"I am--three hundred and sixty-four days a year."

"You're a trip." He grinned and turned as Nicholas pushed a beer into his hand.

"It's great to see you, Scott." Nicholas was getting choked up.

"You, too. I'm going to go say hi to Dad."

Nicholas snickered. "Good luck. He's kind of cranky today."

"Today?" Mitchell winked and headed out past the sliding glass doors. He walked across the long backyard, the brown, gold, and orange leaves crunching underfoot.

Dad's woodworking shop was actually a two-car garage he'd had built about a year after Mom had died. Dad had spent many weekends cutting, routing, sawing, and sanding, and everyone said it was good therapy for him. Mitchell was only fourteen when Mom had died, and her loss was devastating to them all. She had been born in Latvia, in the Saldus district, and Mitchell could still hear her thick accent: "You must do your homework. You must study. You must not throw away the great opportunities of your life!"

She had worked hard to become a pharmacist, and when she had passed, Mitchell had taken on the role of rearing his younger siblings because Dad worked overtime to support them. But Dad still managed to teach Mitchell a strong sense of leadership that he passed on to his brothers and sister.

Mitchell crossed around to the side door, which was cracked open. "Dad?" He pushed open the door.

His father, William David Mitchell, had donned a pair of denim overalls, and his sizable gut tented up the central pockets. He had a flat-sided carpenter's pencil behind his ear and was staring down the edge of a long piece of pine he had balanced on one of his tables. Dad glanced up, a thin layer of white stubble rising from his jaw. "Well, well, well, the prodigal son returns home in his foreign-made rental car."

"You haven't been here the whole time?"

"Nope. I saw you pull up."

"And then what? You came running out? You trying to avoid me?"

"You?" He chuckled under his breath. "You know I hate all that hello crap. Damn house is so noisy with everybody here."

"Nice to see you, too. What are you making?"

"A tortoise table."

Mitchell's mouth fell open. "A what?"

He grinned. "Just kidding. Your sister forwarded me a couple of your e-mails way back when. All those weekends out here with me, and you're not even building furniture anymore? Doghouses and turtle houses?"

"I just finished up a real nice piece for my company commander. It's a custom footlocker for stowing military mementos. I even engraved it."

"Yeah, well I'm working on a nice box myself. Figure I'll save you kids a lot of money once I croak."

"What do you mean? You're not . . . you're building your own coffin?"

His eyes widened. "Absolutely."

"Dad, is there something you want to tell me? I thought the stress test went okay."

"It did."