January

A beam of late-afternoon sun canted through the mullioned windows of the breakfast room in her parents' house — Dad's house now — casting a checkered shadow across the tile. Phylicia Chandler picked up the last addressed envelope from a stack that'd been nearly a foot high when she and her sisters started writing thank-you notes yesterday afternoon. She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and licked the flap of a pale pink envelope, then pressed the seal with the palm of her hand and passed it to her youngest sister. Britt put the envelope in the "finished" box awaiting a trip to the post office.

"Well, that's done." Finally. She hated that it had taken them two months to get these thank-you notes written and mailed. But Dad had been uncharacteristically indecisive, and they were all scrambling to catch up with work and everything else in their lives.

She looked past her sisters into the living room where the Christmas tree still sat — at the end of January — its white lights twinkling even now, thanks to the automatic timer. Dad wouldn't have put up a tree at all if she and her sisters hadn't insisted. But now Phee regretted pushing him, and the tree seemed to mock them, a garish reminder of their first Christmas without Mom.

It wasn't like Dad to leave things undone. Turner Chandler had always prided himself on being a get-'er-done kind of guy, even if it meant delegating. But Dad hadn't been himself for a long time.

Phee blew out a weary sigh.

Britt gave her a questioning look. "You okay, Phee?"

Her "baby" sister had asked her that at least twice in the space of an hour, and Phylicia still wasn't sure of the answer. She took a long swig from her iced-tea glass, the last unbroken piece from a set that had been a wedding gift to their parents more than thirty years ago. "I'm fine. Just ... tired." Her words came out muddled, her tongue thick with the residue of envelope glue.

"So, what do you guys think we should do with the memorial money?" Britt swiveled and put her stockinged feet on the seat of the chair beside her. "Dad said something about planting trees at the Langhorne City Park, but last time I checked they were taking trees out of that park."

"Not to mention we have over four thousand dollars." Joanna frowned and placed a hand on the stack of sympathy cards they'd been sorting through for two days now. "That's a lot of trees."

"Do we have to decide right now?" Britt asked. "I think Dad should be in on the decision."

"Britt, if we were waiting on Dad, these thank-you notes still wouldn't be written." Phee went to the other side of the kitchen island and placed the kettle on the burner. A swift click-click-click of the gas, and the burner flickered to life. She didn't even like hot tea, but it had become a habit, making tea for her parents each evening. Now, the kitchen felt foreign without Mom in it — despite the fact that Mom hadn't set foot in this room since last October, too weak by then to get out of bed. "I'm wiped out."

Joanna gave her a wan smile. "It'll be okay, sis. We're all weary. Things will look better tomorrow."

Would they? Joanna, although she was three years younger than Phylicia, had always played the mother hen, and even more so after Mom became ill. The eternal optimist, Joanna had told them the same thing that night two months ago when their mother had taken her last breath after three long years of battling pancreatic cancer.

Phee centered the pot on the burner. While she appreciated Joanna's outlook, and while she had felt relief knowing that Mom's struggle was over, that she was finally free from the agonizing pain that had marked her final weeks on earth, Phee still couldn't truthfully say things were better.

Not with Dad off in Florida as of two days ago, leaving the three of them to figure out what the next chapter of their lives would look like. They'd all put their lives on hold to usher Mom into heaven. And Phee had expected they'd spend the next few months dealing with the aftermath of Mom's illness. And with helping their father grieve. Helping Dad figure out what was next for him.

But it was starting to look as if he already knew what was next — as if he were the only one of them who did know what was next. Not that he'd shared that information with them. Dad had been vague about ... well, everything. About why he had to go out of town and what, exactly, he was doing in Orlando. And about when he would return.

She glanced up at the array of empty vases on the counter that, until she'd taken it upon herself to clean them out yesterday, had held funeral flowers. So many arrangements had been sent to the house after Mom's passing that they'd overwhelmed the air with their cloying scent. One bright turquoise-colored vase caught her eye. Ironically, Phee had chosen the pretty vase herself and arranged the flowers at her job at Langhorne Blooms. None of the other hospice workers had sent flowers, and Phee had thought it a bit too ... personal at the time. Especially the way the young nurse, Karleen Tramberly, had signed the card with "My heart and soul go out to you." Soul? That seemed a little over the top. But then, Phee had been surprised by how overly sensitive she'd become since losing Mom.

Still, Phee couldn't shake the suspicion that she was with Dad. A woman she and her sisters had met only a handful of times during those last weeks, but who'd seemed on awfully close terms with Dad. Karleen actually lived in Orlando but was originally from Cape Girardeau and was filling in for the director of the hospice organization in Cape. Karleen had been nothing but helpful and warm, even attending Mom's funeral service, which had surprised Phee.

And maybe that was all the woman was to Dad — a kind nurse who'd taken good care of his beloved wife. But looking back, something had struck Phee as ... off from the very beginning. She hadn't dared voice her concerns to her sisters yet. And she wouldn't. Not unless there turned out to be something to her hunch.

But hospice nurse or not, something was going on with Dad. And it wasn't good. Not only had he met with Karleen Tramberly twice — that she knew of — in the two months since the funeral, but what man left his daughters to tie up all the loose ends so soon after his beloved wife's funeral?

She and her sisters had written every last thank-you note, yet he'd left them hanging about what to do with the memorial money, and as far as she knew, he'd done nothing about ordering Mom's headstone. Dad had dropped the ball big-time.

On Thursday, Phee had taken yet another day off from the flower shop to drive Dad to St. Louis to catch a flight to Orlando. With so many things still undone. And even though he'd said the trip was for business, Dad had seemed almost ... excited to leave town. The construction company he contracted for had sent him to Florida a few times over the years, so maybe the trip was legit. But according to Dad's own complaints, with all the work he'd missed while Mom was dying, he was so far behind on projects here in Missouri that he had no business leaving town.

Joanna scraped her chair back on the Italian tile and carried her coffee cup and Phee's iced-tea glass to the sink. "No, we don't have to decide right now."

"About what?" Britt...