Page 150 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

KATIE

I giggled. I couldn’t help it. Peter’s father was a sour old man of the likes I’d only seen in movies and TV shows.

All that was missing was a crooked toupee, a plaid shirt, and a pair of dark blue slippers.

And perhaps a glass of water on the side table beside his armchair within which his dentures might be floating.

He turned his yellowed eyes to me and frowned. “Who is this young woman? Are you one of my daughters?”

Mike sighed beside me. “You don’t have any daughters, Dad.”

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t,” Mike said.

I reached out and put a hand on Peter’s father’s knee. “I didn’t know my father very well, Mr. Stenley. I’m flattered you thought I could be your daughter.”

He nodded graciously at me. “Indeed. Although upon second thought, I realize my error. You’re far too pretty to have come from the likes of our gene pool. Look at these boys. Degenerates, the pair of them. Especially that one.” Surprisingly, he nodded at Peter.

Mike snorted.

Peter rolled his eyes. “This joke has been on going since I was eleven.”

“That’s because it’s a good joke,” Mr. Stenley said. “How old are you now, Petey? Seventy? Sixty-four?”

“Thirty-two,” Peter said flatly while his brother cackled on my other side. “And don’t call me Petey anymore. I’m not a child.”

I hid my smile behind my hand.

“In my mind, you’re always a child,” their father said.

“Can’t argue with that one,” Mike said. “How have they been treating you in this place, Dad? Good food? Good company? Any single ladies throwing interested looks your way?”

Mr. Stenley laughed and shook his head. All of his movements were delayed and slow. “They’re good people here. They feed me well. Lots of meat and potatoes. Vegetables too but you know how I feel about those things.”

“They have no place on a dinner plate,” Mike and Peter said in unison.

“Exactly,” their father agreed, probably not realizing they were merely repeating back to him what he’d likely been saying his entire life.

“Too much green shit on my plate all the time here. Not enough meat. You know, the good stuff. Tried to convince them to do steaks one night, but apparently, it’s not in the budget, and it ain’t too easy on our bowels. ”

“Lovely,” Peter said.

“I like vegetables,” I said.

Mr. Stenley eyed me curiously. “Yes, I suppose you look like the sort who eats a lot of rabbit food.”

I laughed. “I like steak, too. And bacon. And cheese and potatoes. Especially when the two are mixed together.”

The old man pointed at me. “Now that’s a girl who knows what she’s talking about. Who are you again?”

Peter spoke up before I had a chance to offer my name again. “Dad, this is Katie. She and I have been seeing each other and I wanted to bring her here to meet you.”

“Katie,” Mr. Stenley said like he was learning a foreign name.

“Katie. I knew a girl when I was a boy named Katie. She had blonde hair and rode a blue bicycle. It was a boy’s bike.

All the neighbors used to make fun of her for it.

She wore boy’s clothes, too. Good kid. Funny.

Terrible parents though, that girl. Terrible parents. ”

It wasn’t strange for me to sit with Peter’s father.

I’d been exposed to several people in my life who had dementia or Alzheimer’s, so the nonlinear conversations felt normal.

I could tell that Peter felt uncomfortable, and I hoped he wasn’t embarrassed because I saw nothing worth being embarrassed about.

Mr. Stenley seemed like a happy man who was being well taken care of.

I could understand how this would be hard on his children, but I wouldn’t ever want them to think that I was uncomfortable.

Mr. Stenley was still talking more to himself than to anyone else.

“Archie was a strange kid, too. All gangly. Big teeth. White hair. His mother was a saint and she used to leave apple pies on the windowsill, knowing the smell would call her boy back home at the end of the night. For a kid who ate so many pies, he sure was skinny. All gangly. Big teeth.”

I leaned toward Peter. “Do they let you bring food in here?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said.

“We should come back and bring your dad a good steak or something special. Something he wouldn’t be able to have here. With a side of veggies, of course.”

Peter grinned. “I think he’d like that.”

