Before he could reply, a black SUV turned onto Elm Lane, its tires crunching loudly against the gravel as it pulled up directly behind his sedan.
The engine shut off with a heavy thud, and Vanessa stepped out.
She wore a bright red coat that seemed far too loud for the gray Indiana morning.
Her heels clicked sharply on the asphalt as she marched toward us, her eyes wide with a frantic, artificial energy.
“What is going on out here?” Vanessa called out, her voice rising in a high-pitched gasp before she even reached the edge of the lawn.
She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, her gaze darting between Robert and me.
As she stood there, her fingers worked furiously, aggressively twisting her gold wedding ring round and round.
“Clara, you need to step aside,” Vanessa said, her voice dropping into a sharp, commanding register.
“You can’t just move back to town after twelve years and decide you run this household,” she said.
“This is my father’s house,” I said.
“And we are the ones who look after him,” Vanessa said, her chest rising sharply as she gasped for air between sentences.
“We are the ones who buy his groceries, who keep track of his pills, who make sure he doesn’t leave the stove on,” she said, her voice climbing. “Where were you?”
The question was meant to cut, but I kept my hands flat at my sides.
Beside the porch steps sat a cracked clay pot holding a withered red geranium.
My father had carefully carried that pot inside every winter for nine years, tending to it with a small green watering can until the first frost passed.
“If you keep blocking us from seeing him, I will call adult protective services myself,” Vanessa said, leaning closer until I could smell her sweet, heavy perfume.
“I will tell them you are keeping him isolated from his own family,” she said, her ring clicking against her fingernail.
