. She had a good appetite and yet kept a trim figure, even maintaining competitive running times for a thirty-three year old. Sara had dropped the teaching but had continued pounding the country roads around the subdivision, two or three times a week, especially the nights Danny cleared the dinner table. He eyed her trim white-skinned legs, solar kissed from outdoor activities and from rocking on the deck.
Danny and Melissa carefully took steps, aware of the moss, which clung like slippery snails to the river rocks below. They separated almost fifteen feet as an elderly couple perched themselves at the foot of the steep embankment across the way. Two teenage boys waded further down, aware of the code for quiescent fishing.
After a while, Sara and Greg saw the man across the way diverting his spouse’s attention by pointing towards Danny and Melissa. Sara held her pole still, seeing the ripples and flopping in the dark water beyond Melissa. Danny waded towards his daughter, giving her a thumbs up.
In a few minutes, Danny and Melissa approached the bank. Melissa extended a rainbow trout. “Mommy, Pop-Pop, look what I caught!” she said, almost dropping the fish. She stood flushed from the blood that zipped through her arteries and she breathed faster. Danny thought she’d burst out of her waders.
“I bet it’s almost a record,” Greg said.
“At least five pounds,” Danny said. The morning sun caught the trout’s silvery underside while Annabel pointed to the pink stripe running lengthwise along its side.
Danny and Sara beamed at each other over the huddle, delighted with the trout that had been slicing through the river a few minutes ago.
“Time to let it go,” Sara sighed.
“Let it swim off,” Danny said to Melissa. “This is where it belongs. With its family.”
__________
At the most, Danny slept three hours. He drove out of the gravel, got back on the road, and headed west. He felt so tired, his thoughts fluttered like clothes airing to dry. As he neared Nashville, he could think of no other alternative than to call Annabel or Nancy. Indirectly, Sara.
“Dad, it’s kind of early. You at work?” Annabel asked in a tired teenage droll.
“Not yet. I have a favor to ask you.” Danny held his breath because it was Sara’s cooperation he really needed. He heard a kitchen appliance in the background. “Can you take Dakota today? Keep him at the house?”
“Sure,” she said. “But I’ll have to ask Mom.”
Danny heard Annabel ask Sara, but couldn’t hear Sara’s response. “Mom said she doesn’t do dogs.”
Annabel lowered her voice again to Sara. “Okay, Dad. I told her you wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important. And that Nancy and I really want to see Dakota.”
Danny sighed with relief. Now he could get to work after all. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll be by in a little while.”
When Danny arrived, Annabel and Nancy were upstairs dressing for school. Sara opened the front door. “Hope I’m not disturbing you,” Danny said. “I really do appreciate this.”
Dakota stood, his tail waving furiously, his body swaying side-to-side. He nudged at Sara. Sara crouched to acknowledge him and Dakota pushed against her blue jeans before he plastered her with a single tongue swipe to her cheek.
“You look terrible, Danny,” Sara said not looking up. She fixed a scowl. “I’m doing this for the girls and the dog, not you. We’ll take good care of him. But I’m not saying ‘anytime.’”
Danny handed her the leash. “I know, but thank you. I’ll call later.” He turned to leave. “Sara, I don’t have his food with me. If the girls can’t get any, he’ll eat a quarter-pounder or barbecue. And please, tell the girls I love them.”
He left, but not without thinking that Sara looked amazing.
___________
Danny contemplated his soiled tennis sneakers and rumpled blue jeans before entering the office. He gave his sweater and jacket a pass, but not the cotton-blended shirt which should have been ditched before the Tennezzee sleepover at the water’s edge. His stubbly beard growth and smelly mouth with tartar-glossed teeth didn’t help his attire either. He wasn’t prone to rattling prayers off in his head; now was a good time to start. He had to sneak into a pair of scrubs before being spotted. Even then, wearing them in the office would elicit questions.
Taking a big breath and dropping his head, he entered. He slunk through the waiting room, and opened the inner door. The girls at the desk hadn’t recognized him yet.
“Dr. Tilson, is that you?”
The voice came from the farthest distance inside the hallway, a bad thing since the volume reached Bruce, who had been busy around the corner of the viewing room. Bruce stuck his head out. Danny’s office was past there, as well as the bathroom, as well as the kitchen. Danny was trapped.
“I didn’t have time to clean up,” Danny said. He slowed passing Bruce. “A fish gave me a decent fight. It took longer than expected. I’m going to use the washroom.”
“Don’t waste your time. See me in my office in ten minutes.” Bruce steamed away while Danny slinked into the bathroom anyway and splashed water on his face.
On the ten-minute mark, Danny entered Bruce’s office. It smelled like polished wood. Degrees and certificates from college through neurosurgery training, even continuing medical education, hung on every space of available wall. Unlike Danny’s office, there were two windows. Besides a desk, two patient chairs and a couch, there was enough room for a round table, chairs and a bookcase to the left. Harold stood near a window and glanced down after a bewildered look in Danny’s direction.