Tribute

worried and distressed. “There’s no change.” She gripped Shanna’s extended hand.
    The rest of the landscape crew stopped working, and some of the men from inside the house stepped out. “No change,” she repeated, lifting her voice. “They’ve got him in ICU, monitoring him, and they’ll be doing tests. All we can do is wait.”
    “Are you going back?” Shanna asked her.
    “Yeah, in a little while.”
    “Brian?”
    Brian gave Shanna a quick nod. “Go ahead.”
    Yanking her phone out of her pocket, Shanna strode toward the front of the house.
    “Her sister can pick her up,” Brian explained. He pulled his cap off his short brown hair, raked grimy fingers through it. “She wanted to knock off when you got here, go by and see Steve herself.”
    “Good. That’s good.”
    “The rest of us, and Matt and Dobby and such, we’ll go by, too. Don’t know as they’ll let us in to see him, but we’ll go by. Shanna had a jag earlier. She’s blaming herself.”
    “Why?”
    “If she’d let him stay the night, and so on.” Sighing, he replaced his cap. After one glance at Ford, he got the picture. Taking off his sunglasses, he focused his summer blue eyes on Cilla. “I told her there’s no ifs, and no blame except for whoever did that to Steve. Start hauling out the ifs and the blame, you could just as soon say if Steve hadn’t gone out to play pool, if he hadn’t gone in the barn. And that’s crap. Best thing is to hold good thoughts. Anyway.”
    He took a bandanna out of his pocket to wipe the sweat from his face. “The cops were here, as I guess you can see. Asking questions. I can’t say what they’re thinking about this.”
    “I hope they’ve stopped thinking he was drunk and did that to himself.”
    “Shanna set them straight on the drunk part.”
    “Good.” It loosened one of the multitude of knots in her belly. “I met your mother.”
    “Did you?”
    “At the hospital. She was a lot of help. Well.” Tears continued to burn the back of her eyes as she stared into the sunlight. “The patio looks good.”
    “Helps to have work.”
    “Yeah. So give me some, will you?”
    “That I can do.” He shot a smile at Ford. “How about you? Want a shovel?”
    “I like to watch,” Ford said easily. “And I’ve got to check on Spock.”
    “Just as well. Give this guy a shovel or a pick?” he said to Cilla. “And if there’s a pipe or a cable in the ground, he’ll hit it, first cut.”
    “That only happened once. Maybe twice,” Ford qualified.
    WHEN THE CREW KNOCKED OFF, she knocked off with them and hit the shower. She wanted to say she felt human again, but was still well shy of the mark. Like an automaton, she pulled on fresh clothes. She decided she’d buy some magazines, something to occupy her mind at the hospital, and maybe snag a sandwich from a vending machine.
    When she jogged downstairs, Ford stood in her unfinished living room.
    “I’d say you’re making progress, but I don’t know that much about it, and it doesn’t look like it to me.”
    “We’re making progress.”
    “Good. I’ve got dinner out on the veranda. Spock sends his regards as he’s dining at home this evening.”
    “Dinner? Listen, I—”
    “You have to eat. So do I.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her out. “We’ve got my secondary specialty.”
    She stared at the paper plates and cups, the bottle of wine and the can of Coke. And in the center of the folding table sat a dish of macaroni and cheese.
    “You made mac and cheese?”
    “Yeah, I did. That is, I put the package in the microwave and programmed according to directions. It’s mac and cheese if you aren’t too fussy.” He poured some wine in a paper cup. “And the wine’ll help it along.”
    “You’re not having wine.”
    “That’s ’cause I like the nuked version just fine, and I’m driving you to the hospital.”
    A hot meal, companionship. Help. All offered, she thought, without a need for asking. “You don’t have to do that, do this.”
    He pulled her chair out, nudged her into it. “It’s more satisfying to do something you don’t have to do.”
    “Why are you?” She looked up, into his eyes. “Why are you doing this for me?”
    “You know what, Cilla, I’m not entirely sure. But ...” He pressed his lips to her forehead before he sat. “I believe you matter.”
    She clutched her hands in her lap as he scooped out two heaping spoons of the macaroni and cheese onto her plate. Then, to clear her