Read Online Then Sings My Soul by Amy K. Sorrells - Free Book Online

from here, son. Thank you for your help today.” Jakob reached out to shake Billy’s hand, and Billy grabbed him by the elbow as Jakob lurched toward him on his increasingly bad hip.
    â€œOkay, Mr. Stewart. See you tomorrow.”
    Jakob patted him on the shoulder as he moved past in a heavy hobble. He tugged on the back door that stuck a little before opening to the deck, then the yard, then the sharp drop-off to the lake, dappled at that hour with diamonds of afternoon sunlight. He hadn’t intended to startle his daughter, but the sudden release of the decrepit door made her jump as she turned to him. She had aged beautifully like her mother. The resemblance caught his breath.
    â€œHi, Dad.”
    He watched the wind blow her hair around her face, how she brushed it away from her small nose—Catherine’s nose—and her brown eyes.
    â€œEleanor.” He coughed slightly, then swallowed against the dryness of his throat. “Welcome home.”
    â€œThanks.” She leaned back against the railing and pushed her glasses up on her nose.
    Jakob noticed her face was wet with tears.
    â€œSo,” she said with a sniff. “What are we gonna do now?”

CHAPTER 7
    Nel and Jakob embraced. As Nel put her arms around her father, the broad shoulders and most of his height remained as she remembered, but the weightiness, the sturdiness of what were once robust muscles felt doughy and lank, even though it’d been only two Christmases ago that she’d seen him. She backed away, keeping a hand on his upper arm.
    â€œHow are you, Dad?”
    The diminishment of his frame caught her off guard. His eyes, hazel, rheumy, and droopy, like a surprised basset hound, softened before he looked away from her toward the lake.
    â€œI’m okay.” He sighed and shook his head, his gaze settling on his loafers. “I didn’t think … I thought she’d always be here.”
    â€œLet’s get out of this wind,” Nel suggested, reaching for the door. She held it open and frowned as she watched him totter in. He favored his left hip, and Nel recalled how her mother had said something recently about how he needed to have the right one replaced, but that no surgeon would operate on him because of his advanced age. He’d had the left hip done when he was eighty-six, and she’d stayed with them for a nearly a month then. He’d had both knees done when he was younger, shortly after she’d left for Santa Fe. He looked every bit of ninety-four as Nel watched him lean into the aluminum cane he must’ve found at a fishing show, if she’d had to guess. Where else could someone find a cane with digital pictures of walleye swimming up and down the shaft?
    â€œThree o’clock already.” Jakob raised his eyebrows, long untended and bushy, to glance at the cuckoo clock squawking on top of the mantle. He let his body fall heavily into one of the paired wingback chairs closest to him.
    â€œHow did things go at the funeral home? What can I do—”
    â€œIt’s taken care of,” he interrupted. “All planned. She wrote it all out, had it taped to the inside front cover of her Bible.”
    He’d told Nel this before on the phone, but she didn’t want to make him feel bad by reminding him. She wondered if forgetfulness like this was what Mattie had been referring to. She decided to dismiss it, considering much worse stories she’d heard about people with dementia.
    â€œAre there friends I can call? Neighbors? People who might not read the paper?”
    â€œNo, no one.”
    â€œMattie said she’ll bring us dinner around five.”
    â€œI’ll never starve if she has anything to do with it.”
    Nel was glad to see him chuckle at that. “Mattie hasn’t changed much.”
    â€œNo, she hasn’t. Same good girl she’s always been.”
    Now that Jakob was home, she could at least try to relax and