“A lot going on with Poison Wood,” I say.
“Uh-huh.”
“The skull, I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” he says between breaths.
“Dad, I feel like I’ve landed in the eye of a hurricane. There is so much swirling around here. Stuff you didn’t tell me about.” I give him a second to respond, but he doesn’t, so I elaborate. “Like the new electric gates because of a suspicious car lurking around the farmhouse. How come you didn’t tell me about it?”
“Because it wasn’t important,” he says.
“Feels important to me.”
“Everything feels important to you.”
I hear irritation in his voice. A tone that used to make me scramble to do better. But today that tone sounds false, like he’s trying to use it to get the upper hand but it’s not quite hitting. Today it sounds defensive.
He takes a long inhale and exhale, and I reach for his arm again. This time he lets me take it. I think about his heart, possibly pumping too fast now, thanks to me. I want to tell him never mind, forget it, but the reporter in me won’t let go. The daughter in me is not going to win this battle.
My father studies me. “Where’d you run off to this morning?”
I debate a lie but say, “You know where.”
He sighs. “That school.”
“We need to talk, Dad.”
“I know.”
I keep ahold of his arm. “What do you know?”
He pauses, but he doesn’t look at me. “I heard about the woman in Key Biscayne.”
“Who told you?”
“DA. From the Adair trial. We still keep in touch. Ex-governor called him. He called me.”
I was right earlier when talking to Dom. This thing is moving fast.
He runs his hand through his hair. “What a mess.”
“That’s an understatement, Dad.”
We make it back to the nurses’ station. “Nicely done, Judge,” one says. “One more to go. Can you make it down there and back?”
I follow her gaze to the opposite end of the hall where it dead ends into a large window.
“Dad?” I say, and there’s a part of me that hopes he says no. His body is slumped, and he is breathing rapidly.
“Yes,” he says.
“Maybe we could get a nurse to take your pulse first?”
He starts walking at a little faster pace than before. Nothing like his daughter questioning his ability to do something to get him moving. I catch up to him with the walker.
“Leave that stupid thing here,” he says, looking at it, and I set it off to the side.
We make it to the window faster than expected, and he stops and stares out it. “How did you even get involved in this in the first place?” he asks between breaths, his eyes staying forward.
