Flirting With Pete: A Novel by Barbara Delinsky

was, she couldn’t have possibly fallen back to sleep. Rising from the sofa, she stood for a minute in the middle of the room trying to decide where to go, what to do, how to feel. Waking up in her father’s home was something she’d never done in her life. It was abnormal.
    She needed normal. Coffee was normal.
    So she went upstairs to the kitchen and brewed a pot. While she waited for it to finish, she looked out the back window at the garden, but darkness lingered there. Though the eastern sky was growing brighter by the minute, the sun hadn’t risen high enough to spill over onto her side of the hill.
    Filling a moss green mug with coffee, she went back down the stairs, this time going to the office. Her computer was there. Her Rolodex was there. Normally on a Monday morning, once the hour was reasonable, she would be working with those two and the phone, if not arguing with insurance companies on a client’s behalf, then doing time sheets for billing, which was why she never scheduled a client on Monday before ten. Her first one today was at eleven, and she had to return to her condo for clothes and be back here before then. But it was only five. She had plenty of time.
    Warmed by the coffee, she looked around the office for signs of her father. The only things bearing his name were a pair of diplomas on the wall, but they didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. There were several original botanical prints, framed simply, but while they were beautiful, the only thing they marked was Connie’s ability to purchase them.
    That was it for accolades. A visitor to the office would never know that the man who had lived and worked here had been an icon in his field, that he had received innumerable honors in the course of his career, or that he had been published many times over. Scanning the shelves of books, she couldn’t find any of his— and she would have recognized them on sight. She owned every last one.
    She did spot several of the same reference books that she owned. They were de rigueur for a therapist’s office— precisely the thing, she realized, that a father would pass to a son or daughter entering his field. Setting her mug on the desk, she took down one of the books and opened it, fancying that she might find an inscription, To Casey, from your father, with my love and best wishes for a successful career. She would have been satisfied even without the love part. But the flyleaf was bare.
    She tried a second book and found a second bare flyleaf. Same with a third.
    Disappointed, she studied the shelves of books. Those most readily accessible from the desk were more focused on psychoanalysis than the ones Casey preferred. In a fit of pique, she pulled off the loftiest of the bunch and exiled them to distant slots. Handful by handful, she did the same with the rest until two prime shelves were completely purged. Then she searched the boxes stacked in the hall until she found her own favorite books. In no time, she had them in the place of honor, neatly arranged.
    The reorganization made the shelves look warmer, she decided. Encouraged, she turned her attention to the desk. It was an oversized mahogany affair with three drawers down each side and a shallow pencil drawer in the middle. The chair was leather, large also, with a high back. She sat in it, testing, first forward and back, then left and right. Swiveling left again, she opened the top drawer on that side and found pads of lined yellow paper. The second drawer held a stapler and staples, boxes of lead pencils and red pencils, boxes of paper clips, a microcassette recorder, and a packet of tapes.
    She held the recorder in her hand much as he must have done, and turned it on, hoping to hear his voice, but the tape was blank.
    Replacing it, she closed the drawer and opened the bottom one. The metal brackets said that it had once held hanging files. It was empty now, but wouldn’t be for long. In no time, she filled it with files of her