Free Two Tall Tails by Sofie Kelly

“Tom and Katie say hello and Molly made you this.” I handed over the card.
    Katie had slipped it into a large brown envelope. Angie pulled out the folded sheet of construction paper and smiled. “She made this all by herself?”
    I nodded. “That’s a self-portrait inside so you won’t feel lonesome.”
    Angie looked at Molly’s drawing. “It looks like her,” she said. “Do you think Katie and Matt would let me give her art lessons for her birthday?”
    â€œMaybe you could start with some art supplies,” I suggested.
    I set a china cup and saucer down on the tray table next to the professor’s bed. It held a small green and white Haworthia plant. We sold the tiny arrangements at Second Chance, and they seemed more like Angie’s style than an arranged bouquet of flowers.
    â€œSarah, that’s beautiful,” Angie said, turning the saucer in a slow circle on the table.
    â€œI’m glad you like it,” I said. “Oh, and I almost forgot.” I leaned over, careful to avoid Angie’s injured arm and gave her a sideways hug. “That’s from Molly, too.”
    â€œBetter than any medicine,” she declared. Her hair was pulled back in a loose braid and I could see the edge of a bandage peeking out of the neck of her pajamas.
    â€œHow does your shoulder feel?” I asked.
    â€œPretty good, actually,” Angie said. She gestured at my splinted left hand. “How’s therapy going?”
    â€œNot as fast as I’d like,” I said. “But it’s been suggested that I’m a little impatient.” I looked around the small room. “Would you like to go for a walk?”
    Angie nodded. “Please. Or I really might start tearing up the sheets.”
    We headed down the hallway together and Angie explained the surgery that had repaired her broken clavicle. A nurse in lavender teddy bear scrubs passed us, smiling at Angie.
    She caught the woman’s arm. “Could I go outside to the garden?” she asked.
    â€œI’ll stay with her,” I offered.
    â€œAll right,” the nurse said. “But don’t overdo it.”
    â€œI won’t,” Angie said. “Thank you.”
    The garden was a small outside terrace at the end of the hall, with benches and raised planters. Angie turned her face up to the afternoon sun and sighed happily. “It feels so good to be outside.”
    I steered her over to a bench, mindful of the nurse’s admonition not to overdo.
    â€œI’m so glad you came,” Angie said, pulling the wrinkled blue robe a little tighter around her. “You’re my first visitor since the surgery.”
    Jason hadn’t been to see his aunt, I realized, even though family had been permitted to visit Angie from the beginning.
    â€œTell me what I’ve been missing,” she urged.
    I told her about Elvis having dispatched the vole that liked to eat Tom’s flower bulbs and how I’d used peanut butter to get the burdocks out of his fur. I didn’t say anything about Jason’s interactions with Tom and Katie. There was nothing the professor could do, and I didn’t want her to worry.
    â€œI hope I can come home in a couple of days,” Angie said, shifting on the bench. I noticed her wince and guessed that the shoulder was a bit more painful than she was letting on. “Jason is between jobs at the moment so he’s offered to stay and help me for a while.”
    My heart sank. I hoped my face didn’t give my feelings away. “Are you going to have the carpet taken off the stairs?” I asked.
    Angie nodded. “Jason is going to do that for me. I don’t have a lot of faith in that installer. He was supposed to have fixed that loose edge but I think he just made things worse. Not only was that section still loose but Jason said there was a small nail that hadn’t been hammered in all the way.”
    Katie had said