Dedication Read Online Free Page B

semester.”
    “…Retiring.”
    “So!” she cheers. “We’re going to sit on the beach and figure it out.”
    I spin to the doorway as I hear Dad stomp off his snow boots in the front hall. “The Cashmans’ collie’s been digging up our zinnia bed again.”
    “Simon, in here!” Mom calls. “With your daughter.”
    “Katie?” He rounds the corner, hazel eyes lighting up. “Oh my God, Katie.” I let him wrap me in a hug while I inhale his scent of ink-stained cuffs and newsprint. I stifle my questions, knowing any direct inquiry will only be met with infuriatingly enigmatic redirects. He pulls back, holding my elbows. “Well, let me look at you.” Given the news, I study him in turn, the attuned expression, the meticulous shave.
    “Yes.” Mom puts her hands on our huddle and pushes us toward the door with renewed purpose. “She can drive and you can look at her the whole way back to the airport.”
    “Mom.”
    “Don’t ‘Mom’ me. You are getting on the next flight to anywhere and we will see you as planned in Sarasota on Friday for our vacation.”
    “No.” I throw the blanket off my shoulders. “This is The Moment. This is it.”
    “He’s not worth it.” She tugs at her cashmere scarf. “It’s a hundred degrees in here. Simon, open a window.”
    “I know he’s not worth it,” I reprise as I pull off her knit hat, her gray bob rising in the static, and hand it to her. “I know that.”
    “In that flew-four-hundred-miles-in-your-nightie sort of way,” Dad snorts, lifting the sighing mullioned panes.
    “This is my Alamo. I’ve waited thirteen years to have the home-turf advantage.”
    “What’s the news on Kyrgyzstan?” Dad rolls up the sleeves of his burgundy cardigan and reaches for the remote. “NPR said thirty people were killed in the capital today.”
    “You have not been waiting for anything,” Mom picks up the thread. “You have a very happy, successful—”
    “Yes,” I concur as the chant of JakeSharpeJakeSharpeJakeSharpe resumes in the background. “The point is that The Moment has arrived.”
    “Nothing? Maybe BBC America,” Dad mutters, peering over his wire rims.
    “At last count forty-two bodies line the square.”
    “That’s better—”
    “SIMON, WOULD YOU TURN THAT OFF!” Principal Hollis surfaces.
    Dad clicks it, dropping the remote on the ottoman, and we both watch as he pats the pockets of his corduroys for his wallet. “Right, then. I’m going to go get a tree. When I get back I expect you two to have come to some sort of consensus on the plan of action here.” Smiling, he lightly squeezes Mom’s nose between his knuckles as he passes to the front hall.
    Mom swiftly crosses to me. “You can’t do this,” her voice an urgent hush.
    “Uh, three flights and two layovers says I can.”
    “Don’t be glib.” She takes my arm. “You can’t do this now, not now.”
    “What, should I just tell him to come back at a better time? When it’s convenient for you?”
    “This is your family, Kathryn. You’re putting your family at risk.”
    Her audacity renders me speechless.
    “Kathryn.”
    “I’m putting this family at risk?” I manage as I tug free before yelling past her, “Dad, we don’t need a tree!” He returns to the doorway. “And we most definitely do not need a consensus.” I keep her shocked face out of my visual periphery. “This is going to take twenty minutes. Tops. I just need to swing by there and make him regret his entire existence. I’ll be back in time for dinner, catch the first flight back to Charleston in the morning, and we’ll all be drinking Mai Tais in Florida by Friday.” Dad retreats to the hall. “Where I will be giving you a PowerPoint presentation on why retiring and selling the house with no game plan makes you both—”
    “His entire existence?” Shirking my indictment, Dad interrupts as he steps in with a hanger and picks her coat off the couch. “In twenty minutes?”
    “And that still leaves