his words, but he couldn’t back down now. “I called you a witch and said you forgot your broom. You called me a money-hungry jerk. So now I’m a pissant. Well, it takes a pissant to know a pissant.”
The captive audience gasped as they watched the scene unfold in front of them. Even Betsy, mouth hanging open, could only stare at the two hissing enemies.
“I called you that because I was too polite to call you what you really are. Now, if you don’t get out of my way, you are going to be minus a very important part of your anatomy.” To her chagrin, Angie realized her voice had risen several decibels. Stricken, she looked around at the patients staring at her. All she could think of to do was wave.
As one, the rapt audience gasped. They returned her wave, even Angus.
The final bell for visitation rang.
“Looks like you have to leave now, Mr. Eagle. You better stay 150 feet away from me, or I’ll have you arrested,” Angie said coldly.
“Oh, yeah?” Josh blustered.
“Yeah!” Angie shot back. She flipped him the bird before turning on her heel and marching down the hall.
The audience gasped again.
“I’m afraid you have to leave now, Mr. Eagle,” Betsy said. “Try to come a little earlier tomorrow. You better wait a minute—Miss Bradford did say 150 feet. She looked to me like she meant business. It won’t look good for the center if she calls the police.” Betsy eyeballed the distance down the hall. “Okay, you can go now.” She reached out to take the Hershey’s bar, but Josh shoved it into his pocket.
Eva did her best not to laugh out loud. She turned around when she heard something that sounded like hysterical laughter. Angus Eagle was laughing so hard one of the aides was clapping him on the back. She was stunned to hear him shout, “You got yourself a spitfire there, Eva!” She wished he would have said something she didn’t already know.
The score for this round, if anyone was counting, was one-zip, with the point going to Angie.
Chapter Two
Josh Eagle, his shoulders slumping, entered the house through the kitchen. Delectable aromas wafted about the kitchen, thanks to Dolores, the day lady who had been with his family for the past twenty years. He knew his dinner was warming in the oven, but for some reason he wasn’t hungry. The fact of the matter was he was too damn mad to eat.
As he yanked at his tie with one hand, he opened the oven door with the other and set his dinner plate on the kitchen counter. Maybe he’d eat later. First he needed a beer, and he needed to calm down. He carried a beer from the fridge and swigged at it as he made his way to the second floor. He stripped down. Within minutes he was in sweats and slippers. It took him a minute to realize he was cold. He marched out to the hall to turn the thermostat to eighty before he made his way downstairs to grab another beer.
Heat gushed from the two vents in the kitchen. At least he would be warm while he drowned himself in ice-cold beer.
Josh sat down at the kitchen table and propped his feet on a chair as he swigged from the bottle in his hand. Who in the damn hell did that female think she was? He answered himself by saying she was the female who had him over a barrel. He stretched out a long arm to snag a chicken leg off his dinner plate and was just about to bite down into the succulent-looking piece of chicken when the phone rang.
Josh eyed the phone suspiciously. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew it was his father on the other end of the line. He might as well get it over with. He was a small boy again when he picked up, knowing full well his father was going to have something very profound to say. Something he wasn’t going to like.
Josh looked at the caller ID. He squared his shoulders, clicked the ON button, and said, “Hi, Dad.”
“Good evening, son. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk this evening. I was looking forward to a long chat.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I had a meeting. I’ll come earlier tomorrow. Do you need anything?”
“No, I don’t need anything, Josh. Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”
Well, hell, yes, there were at least two dozen things he wanted to talk to his father about, but the old man only pretended to listen to anything he had to say. Josh threw caution to the winds and said, “Since when do you ever listen to anything I have to say? So, the short answer is, no. Is there something you want, Dad? Like maybe my hide, a pint of blood? Name it, and it’s yours.” His voice was so bitter that Josh could hardly believe it was his own. He heard his father sigh. He always sighed when Josh let loose with his feelings.
“You were pretty hard on that little gal, weren’t you?”
“If you say so, Dad. Is there anything else? If not, I’m going to turn in early.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow, son.”
“Actually, no, I won’t be stopping by. If you need something I can have someone from the store drop it off. But now that you’ve brought it up, there is something I’ve been meaning to say. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that I’ll be leaving the first of the year. I’m moving to London. I got a job at Harrods. I leave New Year’s Day. You can have Eagle’s back. I guess I’m not really giving it back to you since you never really relinquished your interest in the store to me the way you agreed to. The way I figure it is this: you’ll probably have a week in January before you have to close Eagle’s doors for good. Good night, Dad.”
Josh tossed his beer bottles into a wire basket in the laundry room. As he made his way up the stairs he could hear the phone ringing. He knew it was his father calling back because he was in shock over his son’s cold announcement. “It’s been a long time in coming, Dad,” Josh muttered as he settled himself in his small home office. He clicked on the computer and ran some stats. Nothing had changed since earlier in the day. Eagle’s was still at the bottom of the list. Just a few months until Eagle’s would have to close their doors. Well, come the first of the year, Eagle’s Department Store would no longer be his problem. He was sick and tired of battling his father, sick and tired of batting his head against a stone wall. Eventually he would get over the shame of failing. He had a job waiting for him at the prestigious Harrods in London, where his expertise would be appreciated.
The phone at the end of the long second-floor hallway continued to ring. “Give it up, Dad, I have nothing more to say.”
Josh climbed into bed and pulled up the covers. Then he climbed back out of bed to turn the thermostat down to sixty degrees. Back in bed, his last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was that he had to apologize in the morning to the witch with the broom.
Eva knew that Angus was coming up behind her. She could hear his walker on the tile floor. Then again, they were the only two patients in the sunroom, so who else could it be? She steeled herself for Angus’s sharp tongue and whatever he was about to say. She clicked the OFF button on the remote control. What was left of the evening news report disappeared.
“Do you mind if I sit down, Eva?”
“Not at all. It’s nice to see you again, Angus. It’s been a long time, five years if I’m not mistaken. How strange that we should meet up like this after so long.”
Because she was a
