Only for the summer.
I took a deep inhale and held onto it tight.
How did it still smell like pancakes and pine in here after so many hours? Every other day, the house had that vague recycled air smell, but not anymore.
It smelled like Adair.
Only for the summer.
Maybe if I repeated it, then…
I didn’t even know what.
After collapsing onto the kitchen chair, the one I’d claimed as mine, I sat the duck and the sticky note in front of me.
A laugh got stuck somewhere between my throat and mouth, and I hung my head, my chin hitting my chest.
Silent laughs reverberated in my chest for several seconds, and when I raised my head and looked at the duck again, they finally fell from my lips, loud in the empty room.
Adair had kept this word. It was unmistakably my dad—as a duck.
I turned it over, smiling hugely when I found words written at the bottom.
Duck Sewell
I leaned forward to pluck a pen from the table, then wrote my response under his question about whether I preferred coffee or tea.
Coffee
I left it at that and went to his bedroom, intending to slide the note under his door.
But… his door was open. Wide open, as if he had nothing to hide, no reason to make sure it was shut before we left this morning.
I took a hesitant step inside. Just one.
I was only human.
The pine-and-fresh-air scent was so much stronger in here.
Breathing in deeply, I shut my eyes. My shouldersdropped. The rigid muscles in my back, neck, and shoulders loosened one by one, like a thread being pulled.
I no longer knew the difference between relaxing and unraveling. Assuming there was one.
My eyes snapped open. Clenching my fists by my sides, I hardly heard the crinkle of the sticky note in my hand as my gaze drifted across his space.
His curtains were open. His dirty clothes—scrubs, jeans, and some T-shirts—were all contained within an open hamper in the corner.
A phone charger was draped over the nightstand beside a charging e-reader.
My stomach tightened when I saw the worst of it.
His bed.
It was neatly made, covered in a thick quilt.
Much too thick for coastal Alabama and didn’t match the vibe of the rest of the room at all, but it was still so… enticing. It looked homemade, each square depicting mountain scenes in warm earth tones. Bears, cabins, campfires, pine trees….
Had Wilbur’s wife made it?
