Catherine’s heart sank.
“How’s father?”
There was a brief pause.
“He’s had a stroke. I wanted to call you sooner but your father asked me to wait until
he was better.”
Catherine gripped the receiver.
“Is he better?”
“I’m afraid not, Cathy,” her uncle’s voice said. “He’s paralyzed.”
“I’m on my way,” Catherine said.
She went in to Bill Fraser and told him the news.
“I’m sorry,” Fraser said. “What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know. I want to go to him right away, Bill.”
“Of course.” And he picked up a telephone and began to make calls. His chauffeur
drove Catherine to her apartment, where she threw some clothes into a suitcase, and then
took her to the airport, where Fraser had arranged a plane reservation for her.
When the plane landed at the Omaha airport, Catherine’s aunt and uncle were there to
meet her, and one look at their faces told her that she was too late. They drove in silence to
the funeral parlor and as Catherine entered the building she was filled with an ineffable
sense of loss, of loneliness. A part of her had died and could never be recovered. She was
ushered into the small chapel. Her father’s body was lying in a simple coffin wearing his
best suit. Time had shrunk him, as though the constant abrasion of living had worn him
down and made him smaller. Her uncle had handed Catherine her father’s personal effects,
the accumulations and treasures of a lifetime, and they consisted of fifty dollars in cash,
some old snapshots, a few receipted bills, a wristwatch, a tarnished silver penknife and a
collection of her letters to him, neatly tied with a piece of string and dog-eared from
constant reading. It was a pitiful legacy for any man to have left, and Catherine’s heart
broke for her father. His dreams were so big and his successes so small. She remembered
how alive and vital he had been when she was a little girl and the excitement when he
came home from the road with his pockets full of money and his arms full of presents. She
remembered his wonderful inventions that never quite worked. It wasn’t much to
remember, but it was all there was left of him. There were suddenly so many things
Catherine wanted to say to him, so much she wanted to do for him; and it would always be
too late.
They buried her father in the small graveyard next to the church. Catherine had
planned on spending the night with her aunt and uncle and taking the train back the next
day, but suddenly she could not bear to stay a moment longer, and she called the airport
and made a reservation on the next plane to Washington. Bill Fraser was at the airport to
meet her, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to be there, waiting for