Chapter 1

“DOES MOM HAVE a Goodwill bag here somewhere?” I asked. I was trying to sort through old clothes in Dad’s closet. It was the first step in what I knew would be a long process of downsizing.

“Don’t go putting that in the donation bag! That’s a perfectly good suit,” my father said, pointing at the old black suit I was holding.

“Dad, you haven’t worn a suit in ten years,” I complained.

Getting the amount of crap in my parents’ house reduced was going to take forever. Fortunately, we’d started well in advance of when they needed to move out.

“You’ll need something to bury me in,” Dad growled.

Shit! That was a low blow.

“You’ll probably outlive me,” I said. “Dad, you aren’t moving because you’re getting ready to die. Please don’t pull that kind of thing on us. You said the place was too hard to maintain. You and Mom want to travel more and not be tied down here. You shopped for that cottage for a year, and you love it.”

“It’s too much for you to maintain,” Dad sighed. “Nathaniel, I don’t hold it against you. It isn’t fair for us to expect you and Brenda to run around fixing the plumbing, or mowing the grass, or cleaning the house. You’ve got a lovely home of your own and we’re proud of you. There would be no reason for you to want this one instead. It was wonderful when we were a young family, but your sister isn’t even in town to help, and we talked to her about whether she wanted the place. I know what a strain it is for you. I’m not senile, no matter what you might think.”

“I don’t think you’re senile, Dad. Really.”

Well, I wasn’t absolutely sure. Dad always liked to tell stories. I’ve always loved listening to them. Someday, I’m going to write one myself. It’s just ... He treats these stories he tells as if they actually happened to him—like they’re the stories of his life. As he’s aged, he’s become more adamant that even stories that happened in the twelfth or thirteenth century were really happening to him—as if he was a time traveler of some sort. Mom’s no help. She just says lots of people have past life experiences they remember. Yeah. She’s kind of woo-woo, too. You see what I mean.

Listening to his stories when I was a kid and seeing the size of his personal library and love of books, was part of what convinced me I wanted to be a writer. I even went to college and majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Really a useful degree. I’ve heard the ‘Do you want fries with that?’ joke a million times.

But I proved it was a useful degree. I work at a medical equipment company as a technical writer. I document new technology, write instruction manuals, and even contribute articles on health for the website. Doesn’t that make me a writer?

I just don’t have the same gift for telling stories my father has. And after spending eight to ten hours a day struggling to comprehend what the engineers and scientists are working on so I can document it in English real people can understand, I just don’t have the energy or desire to park in front of a computer and write something creative. I’m written out by the time I get home.

Besides, I want to spend what time I have left from work with my family. I don’t like working late hours and missing dinner with the kids. They’re teenagers now—sports, theater, band, dating. I don’t think either my sister or I were that big a burden on Mom and Dad when we were teens, but I don’t remember a single time Dad missed an event either of us was involved in. He attended the spelling bee, the science fair, the ball games, and everything else. Having sat down as a family for every evening meal of my childhood and teens made me committed to spending time with my own kids.

“What was all the shouting about?” Mom asked, coming into the room where I was still holding Dad’s old suit.

This thing had to be at least as old as I was. Maybe I could get him to go shopping and buy a new one. It was a little threadbare.

“He wants to put my suit in the Goodwill bag,” Dad whined. Oh, wow! Now I know where my beloved daughter learned the fine art.

“Oh, no,” Mom said. “You can’t do that.” She took the suit from me and brushed imaginary lint off it. Then she returned it to the closet. She shuffled through Dad’s clothes and pulled a black shirt out, moving it to be next to the suit.

“What’s so important about that suit, Mom?” Brenda asked.

My beautiful wife! She absolutely adores my parents—especially Mom. Mom stepped in when Brenda was desperate. She was orphaned when her parents died in an auto accident. She was about twelve then and was passed around from foster home to foster home until she ran away.