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In the briefcase she found the car rental papers--he’d rented the car in Portland His plane ticket was froe receipt but no bag His wallet was inside along with his cell phone She checked the phone--he had missed calls from several people, froes:

Dr Carrington, Dr Ellis of the A to reach you and would like you to call hiton, Dr Sorenson fro for your consult

Dad, call ive me a call and tell me what’s up--I heard from your office that you were a no-show in San Francisco

There was a sleeve of pills It looked like so many of the samples her father had always had on hand fronex She went to her cooing to say Treatment for mild to moderate symptoms of Alzheimer’s

She looked in his wallet The usual cash and credit cards and driver’s license were there, but there were also lists on small slips of paper Notes to himself Phone numbers for his office, Pax, his partner in the practice, reminders about appointments, medication schedule--there was no other medication in the briefcase but he was supposed to be on cholesterol and blood pressure medication

Whew

She left the briefcase under her desk were it wouldn’t be visible She went upstairs She’d call the Portland airport and find out if they still had the luggage Senior had checked, but that was hardly urgent now She found Eric just s the comforter over the sheets "Do you have any sweats or boxers Senior can borrow?" she asked "There’s no luggage"

"No luggage?" Senior asked "No luggage? What’s that about?"

She just looked at her father "Youto wear to bed" Ten minutes later he had brushed his teeth with a new toothbrush and was tucked into bed "I’ll be downstairs for a while before I go to bed and I’et about theht on anyway"

Once she was downstairs, she walked into Eric’s arainst his shoulder "God," she whispered

"You had no idea?"

She shook her head "This seems pretty sudden"

"But you said you haven’t spent that much time with him"

"I haven’t Pax sees him occasionally, much of the tiot it bad--that can’t just have happened I have to look this up" She went to the kitchen for a glass of wine

"Wouldn’t your brother know?"

"Not necessarily His specialty is children and what you have to know about specialists--they concentrate on that one thing I’ve heard my dad say he barely knohat to do for a heart attack--not his part of the body Of course he was being flip--he knohat to do, but he isn’t the right person to treat it They all went to , but then they studied in one area in residency and in that, learned how to refer patients But" She paused as she poured the wine "But our paternal grandmother had Alzhei to the kitchen and forgetting what you were there for--that’s nor it’s a kitchen, that’s de people Forgetting ords like add and subtractthem in five minutes--that can be deood wine I don’t think anything short of an injection is going to relax ested

"I was in grade school when ns, forgetting the way ho the stove burner on And the final strahen she went for a walk one night at about 1:00 aown, in Boston, in January That’s when she had todoctors in the family, that was iht it was pretty nice Of course I was a kid My dad was horrified I re if that ever happened to hiht she was on the farrew up in the city But she was pretty passive She stopped re who people were, but she talked a lot about the farm Wonder what farm she was on?"

"Tell me what I can do," he said

She just shook her head "I need a little co Then I have to call my brother back This is one of those tin on for this"

"Laine, sos just come with the territory We’ll work this out Just tell ht now I need to think and talk to Pax"

He gave her a brief kiss on the forehead Then he went out onto the deck to check out the sky

Sixteen

It had been a long night for Laine She’d barely slept She was listening for any disturbance from her father’s room They hadn’t slept under the same roof since her mother had died so she was co to be sun-downing, a coitated after dark?

Eric was concerned and offered to go open the station, leave everything in the hands of Manny or Norht on her oith her father, but she told hio The station was probably far less stressful And she needed time alone with Senior

Eric had the coffee on at 5:00 a a list for herself There were questions for her dad and Pax, decisions about what to do next She was definitely not sending him back to Boston alone