To Jack’s great relief, he learned that Denny’s life hadn’t been all stormy seas. When Denny was a real little guy his mother might’ve had a hard time with her difficult and sometimes abusive partner, but Denny was cushioned from much of it by loving grandparents. His “father” left the scene not long prior to his grandparents’ passing, leaving just him and his mom and a small inheritance that helped them get by. “Me and my mom had a good life. She even dated a real nice guy, a man by the name of Dan Duke—we stay in touch even though they never got engaged or anything. I played football and he never missed a game. We were like a family. She found that cancer the first time when I was barely seventeen. When I went into the Marines at eighteen, we both thought she had it licked—she was doing so well. But no. She died when I was twenty-one—almost five years from start to end. I’m gonna be honest with you, Jack. That’s the hardest thing I ever went through.”

“I know, son. I lost my mom when I was in my thirties and it was terrible, and I still had a big family around. Preacher, he lost his mom when he was a senior in high school and he had no other family. He moved in with his football coach.”

Denny chuckled. “I moved back in with the Marines,” he said.

“I’m surprised you didn’t come and find me right away,” Jack said.

“I had to think about it for a long time,” he answered. “What if I found you and you turned out to be like Bob?” He shook his head. “I had to put a plan together in my head. My mom got involved with him too fast. I wasn’t going to make that mistake.”

“You had a pretty solid plan, I’ll give you that,” Jack said. “Even if it took years.”

“I tripped and fell along the way an awful lot. All that business of losing my mom, going to Afghanistan and no father that I knew of—I did some lame-ass things. I had a girl, Becca. I didn’t want her to suffer if anything happened to me, so I just broke up with her.” He turned and looked at Jack. “Lame. I really cared about that girl.”

“You check back in with her lately?”

“When I got back, but she was still mad. She said she was with someone else. Who can blame her, huh?”

“Sometimes we just do the best we can,” Jack said. “Sometimes our best isn’t worth all that much.”

Jack had spent a lot of time thinking about things lately—like for example the fact that he couldn’t remember Susan Cutler. He couldn’t remember if she was “Susan,” “Sue” or “Susie.” That led to thoughts of how he had put together his master plan when he was all of eighteen or twenty—the only kind of plan that a sexually driven young man has. If we have an understanding, me and the woman, and if we’re careful, have protection, we’re consenting adults, he had told himself. We aren’t obligated to each other; we’re not going to be sad or hurt when we pull apart because from the start we knew it was just for now, not forever.

What a lot of happy horseshit that was.

Clearly he must have had such an arrangement with Susan Cutler and twenty-four years later the sheer idiocy of such a plan was all too apparent—he’d had a son for more than two decades and had done exactly nothing for him.

He just couldn’t figure out in his head how he could’ve worked that out differently. He’d never felt in love enough to marry and the idea of living without any sex? Sex had always worked real well for him—he found doing without hard to imagine. But at the moment, standing beside Denny, fishing with him, listening to him tell about his mom dying, breaking up with his girl, going to war, all without the support of a father…? It made Jack kind of wish he’d just taken the matter of sex into his own hand for about twenty-five years instead of always looking for a pretty girl to pass the time with.

And yet, this boy who had appeared late in his life, was a real gift. Jack liked him. They seemed to think alike about a lot of things; they laughed at the same time, scowled at the same time. He was sharp and he should probably think about college. Jack would encourage that when the time was right. So when he thought that he just should have been celibate all those years ago, he reminded himself that, had he done that, Denny would not be in his life right now.

And this young man was quality. He was respectful, cheerful, considerate…. Oh, how he wished he could remember the woman who had raised him!

“I wonder, Denny… Remember those pictures of your mom you showed me? Would you be willing to loan me one? I bet I’ll remember a lot of stuff about us eventually.”

“Sure,” he said, grinning. “I’ll dig it out for you.”

Pastor Noah Kincaid was driving out of town on a sunny Saturday afternoon when he passed Lydie Sudder’s house. Something just wasn’t right there. He’d waved at her as he’d passed by but she hadn’t waved back even though she was sitting on the porch. Noah made a wide U-turn and went back, parking in front of the little house. He saw immediately what was amiss—it was still pretty cool outside and yet she was sitting on her front porch wearing only her slip.

“Lydie?” he said, walking up to the porch.

She lifted her eyes and smiled, but there was a faraway look in them; she was dazed. Noah had spent a lot of time visiting in nursing homes and hospitals over the years and he knew Lydie was elderly, diabetic, arthritic and had a heart ailment of some kind.

“Well, my dear,” he said with a smile, lifting her arm at the elbow. “We’d better get you inside and find your robe or dress. And we’ll call Dr. Michaels to come take a look, see if your sugar is out of whack or something….”

“Hmm?” she said, smiling a bit. Though she spent almost every Sunday sitting up close to the front in his church, clearly she wasn’t sure who he was. She stood at his urging and allowed herself to be led inside.

She was so frail, he found himself thinking. He wasn’t sure of her age, just that she was white-haired, bony, elderly and felt so fragile in his grasp. He led her to the kitchen and sat her down at the table. “Just give me a second, Lydie, then I’ll find your robe and slippers.” He picked up the kitchen phone and called Cameron Michaels at home—it was Saturday and there would be no one in the clinic. He was quick and to the point. “Hi, Cam, I’m at Lydie Sudder’s house. I found her on her porch wearing only her slip and she’s out of it. She doesn’t seem to recognize me.”

