Pamela Morsi by Love Overdue Read Free Book Online

fabric. But he could throw his shirts in the wash or throw them away. That’s how he defended his mode of dress to other pharmacists. To himself, he admitted that he didn’t mind being a younger version of his dad. And he’d never seen change, merely for the sake of change, to be the equal to progress.
    Coffee was still dripping through the machine when Amos Brigham showed up at the door. He had the haunted look he sometimes wore. He asked for coffee, but Scott was pretty sure a whiskey might have served him better. Amos didn’t drink. That was probably a good thing.
    As soon as he sat down at the counter, Scott poured each of them a cup and took a seat on a nearby stool.
    Amos and Scott had been pals from childhood, best buddies in high school and college roommates. They had shared the best and worst of each other’s lives. Physically, they couldn’t have been more different. Amos was a big, beefy guy. His hair, clipped military style, was prematurely gray making him seem older than his years. And the aviator glasses couldn’t completely hide the vacant-eyed expression that had been with him since he’d returned from Afghanistan.
    “You don’t look so good,” Scott said.
    Amos shrugged. “Some days I feel almost normal and then something stupid happens to drag me back in.”
    Scott nodded sympathetically. “You know, that prescription that Dr. Kim wrote is still active.”
    Amos sipped his coffee and then replied with a slight shake of his head. “The pills make me too sleepy to drive. Besides, depression medication is for people who are depressed for no reason.”
    There was some truth to that. Mood elevators could only prop up those suffering while natural healing took place. With Amos, however, the sad sense of disconnection lingered. And all his friends and neighbors could do was stand by and watch.
    “I’m okay,” Amos assured him. “I’m having almost as many good days as bad. And I keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s just new situations or new people, sometimes that can throw a wrench in it.”
    Scott listened. Scott nodded. He had no words of wisdom to offer the man, but he didn’t need any. He was fairly certain that Amos had been given as much well-meant advice as a man could stomach.
    Injured animals hide to nurse their wounds, Scott’s dad had told him once. Men sometimes have to do the same thing. But they tend to disappear inside themselves. Scott’s father had done a year of draftee duty stationed on a hospital ship off the coast of Vietnam. The experience had given him a keen eye for human behavior.
    For some reason that the rest of them would probably never know, Amos Brigham had disappeared inside himself.
    Scott thought it might be easier if the guy could see a light at the end of the tunnel, but he didn’t say that. It was none of his business. He changed the subject. That was what a friend was supposed to do.
    “So, did you meet the new librarian?”
    Amos nodded and took a sip of coffee before answering. “I did. She’s young. Late twenties, I’d guess, but she dresses older. Kind of going for that old maid look.”
    “I don’t think we’re supposed to say ‘old maid’ anymore,” Scott pointed out. “The PC term is single working woman.”
    “She’s definitely that. Stuffy business suit, gray on gray with her hair pulled back into a little bun like somebody’s grandmother.”
    “Not my grandma,” Scott said. “She always dressed in canary yellow.”
    “And your mother dresses in purple. I think it runs in the family.”
    Scott nodded acceptance. “That’s why my dad and I have always worn white. So we won’t clash with our womenfolk.”
    “Well, nobody is in danger of clashing with the new librarian. She dresses like a little sparrow. I guess she thinks she has to.”
    “Well, she’s probably smart to, anyway,” Scott said. “Remember Old Man Paske is on the library committee. That ancient reprobate would grope a bass fiddle.”
    Amos