Coddiwomple - S.E. Harmon Page 0,3

in Namibia to chat.

“Is he still on the phone?” I half stood even as I asked the question.

“Yes, I told him I would try to find you. John said he would wait.” He waved toward the small main office next to our sleeping quarters. “Please follow me.”

Something is wrong, wrong, wrong. Years of being the family fixer made me anxious. Even though all three of the boys—men, now—were grown with wives and kids of their own, I couldn’t shake that desire to fix everything for them.

I followed the poor man so closely that when he stopped to open the office door, I nearly plowed into his back. Unfailingly polite, he apologized to me even as I was apologizing to him. When I finally picked up the older model handset, I didn’t bother with pleasantries. “What’s going on?” I asked anxiously.

“Dad’s in the hospital.” John was matter-of-fact, as usual. No histrionics on his branch of the family tree. “He had a stroke. I thought you might want to know.”

He what? My mind struggled to process what was very simple information. And then, John’s little dig filtered in. “Of course I want to know,” I snapped.

“I wasn’t sure. If you’re coming down, let me know, so we’ll know to expect you.”

If I was coming? My father and I might not agree on… well, anything, and he might not understand his artistic, gay son worth a damn. We might not be able to be in the same room for over ten freaking minutes without offending one another, and we may not have anything in common. He might not be over the fact that I didn’t join the family business, and…. Wait, where was I going with all this again? Oh yeah, Dad was family, and that took priority over anything else. It always had.

“I’ll catch the first flight out of here in the morning,” I said, my mind already whirring with details to make that happen.

“Cam said if you did decide to come, he can pick you up from the airport.”

“Cam?” It took everything in me not to stutter. I barely kept from saying, my Cameron? That was a silly thought in and of itself because it had been a long time since Cameron was my anything. Last I checked, he’d been engaged to a woman named Charlotte.

“Yeah, you remember Cam,” John said dryly. “Your ex-fiancé?”

I could hardly forget. I pushed those thoughts aside for more pertinent matters. Travel arrangements would be a bit complicated, but I wasn’t picky. All I needed was something with wings headed for the States. Since I always traveled light, packing was a simple matter as well. Years of globetrotting had made me an expert in categorizing what I truly needed, and what I thought I needed until my back had to carry it.

Cutting my assignment short was a little stickier. I felt guilty even thinking about it, but I wondered if I had enough material. I’d planned on at least a few more days, but none of that mattered now. Family was family. I’d make it work.

As if he could sense the direction my thoughts had taken, John snorted. “Glad you could make time for him to come back from Where the Fuck Ever Timbuktu.”

“Well, we can’t all be happy two feet away from where we dropped out of the womb,” I said snidely. I immediately felt ashamed. For whatever reason, John and I brought out the worst in each other. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

It took me a few seconds to realize he’d hung up on me.

I ran my hands through my hair, processing my new reality. I guess it wasn’t that much of a surprise that my father had a stroke. He was getting up there in age, and he didn’t always take care of himself. Jack Sutton smoked, drank beer excessively, and ate whatever he wanted. And spoiler alert: what he usually wanted was deep-fried. But still. He’d always been larger-than-life and full of spit and vinegar.

I needed to see him with my own two eyes, to make sure he was okay.

I realized I was still standing in the office, looking at the phone stupidly. I gave myself a mental poke. If you want to see him, you might wanna get a move on, my brain was kind enough to remind me. You’re still in, well, Africa.

I got moving.

*

A few hours later, I was on a plane out of Hosea Kutako. I sat across from a chatty woman named Molly. She’d gone on her first safari a few