“I’ll come,” he said. “Can you smell her breath?”

“Sure, but I didn’t detect anything like fruity breath.” He leaned down toward Lydie’s mouth; Lydie fanned her hands rapidly, trying to get him out of her space as if he were a gnat. “I don’t get anything, Cam. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to test her sugar levels.”

“Is she agitated?”

“Only when I’m trying to smell her breath,” Noah said. “Wanna hurry?”

“I’m on my way. Do me a favor and call Mel at home, get her rolling in case we have an emergency.”

“Sure thing.”

Noah did as he was asked and then went in search of a robe or some sort of cover-up, but he found a dress and shoes in the bedroom doorway. It was as though she’d stripped right there and had gone outside. He took the dress back to her and she was very cooperative in allowing him to help her into the dress, then the shoes. Then he sat down at the table across from her. “Well, Lydie, do you have any idea who I am?”

She smiled at him and nodded, but said not a word.

“I’m Noah, Lydie. Pastor Kincaid. Are you feeling okay?”

She merely smiled faintly and drew a circle on the table with her index finger. After just a few minutes she seemed to come back to reality. She tilted her head, frowned slightly and said, “Noah?”

It was his turn to smile. “Well, hello.”

“I’m sorry, Noah, I didn’t hear the door.”

Oh, this was going to be hard. “How do you feel, Lydie? You seemed to be in a bit of a daze there for a while.”

She laughed lightly, patiently. “I go to the kitchen, can’t remember why I went, have to feel the toothbrush to see if I’ve brushed my teeth, burned a batch of cookies just last week. Forgetful old woman.” Then she frowned. “Noah, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear the door.”

“Lydie, I found you sitting on the porch in your slip. You didn’t seem to recognize me. I’ve called Dr. Michaels. He’ll be here in a few moments. Meanwhile, can we check your sugar? I don’t know how but I know you do it every day.”

She began to tremble a bit. “Yes,” she said weakly. “Oh my goodness. My slip? Oh, my heavens!”

“Don’t get all upset. You weren’t exposed. Only your arms were naked. You were adequately covered. I found your dress on the floor. Do you remember me helping you get into it?”

She shook her head and went to a kitchen cupboard, retrieved her testing kit and brought it to the kitchen table. She sat back down, used the kit to test a tiny drop of blood and waited patiently. “Hundred and thirty—that’s okay, right? I think that’s okay.”

“Have you been having periods of forgetfulness, Lydie? Confusion?”

She nodded gravely. “My health has been poor for so long, but my mind has been strong. Why, Pastor? Does that seem fair? I thought the diabetes or my heart would get me first.”

“It’s going to be all right, Lydie,” he said. “We’re going to get you some help.”

“We both know…” She stopped and never finished that sentence. What they both knew was that if it was what it probably was, there wasn’t a lot of help for it. “You know, Pastor, how we always say God won’t give us more than we can handle?”

“Yes, Lydie.”

She sighed. “I wish God didn’t have such a high opinion of me.”

After a couple of hours of fishing in the early afternoon, Denny followed Jack back to the bar. They both walked through the back door into the kitchen to find Paige and Preacher setting up dinner, little Dana Marie in her high chair nearby.

“Jack, Noah’s waiting for you in the bar—there was some problem with Lydie,” Preacher said.

“Really? She okay?” Jack said, quickly washing the river off his hands.

Preacher shook his head. “Sounds like she’s not completely well. Better talk to Noah.”

Jack hurried into the bar, frowning with worry. Noah was sitting up at the bar with a cup of coffee and a notebook he’d been writing in. “Noah, what’s going on?”

Noah flipped the notebook closed. “A couple of hours ago I was passing Lydie’s house and saw that she was sitting on her porch in her slip, not fully dressed. I stopped of course. She was disoriented. I thought it might be her diabetes, so I shuffled her inside and called Cameron. Her blood pressure and sugar levels are fine—fine for her, anyway. Mel came, as well—she dropped your kids with your sister. Lydie’s okay now—she got confused, but I helped her with her dress and now she is very embarrassed, but lucid. However…”

“However?” Jack pushed.

Noah took a deep breath. “She was really gone, Jack. Totally out of this world. Mel poked around her house, with her permission of course. She asked me to follow her around. What she found wasn’t so good. I’m afraid there are signs of dementia, perhaps Alzheimer’s. There are dirty plates with dried food in the bathtub, too many of her pans are scorched, she doesn’t seem to have bathed, she might be forgetting to eat and with diabetes…”

“I wonder if she’s getting her shots,” Jack said.

Noah shrugged. “Apparently she got her insulin today. Not long after Cameron and Mel arrived to give her a little physical, she was perfectly lucid. She’s very frightened, though. Over her physical infirmities she had some control, but over this? I’ve been visiting hospitals and nursing homes for a long time now, Jack—sometimes it comes and goes pretty quickly—people can be out of it one minute and back on earth the next. There are symptoms she might’ve chalked up to growing older. We all forget why we went to the kitchen, but crossing the street and not remembering how to get home? That’s pretty serious, I’m afraid. And the problem is if she’s burning up a pan of grease while she’s not of sound mind, it could be a disaster. Not just for her, but for the neighborhood, if you get my drift. They might want a better assessment—Mel and Cam—but if you ask me, Lydie’s headed for assisted living. At the very least.”