"Two weeks, Dad. That means sitting in a chair, being still. Do you even know how to be still?" "I've been still for 8 days in that hospital," Harold protested. "I've never been so still in my life. I could hear my own hair growing."
"I just want to look at it." "You can look at it from the window." "That's not the same, and you know it." Marcus, who was carrying Harold's bag in from the truck, set it down and put a hand on the old man's shoulder. "Tell you what."
"You sit at the kitchen table where you can see the garden through the window, and I'll go out and take pictures. Bring them right to you. Close-ups, every angle, like a real estate listing." Harold grumbled, but he let himself be steered to the kitchen table. And the truth was, he was more tired than he wanted to admit because he sat down heavier than usual and didn't argue when Emily put a blanket over his knees.
"I hate this," he announced to the room. "Being fussed over. I'm a grown man." "You're a grown man who collapsed in a garden," Emily said, kissing the top of his head. "So you get fussed over. Those are the rules now."
Ava, who had appointed herself Harold's chief nurse the moment he walked in the door, climbed into the chair next to him with a very serious expression and a coloring book. "I'm going to keep you company so you don't get bored and try to escape," she informed him. "I brought crayons. You can color if you want. I'll do the hard parts."
Harold looked at the little girl beside him, and something in his weathered face went soft. "You know what?" "What?" "I think I'd like that very much." And that was how the weeks of Harold's recovery went.
Marcus started coming by every day after work instead of just weekends. He'd swing by, check on Harold, do the small jobs the old man wasn't allowed to do, and stay for dinner more often than not. Emily was there full-time now. She'd rented out her place up north and moved into her old bedroom temporarily, a word that got less convincing every week. And Ava had simply decided that Harold's house was a second home, and nobody had the heart or the will to tell her otherwise.
The Atlanta firm made Emily an offer in the second week of Harold's recovery. She almost didn't take Marcus's call when it came in. She saw his name on the screen, and her stomach did the thing it always did now, the warm, nervous flip. And when she answered, he could hear in her voice that something had happened. "They offered," Emily said.
"The Atlanta firm. They offered me the position." Marcus stopped walking. He was on a job site, and he stepped away from the noise, pressing the phone hard to his ear. "And?" he said.
"And it's good, Marcus. It's really good. It's senior design lead. It's serious work, real projects, real responsibility. It's less flashy than Chicago, but honestly—" She let out a breath.