“Good enough,” he said. “Just give me a call, if you run into any trouble up there. I don’t mind at all.”
“Maybe you’re the trouble,” Joe said, only half joking.
“And because you don’t know me, I understand that,” he said, “but a lot of people will vouch for me.”
“What are you doing around here?”
“Hunting,” he said, with half a smile and a glance over his shoulder. “Looking for some of those guys you don’t ever want to meet in the dark.”
At that, Joe looked at him, his gaze sharp.
Eton, breaking his long-standing rule of not talking about his job, nodded. “I’m serious,” he said. “If you think even for a minute that anything is going on up there, just let me know, and I’ll come running.”
“I don’t want to get killed over this.”
“Exactly,” Eton said in a quiet voice. “Remember your priorities too. That boy needs his grandpa. It’s not worth getting killed over.”
“Damn it. I figured it was nothing,” he said, staring off in the distance, “but then, last night, a couple of them were around.”
“A couple what?”
“A couple guys,” he said, “and that made me aware that something else was happening up there.”
“Do you think it’s the staff from the jobsite?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t think it’s like that at all. He’s always talking to somebody.”
“Weird,” Eton said, staring out, but it certainly lined up. “Like I said, don’t put yourself in a position where you could be in danger.”
“I think that’s what they expect of me though.”
“Are they paying you enough for that?”
The old man shook his head.
“You have already reported the problem to management, right?”
Joe nodded.
“Tell them that, as long as all this shit is going on up there, with strangers walking around in the dark, you want nothing to do with it.”
“I’ll see,” he said.
It was obvious the old man was thinking about his grandson and what needed to happen with him. Eton had done what he could at least. “Call me. Anytime at all,” he said, and, with that, he walked away. He could only do so much, before it didn’t make a bit of a difference anymore, and people were better off making their own decisions. He hoped he’d made the right one in telling Joe. And he especially hoped Joe made the right decision and called him if anything went south. Very little room for recovery when people went down the wrong pathway. Sometimes you get no room to recover, and things go straight downhill very quickly. That’s not what Eton wanted for Joe.
Chapter 6
By the end of the day, Sammy was tired and worn out. They’d had nothing but problems at work. Several designs needed to be dealt with, and her dad was having a difficult day. He’d gone to have a nap at two, and, by four, he still hadn’t gotten up. Worried, she’d gone into his room to find him completely disoriented, sitting on the side of the bed. She tapped him, and he got up and followed her into the kitchen to have a cup of coffee. When he finally got his thoughts back together again, he looked up at her with sad eyes and said, “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
She’d frozen, then reached over, gave him a hug, and said, “It doesn’t matter, Dad. You have enough to worry about. Don’t worry about that too.”
He reached up, patted her hand, and said, “I think that’s my line.”
Now the two of them had returned to the office upstairs. He sat beside her, staring at the diagrams, not necessarily helping but not hurting either. And she enjoyed having him here. “You do good work,” he muttered, as he watched her.
“I learned from the best,” she said, with a smile.
He chuckled. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “This getting old sucks.”
She didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything she could say. It might suck, but she suspected it didn’t suck this much for everybody. But then maybe that was just her naive idea about aging. “We’ll get through it together,” she promised.
He reached over again to pat her hand, then picked up a pencil and went to work. She watched him carefully for a few minutes, without letting him see, then realized that he really was there and was doing a great job; so she settled back to continue on her own work. By the end of the day, he said, “I’m not even hungry.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be too tired,” she said. “You had a good nap this afternoon.”
“But I am,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just go lie down.”
She watched in worry as he got up and headed to his bedroom again.
“What about you?” he asked, stopping at the doorway. “Will you stop and eat?”
She hadn’t been planning on it, but, as he’d asked a direct question, she shrugged and said, “Maybe.”
“No maybe about it,” he said. “You need food.”
“Well, if you don’t, I don’t,” she said in exasperation.
He just glared at her.
She shrugged. “It takes two.”
“If I eat, will you eat?”
“Deal,” she said and hid a smile. He just glared at her. She looked at him gently and added, “We have to do what we have to do.”
“Fine,” he said. And he walked back over to where she sat. “Can we eat sooner?” he asked hopefully.
“We can,” she said. “Any particular wishes?” When he named one of her pasta specialties that he’d loved forever, she smiled. “It’ll take a little bit of time to make though,” she said.
Immediately he changed his mind, and she shook her head. “I don’t mind the work,” she said, “but you have to stay awake.”
“I will,” he said. “I’ll even come help.”
So together they put away their architectural drawings and went down to the kitchen. As she started working on what was essentially homemade pasta, but a much easier version just dropped into boiling water in little pieces, she wondered that she hadn’t heard from Annie.
Almost as if he were listening to her thoughts, her father asked, “What about Annie?”
“Good question,” she said. “I was just thinking about her. But there doesn’t appear to be any calls from her.” She checked her cell phone again and shrugged.
“Good. No news is good news,” he said.
“I hope so,” she said. “It does make me a little worried though.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said casually. He was getting the boiling water ready, putting the salt in it. “How is that dough coming along?”
“It’s doing great,” she said, giving the spongy batter a hard stir.
He looked over and smiled. “You always were a good hand with that dish.”
“Because we love it so much, I have lots of practice making this one,” she said brightly. She leaned over, gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Anything for the special man in my life.” Immediately she realized she shouldn’t have brought that up because he frowned at her, and the scolding began.