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did, belying the storm that awaited him inside.
    As he reached the driveway, he leaned his six-foot frame into the turn and rumbled toward the detached garage in the back. A harsh bellow rose from behind the house, heard even over the roar of the Yamaha V-Max’s engine.
    It seems matters had worsened here.
    As he cut the engine, a figure appeared from the backyard, stalking through the rain. It was his younger brother, Kenny. The family resemblance was evident, from his ruddy Welsh complexion to his dark, thick hair.
    But that was the extent of the similarities between the two brothers.
    Gray tugged off his motorcycle helmet and hopped off the bike to face his brother’s wrath. Though they were the same height, Kenny had a beer gut, a feature well earned from a decade living the soft life of a software engineer in California, while nursing a drinking problem. Recently Kenny had taken a sabbatical from his job and returned here to help out with their father. Still, he threatened to head back west almost every week.
    “I can’t take it anymore,” Kenny said, balling his fists, his face bright red with aggravation. “You have to talk some sense into him.”
    “Where is he?”
    Kenny waved toward the backyard, looking both irritated and embarrassed.
    “What’s he doing outside in the rain?” Gray headed toward the rear of the house.
    “You tell me.”
    Gray reached the yard. The single lamp above the kitchen back door offered little light, but he had no trouble spotting the tall man standing near a row of oleanders that bordered the fence. The sight stopped Gray for a moment as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.
    His father stood barefoot and naked, except for a pair of boxers, which clung damply to his bony physique. His thin arms were raised, his face upturned to the rain, as if praying to some storm god. Then those arms scissored together in front of the bushes.
    “He thinks he’s trimming the oleanders,” Kenny explained, calmer now. “I found him wandering in the kitchen earlier. It’s the second time this week. Only I couldn’t get him back to bed. You know how stubborn he can be, even before . . . before all of this.”
    Alzheimer’s .
    Kenny would rarely say the word, as if fearful he might catch it by talking about it.
    “That’s when I called you,” Kenny said. “He listens to you.”
    “Since when?” he muttered.
    While growing up, Gray and his father had had a tumultuous relationship. His father was a former Texas oilman, rugged and hard, with a personal philosophy of grit and independence. That is, until an industrial accident at a drilling rig sheared one of his legs off at the knee. After that, his outlook soured into one of bitterness and anger. Much of which he directed at his eldest son. It eventually drove Gray away, into the Army and finally into Sigma.
    Standing here now, Gray sought that infuriatingly hard man in the frail figure in the yard. He gaped at the ribs, the sagging skin, the map of his spine. This was not even a shadow of his father’s former self. It was a shell, stripped of all by age and disease.
    Gray stepped over to his father and gently touched his shoulder. “Dad, that’s enough.”
    Eyes turned to him, surprisingly bright. Unfortunately it was old anger that shone there. “These bushes need to be cut back. The neighbors are already complaining. Your mother—”
    Is dead .
    Gray bit back a twinge of guilt and kept a firm grip on his father’s shoulder. “I’ll do it, Dad.”
    “What about school?”
    Gray stumbled to match the old man’s timeline, then continued smoothly. “I’ll do it after school. Okay.”
    The fire dulled in his father’s bleary blue eyes. “You’d better, boy. A man is only as good as his word.”
    “I’ll do it. I promise.”
    Gray led him to the back porch and into the kitchen. The motion, the warmth, and the brighter light seemed to slowly help his father focus.
    “Gr . . . Gray, what are you doing here?” his