Happy Birthday to You (Birthday Trilogy, Book 3) by Brian Rowe

Author:Brian Rowe [Rowe, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

DAD

“We have to leave, Stephen.”

“I can’t,” he said. “My patients are counting on me.”

“Your wife and daughter and son are counting on you. Things are crumbling. The world is going insane. How can you possibly think about work right now?”

“How can you even mention our son?” Stephen asked, a look on his face that suggested he wanted to slap his own wife. “Cameron just took off. Didn’t even say good-bye. Didn’t tell us where he was going, or why he was going.”

Shari took a step closer to her husband and tried not to scream. “We’ve gone through this a million times, honey. Kimber said he and Liesel needed some time away, but that he would be back. That he was gone for a very good reason and that when he returned he would have an explanation for us.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Of course it’s enough. Don’t you trust Kimber?”

“I do. It’s our son I don’t trust anymore.”

Stephen moved past his wife and started walking angrily to the closet.

“Where are you going?” Shari asked.

“I’m getting ready for work, damn it! My first appointment’s in thirty minutes!”

“Honey, please!”

Stephen watched as Shari slowly stepped toward him, tears running down her face. She got down on her knees, right in front of him, like she wanted to start praying.

“Honey, I beg you,” Shari said. “Please. Don’t go into work today. Let’s take Kimber and just start driving. Let’s go somewhere quiet, somewhere we can wait until this all blows over.”

“That’s impossible—”

“Stephen, look at yourself!” He stared at Shari, then slowly drew his attention toward the bathroom mirror. “Look at me! Look at us! We look sixty years old!”

“I’ve been meaning to go to the doctor about it—”

“It’s happening to everyone,” Shari said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Your own daughter is looking like a freaking grad student, and you’re not even noticing. All you care about are your patients, and your damn career. What’s the career going to be worth to you if your family takes off without you?”

Stephen patted the scruff at the bottom of his chin and gave himself a good look in the mirror. He had grown older. His hair had turned nearly one hundred percent white. He didn’t look like the toned, attractive forty-two-year-old any longer.

But he turned back to Shari, and tried to forget about his appearance. He had to. “What are you saying, Shari? Are you saying you’re going to take our daughter away from here?”

“Yes. Today.”

“Over my dead body.”

“She’s our daughter! She’s all we have! We are going through some serious shit here, Stephen, and you’re just going to report to work this morning like it’s any other Monday?”

Stephen moved in closer to his wife. “Well isn’t that what Cameron did when he started rapidly aging? I begged you to let me take him to that clinic in Phoenix. But oh no. We had to sit back and watch as he just went to school, trying to be normal as he kept getting older. You were OK with that.

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