Bryony tapped on the wooden door, inserted her key to unlock the knob, and stepped into low light and a blaring television. Her father, sporting one-day whiskers, lay on the couch in his robe.

Stale air assailed her nose. Bryony opened the front door wider.

“What are you doing?” her father growled, pulling his robe tighter. “It’s freezing out there.”

She fanned a few times before shutting the door. “When’s the last time you had any fresh air?”

Her father turned back to the game show, where the announcer cracked jokes at people dressed in costumes.

Bryony stepped into the room and sat on the edge of the coffee table.

Her father threw a dirty look her way. “Can’t see through you, Bry. Will you kindly move?” His voice dripped acid.

What was happening to her father? Never nice to her in the past, his behavior had been gruff and unfriendly, but now he spewed hate. Fear gripped her stomach.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?” She felt lost.

“What do you mean, ‘What’s wrong?’” He threw off the afghan covering his legs, again pulled the robe tight around his middle, and stood.

Pale white skin covered the bones of his spindly legs. How much weight had he lost? Wrapped up in her mother’s final days, Bryony had missed her father’s sharp decline. She froze inside as guilt settled over grief like a frosty shroud.

“Are you eating, Daddy?”

He pinched his face until his eyes were slits. “What’s it to you?” he mumbled, and turned to lumber toward the downstairs bathroom.

Dust covered the coffee table. An empty glass, the bottom dry, sat beside a box of fresh tissues. A paper bag with used tissues sat on the floor. At least he arranged for a proper way to handle his trash. She picked up the bag and carried it to the kitchen, where the visual shock forced a verbal burst of, “Oh my gosh!”

Soiled dishes covered every surface. A foot-high stack of newspapers climbed up from the stove’s burners. Dazed, she opened the refrigerator. Deep green mold covered the end of an orange cheese bar. A bowl of something gray and bubbly grew white fuzz.

Her father appeared at her side.

“Oh, Daddy,” she said. “How do you live like this?”

“What do you care?” he asked. “If you’d move back in and do what you’re supposed to do, I wouldn’t have to live like this.”

Her brain worked to reassemble coherent thought.

He pulled out a chair and sat down hard. “What else do you have to do? You don’t have a family.”

“You are my family,” Bryony said, her inner scramble for equanimity ongoing.

Her father looked at the floor, his voice lower. “You’re selfish, like your mother.”

Another insult to her perception of reality. Her mother had never been selfish. Her mother had been kind and generous. Her father must be losing his mind.

Bryony took a breath, pulled out a second chair, and sat across from him. “There’s a new place out by the highway. You would have your own room, and they provide meals and housekeeping.”

“Places like that cost too much money.”

“You can afford it with your pension and selling the house. We can help.” Calm now, Bryony’s mind reviewed numbers in preparation to lay out a solid plan for her father’s future security and comfort.

“We who?” Her father looked up, sour-faced.

“Mitch and I can help.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her father pushed out of the chair and headed for the living room.

“What am I going to do?” she mumbled under her breath before calling after him, “What will you eat for dinner?”

“I’ll order a pizza,” he called back.

Bryony looked again at the stacks of dishes, pans with baked-on food, and fast food wrappers. Should she stay and clean up? No. She could not let herself be funneled into the vortex of tasks created by her father’s state of mind. He was in trouble, and there would be no easy fix. The dishes were the least of their worries, though she did move the newspapers from the top of the stove to the back porch. The possibility of a house fire made her shudder.

Pulling out her cell phone, Bryony ordered her father’s favorite pizza and a salad for delivery, and paid with her credit card.

Before she left, she kissed him on the top of his head.

“You’re blocking my view!” he roared.

As soon as she was out of the house, before she was off the front porch, she dialed Mitch’s number. His voicemail answered.

“Mitch,” she spoke into the phone. “Dad’s not safe at home. Please call me. We have to do something.”

She was opening her car door when her phone dinged to signal an incoming text.

Kind of busy here. You figure it out and let me know what you decide. Mitch added a thumbs up emoji.

Where was the emoji for feeling crushed under the weight of grief and over responsibility?

CAL’S HEARTY REUNION WITH AN OLD FRIEND

Tripping as he stepped out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Cal almost ran into someone arriving. He saw first the camel coat ending below her knees. His hand brushed her arm before he could catch himself. Cashmere, definitely. He started to apologize before he raised his head, but stumbled again, this time over his words, when he saw the woman’s face.

Clear blue eyes opened wide with concern, not annoyance. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Cal managed to complete his apology before noticing the tall man by her side. The camel-coated beauty’s companion was tall, Brad-Pitt-handsome, with broad shoulders and a gray wool overcoat.

Another woman stood just behind the man. She was tall, slender, with a runway model pose, sultry eyes, and a slight smirk.

Rudy came through the door behind him, laughing. “Way to go, Cal Forster. You’re number one in grand entrances and exits.”

By this time, Cal was upright and stable, though a bit embarrassed. “I’m really sorry,” he said.

“Cal?” the man asked. “Cal Forster? By golly, it is you.”

The man looked vaguely familiar, but Cal couldn’t place him. Maybe the parent of a student from way back when?