“I know. I just thought it didn’t matter anymore.”
Her voice became quieter.
“Apparently it matters to him.”
I felt my heart tighten.
“Kaylee, who do you actually want to walk with you Thursday?”
She considered the question.
Then she turned toward me.
“Could Grandpa do it?”
My father, Duane Ostrem, was seventy-nine years old.
He had spent more than fifty years running a dairy farm outside town. After my mother passed away, he sold the herd but remained on the property.
He still woke before sunrise every morning.
Two winters earlier, he’d undergone hip replacement surgery and had used a wooden cane ever since.
He moved slowly now, but his determination hadn’t changed.
Kaylee adored him.
She had spent countless summer afternoons following him around the farm. He taught her to drive his old Ford pickup across an empty field when she was eleven.
That was the same year Ryan stopped calling.
“Grandpa walks pretty slowly these days,” I reminded her.