“I’d like it too,” I said, and I meant it.

Peter nodded. “Dinner, it is. How does that sound to you, Dad? What if Katie and I come back and have dinner with you tonight? Our treat.”

“I want steak,” Mr. Stenley barked.

“And you shall have it,” I said. Then I turned to Mike. “You should join us, too. We’ll make a family dinner out of it. What do you say?”

Mike looked from me to his brother. “That sounds nice actually.”

After spending an hour or so with Mr. Stenley, we took our leave of the home.

Peter told Tiff we’d be coming back around five thirty.

That was far earlier than I was used to eating, but his father went to bed at eight o’clock at night, and it didn’t seem right to send him off to sleep with a belly full of red meat and potatoes.

Because, damn it, I was going to make sure the old man got his meat and potatoes. Food was a simple thing to make someone feel special and bring people together. Sitting in that room and feeling the tension between the three men, I knew it was nothing a good old American meal couldn’t fix.

We dropped Mike off at their father’s house, which Peter profusely apologized about and made excuses for. He was ashamed of the state of the house.

We drove the rest of the way to the hotel with my hand on his knee and I promised the house didn’t bother me. Neither did his father’s state.

And yet Peter was different somehow. He was withdrawn and the company he was keeping was not with me but rather with his thoughts.

We walked through the hotel and made for our room.

If I were in Peter’s shoes, I’d be lost in thought too . And I’d be sad. How many more visits does he have left with his father?

Every time Peter saw his Dad, he probably wondered if it would be the last. I couldn’t imagine what that would feel like, especially when the visits you did have weren’t always satisfying because his own father might not recognize him.

We got back to our room and I closed the door behind us. “Peter?”

He turned to me when he reached the bed and sat down. “Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just seeing my dad leaves me a little… I don’t know.”

“Sad?”

He looked up at me and searched my eyes but said nothing.

That was all the confirmation I needed. I walked over to him and sat down on the end of the bed with him so I could drape an arm over his shoulders.

“I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to watch and wait while your father gets older and more forgetful, but I can imagine how fun it must have been to have him as a dad when you were young.

His sense of humor is still very quick.”

Peter chuckled and nodded. “Dad always had a sharp tongue. That’s for sure. I always found myself bearing the brunt of his jokes, of course. Probably because Mikey couldn’t take them without crying like a baby.”

I grinned and crossed one leg over the other. “Tell me about your dad. What was he like? What did he do for work?”

“Trade jobs,” Peter said. “He worked all kinds of them. Construction for a while. Then a mechanic. He was pretty good at anything that involved problem solving and working with his hands. He didn’t have much of a mind for English or creative expression of any sort, but he liked concrete problems with right and wrong answers. ”

“Sounds like he was in the right line of work then.”

“He was. He worked a lot, though. It was just him. Our mom left when we were really little. Dad never talked about it much and Mikey and I grew up thinking it was normal that she wasn’t around. I don’t know. I never felt like I was missing out. Dad filled in all the gaps on his own, I guess.”

“That’s pretty incredible, Peter. That takes a strong man to be a single father and full-time employee.”

“He did it with grace and only a few explosive moments over the years. One was when Mikey stole his truck to take it to a party and crashed it into a telephone pole three blocks from the house. He never made it to the party. The other was when I nearly burned the house down playing with matches.”

“Classic.”

Peter smiled and nodded. “I suppose.”

His demeanor had already changed. I leaned against him and rested my cheek on his shoulder. “I wish there was something I could do to buy you a little more time with him. Time where he’s here, you know? Not out at space camp with Archie and Katie.”

Peter snorted.

I kissed his shoulder. “Sorry. Sometimes I make jokes at the wrong moments.”

“No such thing.”

“You say that now, but give it a couple more weeks, and you’ll be wondering why you ever saw potential in me.”

He kissed my forehead. “I seriously doubt that.”

“Is there anything else I can do to help?”

He shook his head. “You’re already helping.”