Beau, her father’s four-year-old yellow Lab, came trotting around the store, saw her car, started running in circles barking, then put his front paws up on her door, looking at her imploringly. Frank Masterson, a local who’d been a fixture at the store for as long as Maggie could remember, was sitting on the porch, nursing a cup of coffee with a newspaper on his lap. One glance told her the campground was barely occupied—only a couple of pop-up trailers and tents on campsites down the road toward the lake. She saw a man sitting outside his tent in a canvas camp chair, reading. She had expected the sparse population—it was the middle of the week, middle of the day and the beginning of March, the least busy month of the year.
Frank glanced at her twice but didn’t even wave. Beau trotted off, disappointed, when Maggie didn’t get out of the car. She still hadn’t come up with a good entry line. Five minutes passed before her father walked out of the store, across the porch and down the steps, Beau following. She lowered the window.
“Hi, Maggie,” he said, leaning on the car’s roof. “Wasn’t expecting you.”
“It was spur-of-the-moment.”
He glanced into her backseat at all the luggage. “How long you planning to stay?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t you say I was always welcome? Anytime?”
He smiled at her. “Sometimes I run off at the mouth.”
“I need a break from work. From all that crap. From everything.”
“Understandable. What can I get you?”
“Is it too much trouble to get two beers and a bed?” she asked, maybe a little sarcastically.
“Coors okay by you?”
“Sure.”
“Go on and park by the house. There’s beer in the fridge and I haven’t sold your bed yet.”
“That’s gracious of you,” she said.
“You want some help to unload your entire wardrobe?” he asked.
“Nope. I don’t need much for now. I’ll take care of it.”
“Then I’ll get back to work and we’ll meet up later.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said.
*
Maggie dragged only one bag into the house, the one with her toothbrush, pajamas and clean jeans. When she was a little girl and both her parents and her grandfather lived on this property, she had been happy most of the time. The general store, the locals and campers, the mountains, lake and valley, wildlife and sunshine kept her constantly cheerful. But the part of her that had a miserable mother, a father who tended to drink a little too much and bickering parents had been forlorn. Then, when she was six, her mother had had enough of hardship, rural living, driving Maggie a long distance to a school that Phoebe found inadequate. Throw in an unsatisfactory husband and that was all she could take. Phoebe took Maggie away to Chicago. Maggie didn’t see Sully for several years and her mother married Walter Lancaster, a prominent neurosurgeon with lots of money.
Maggie had hated it all. Chicago, Walter, the big house, the private school, the blistering cold and concrete landscape. She hated the sound of traffic and emergency vehicles. One thing she could recall in retrospect, it brought her mother to life. Phoebe was almost entirely happy, the only smudge on her brightness being her ornery daughter. They had switched roles.
By the time Maggie was eleven she was visiting her dad regularly—first a few weekends, then whole months and some holidays. She lived for it and Phoebe constantly held it over her. Behave yourself and get good grades and you’ll get to spend the summer at that god-awful camp, eating worms, getting filthy and risking your life among bears.
“Why didn’t you fight for me?” she had continually asked her father.
“Aw, honey, Phoebe was right, I wasn’t worth a damn as a father and I just wanted what was best for you. It wasn’t always easy, neither,” he’d explained.
Sometime in junior high Maggie had made her peace with Walter, but she chose to go to college in Denver, near Sully. Phoebe’s desire was that she go to a fancy Ivy League college. Med school and residency were a different story—it was tough getting accepted at all and you went to the best career school and residency program that would have you. She ended up in Los Angeles. Then she did a fellowship with Walter, even though she hated going back to Chicago. But Walter was simply one of the best. After that she joined a practice in Denver, close to her dad and the environment she loved. A year later, with Walter finally retired from his practice and enjoying more golf, Phoebe and Walter moved to Golden, Colorado, closer to Maggie. Walter was also seventy, like Sully. Phoebe was a vibrant, social fifty-nine.
Maggie thought she was possibly closer to Walter than to Phoebe, especially as they were both neurosurgeons. She was grateful. After all, he’d sent her to good private schools even when she did every terrible thing she could to show him how unappreciated his efforts were. She had been a completely ungrateful brat about it. But Walter turned out to be a kind, classy guy. He had helped a great many people who proved to be eternally grateful and Maggie had been impressed by his achievements. Plus, he mentored her in medicine. Loving medicine surprised her as much as anyone. Sully had said, “I think it’s a great idea. If I was as smart as you and some old coot like Walter was willing to pick up the tab, I’d do it in a New York minute.”