At Home, part 31

Just before Sally arrived we got word that my dad was ill. “I had a chest X ray, and they found a spot on my lung, about the size of a dime,” he told me by phone. He was scheduled for surgery.

It was scary news, but Dad didn’t seem too worried, so I didn’t worry too much either. I made a quick trip home to be there for the surgery, which went well. Sally was concerned about coming to Spain while he was recovering from the operation, but he was doing well enough, and there didn’t seem to be much she could do to help, so she and her family came ahead.

We spent a few days together at the house before going to Playa Montroig. We took everyone around Madrid, and Julie and Lisa gave their cousins what they called the Kids’ Tour of the Prado: We sat in the car outside the museum, and Julie pointed to it and said, “There’s the Prado.”

One night we hired a babysitter for the kids and took a walking tour with Everett Rice, my Spanish art history teacher. He customarily led several of these during the summer, usually followed by a group dinner at a restaurant in the part of town he was covering. For us, it was the old part of Madrid just outside the Plaza Mayor, an area I didn’t know well. It was lovely to walk the cobblestone streets at dusk, feeling the air grow cooler, seeing the warm lights bathe the old buildings. Everett rambled on pleasantly about the history of the area, the architecture of the buildings, and the changes he’d seen in the neighborhood during his 35 years in Madrid.

We stopped at a typical restaurant, with a canopy over numerous tables on the sidewalk, and had a leisurely dinner with the group. Doug and Sally enjoyed the classic Spanish meal, and we relaxed over good Rioja wine. After a couple of hours it was time to settle up, and Everett got the check.

In his best absentminded professor manner, he studied it for a moment, then said, “Mike, you work for an accounting firm. Perhaps you could divide this for us.”

Mike scanned the table briefly and said, “Everett, there are ten people here. I think even you could divide the check.”