Nicolai's Daughters Read Free Page B

under the bedspread, her linen pants and silk blouse hopelessly wrinkled. I can take them to the drycleaners later, she thought. When he gets better.
    She hadn’t slept in this room for ages. Ten years. Maybe more. An adult, and somehow still the same little girl who had once taken care of him. On the dresser, the brush and mirror set Nicolai gave her the year she turned thirteen. She hadn’t taken it with her when she left for university or when she moved into her own condo after law school. The pink mother-of-pearl was meant for a little girl. Someone else, she thought. Not me. She’d left behind most of the things he’d given her over the years: the Canadian dollar bill he said was the first he’d made in this country, the glass eyeball he brought back from Greece to ward off the evil eye, the marble worry beads too big and clumsy for her hands. Not enough room in the dorm, she’d said. He tapped his fingers against his leg and gnawed at the inside of his mouth like he did when he was disappointed or nervous.
    And now here she was, back looking after him because he was too sick to take care of himself. It was just like him not to tell her about the cancer. “If it was too hard for you to tell me in person, you could have told me on the phone or sent me a note.”
    â€œI didn’t want to worry you,” he said, shaking his head.
    â€œDad, we can find a solution to this.”
    He smiled and held her hand. “You always take care of things.”
    â€œSo let me help.”
    That boyish grin was not an answer. I bet he told his mantra-chanting girlfriend, she thought. As if that airhead could do anything to help him. She’d show him this could be fixed.
    She’d called his doctor, insisted on another treatment plan. She printed some articles she found on the Internet about new procedures in Mexico and India. There was always something that could be done. Problems didn’t exist that effort couldn’t solve. That’s how she lived. And it worked. She was the youngest partner in her firm. She’d wanted it and she’d gotten it when she was only twenty-nine. She’d get his health back, too, by herself if she had to.
    â€œSome things we have to accept,” Nicolai said and stroked her face.
    He was such a fatalist. But, she wasn’t ready to give up.
    She kicked off the covers, went to the dresser and fingered the mirror. When he gets better, I’ll take this back to my place, put it on my dresser. He’ll like that.
    She heard his voice coming faintly from the room down the hall.
    â€œDad?”
    No answer.
    She opened his bedroom door. Stagnant, humid air. The thermostat turned up because he complained of being cold. She listened. His snore was steady.
    She opened the blinds and realized she shouldn’t have bothered. The sky was overcast. Threatening. He needed sunshine. A clear sky full of promise. It wasn’t too late.
    She’d made him a Greek salad, roasted a leg of lamb and squeezed three extra lemons on his fried potatoes. He loved them that way. He hadn’t touched any of it. At least he’d managed a cup of clear broth once and sometimes twice a day in the time she’d been here, protecting him from his bad dreams, his regrets, this stupid disease.
    As she sat down on the chair beside the bed, he jerked awake.
    â€œI woke you up again, didn’t I?” he said. The covers moved as he yawned.
    â€œI was just getting up anyway.” She cupped her hand over his forehead. “Do you want some water?”
    He patted her leg. “You’ve done too much. What about your work? You should get back to it.”
    â€œI think we should see another doctor.”
    â€œWe need to talk.” He tried to hoist himself up in the bed.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    He lay still.
    â€œI have a list of doctors I found through the College of Physicians. I’ve made an appointment to see one of them the day