“Griff.” Getting out of the caretaking business altogether my ass, I thought. “Listen, Bailey, I need you to sit tight for a few days. They’re running a bunch of tests. Let me see where we are in the next day or two, and you and I’ll come up with a plan. Right now, I just need to keep Dad quiet and still.”

It surprised me how much my brother sounded like an adult. Maybe Henry himself was in the caretaking business. Looking after the restaurants, looking after little Hank, and now looking after Daddy. Now that Daddy was in the hospital, we talked on the phone several times a week, and I was amazed constantly by Henry’s efficiency in his efforts on Daddy’s behalf. We talked about Daddy as if he were no longer there. It just seemed as if parts of his mind had already joined my mother.

“Listen, you have a plane ticket for next Friday,” Henry said. I quickly told him I would be there a full two weeks.

“Okay, then. Thanks, Bailey. I need to get Dad settled into the rehab facility. I have contacted a realtor about putting the house on the market. The doctors all agree there’s no way for him to ever return home. He’ll be in a wheelchair now, Bailey. You need to get comfortable with that fact. It is a big change. But sometimes if I bring a sprig of lavender or say something to him, he will question me, and say something like, ‘Now Henry, there is only one surefire way to ruin a good white sauce, and that is with too much salt.’” Henry stopped and laughed and allowed his heart to remember. “I think he has forgotten the term béchamel.”

I suppose that is what new circumstances require. Our hearts to get comfortable with them so that we can begin to accept them. Like Henry and Hank. When I talked to Daddy myself that evening, his voice sounded a bit gravelly. I had to remind him that like Henry, I, too, was in the restaurant business.

“Well, Bailey Ann, that’s good. But I hope you are not a chef. Women don’t belong in the kitchen.” I had to smile. The essence of the man was still holding firm and very much intact.

Daddy looked better than I thought he would. He almost looked like himself, just in a wheelchair. I expected a crippled old man with vacant eyes. I hugged him like there was no tomorrow, and who ever really knows about that anyway? The three of us and little Hank spent time with Daddy in the sunny courtyard. All my men. Henry had brought Hank’s fire truck to keep him occupied. Daddy spoke to me first, and I thought it was because he had not seen me in a while. Then I realized it was because I was the most precious thing to him.

“Annie? Where’s your wedding ring?” I looked at Henry and Griffin. He thought I was my mother. I could tell Henry did not know how I would react. But my brother had given me a wonderful education in how to deal with Daddy and “meeting him where he was,” as the literature suggested.