Holiday Homecoming. Pamela Tracy

      Grandpa and Doc Thomas were sitting on the porch when Meredith drove up. While Doc helped Grandpa down the ramp, Meredith opened the passenger-side door and took and stored the walker in the back. When Grandpa found his seat, she said, “Doc, I’d like just a moment.”

      Doc Thomas met her at the end of the car. She shut the hatchback and whispered, “He’s not eating. Maybe four bites at breakfast and not even that at lunch.”

      “You hear that, Ray. Your granddaughter says you’re not eating.”

      “I eat when I’m hungry, and she hasn’t made me pancakes.”

      “You’re going to need your strength during the next few months if you want to get better, Ray.”

      To Meredith, Doc Thomas said, “His ankle’s fine. I took an X-ray of his spine, though, and I didn’t like what I saw. You watch him close. If he slows down anymore—” both of them looked at Grandpa, who was still settling himself into a comfortable position “—I want you to get him into Adobe Hills and to a specialist. I know he has an appointment in January, but it would be good if you can get him in earlier. If he’s to keep living on the farm in the middle of nowhere, he has to be able to walk—no matter how slowly.”

      Doc Thomas said a few more things, mentioned rehabilitation and even surgery.

      “I can walk,” Grandpa groused.

      “At the moment,” Doc Thomas said so softly that only Meredith heard. His expression told Meredith a diagnosis she wasn’t ready to hear.

      Yes, he was eighty-two, but, well, he was Grandpa. The thread that held the family together in so many ways.

      As they drove home, he was quiet, too quiet, not even commenting on her driving. Usually he held on to the door handle and commented, “How fast are you going?”

      Meredith kept shooting him glances, hoping he’d open up, tell her she was driving too fast or something. When he didn’t, she tried talking to him. “Do we need to fill a prescription?”

      He nodded.

      “You want to do that now?”

      He shook his head.

      She’d been communicating with animals for years now—spent more time with them than people, really—and was used to figuring out problems without the exchange of words. But Grandpa was about as easy to read as a hedgehog.

      Either he was overly tired or something had upset him. Or maybe it was a combination of both.

      “I just want to get home, Merry.”

      When they finally got to the farm, she helped him out, opened his walker and then followed behind him as he walked unsteadily to the front door. Pepper came limping from the side of the house, greeting them with a wiggling body. Then, with doggy wisdom, he slowed down even more to walk sedately beside Grandpa.

      Grandpa didn’t even acknowledge him.

      But she knew something was really wrong when he walked past the television and went into his bedroom and shut the door, leaving both Pepper and her in the living room.

      Meredith tried to soothe Pepper. “Come on, boy. I really need you with me, and Grandpa wants time alone.” She spent the rest of the late afternoon and evening walking Grandpa’s land. She found the remnants of a tree house and an old shoe that had probably belonged to Zack. By the time she headed back to Grandpa’s, melancholy had set in. She’d started off looking for the wolf dog but, if she were honest, she’d ended up looking for Jimmy.

      She just wasn’t sure which Jimmy she was searching for, though: the idealistic boy from her youth or the man from yesterday who asked too many probing questions.