"Happy Thanksgiving, Dad!" Hawkeye said exuberantly into the phone. "You want me to pick you up at 12:30, or are you going to meet me there?"
Every year, they ate Thanksgiving dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Crabapple Cove… which was to say, the more expensive one of the two.
"What?" his father said in a dazed voice that made him sound very unlike Daniel.
Hawkeye cleared his throat, feeling uneasy. "Uh, Thanksgiving dinner. I can pick you up, or we can drive separately, it doesn't matter to me."
"Who is this?"
The confusion in his father's voice made Hawkeye's blood run cold. His pop was not kidding around… he had no idea who he was talking to. "It's Hawkeye, Dad. What's going on?"
"Oh. Hawkeye." But it sounded like he was simply repeating the name, not attaching any significance to it. Hawkeye had to sit down in the kitchen chair, his legs had suddenly become wobbly. Daniel said, "Where did you say we're going?"
"To Thanksgiving dinner. You want to, right? We always do."
"What's that?"
Hawkeye's mouth had gone dry. He swallowed and there was an audible click in his throat. "Do you mean… Dad, do you mean you don't know what Thanksgiving is?"
A long silence that spoke volumes.
"I'm coming over right now. Don't go anywhere, I'm on my way in just a minute or two. OK?"
"All right."
Hawkeye had almost hung up the phone when he stopped, and said one last thing. "Do you know who I am?"
"You're my son. Hawkeye."
Well, there was that, at least. Hawkeye raced to his dad's house and spent his Thanksgiving morning trying to diagnose whatever the hell was wrong with his father.
He wasn't certain that day, or the next, or the next. But over the following weeks it became clear: dementia had begun to take hold of Daniel Pierce.
"Christmas was rough," Hawkeye said, his legs splayed out before him as he slumped on his couch. Not just Christmas had been rough, but the last month and a half had been, ever since his father's condition had announced itself so chillingly.
It was mid-January, and his own personal superhero had arrived from California to provide some much-needed emotional support. Hawkeye was dragging. Keeping the practice going single-handedly, while also dealing with this overwhelmingly sad health problem of his dad's. It was taking a toll.
B.J. was sitting next to him but facing him full-on, watching him closely. "You look exhausted, Hawk."
So exhausted and busy he hadn't even been able to pick up B.J. at the airport. Poor guy had had to take a taxi to get to Hawkeye's house.
Hawkeye nodded agreement to his friend's obviously accurate assessment. With B.J. at his side, he finally had someone to say it to: "I have no earthly idea what to do."
His father was still living alone in that huge house of his, the Victorian that Hawkeye had grown up in. But how much longer could Hawkeye allow that?
"No matter what I suggest, Dad's against it. I tell him I could move into his house. No. I tell him he could move into this house—I have that second bedroom, the Swamp. He could have that room. But no." Hawkeye smiled bitterly. "Don't even ask what happens when I talk about a nursing home."
B.J. reached out, ran a hand up and down Hawkeye's arm soothingly. "I don't think he gets to have any say in the matter, Hawk. If his condition is as bad as you say, he needs around-the-clock care. Period."
Hawkeye nodded. That was not a revelation to him, but Hawkeye was too close to the situation to be objective. His father was… well, his father. He wasn't used to disobeying the man.
"You want my opinion?" B.J. asked.
"Of course."
"Being brutally honest here, Hawk, because I can see how completely wiped you are. There is only one option, and that is he needs to go into a nursing home. You cannot be a full-time doctor to Crabapple Cove and a part-time caregiver to your dad, while being a full-time worrier about everything. It's going to beat you down."
As if he himself had made that speech, Hawkeye felt the dam burst inside him and he broke down in a cathartic release. Of course B.J. was right, and Hawkeye had probably known the solution all along, but hearing it put so plainly—and with such conviction—drove any doubts out of his head. He reached out blindly and grasped B.J., clinging, bringing him close, crying into his shirt.
"This is why I'm here," B.J. mumbled as he held his best friend. "I'm here to help."
"God, Beej… just your being here helps." Hawkeye's face was still buried in B.J.'s shirt, muffling his voice, but the tears were tapering off. "And then you go and solve my life in the first five minutes you're here. What do you do for an encore?"
"For an encore… I make us a macaroni and cheese supper. What do you say?"
Hawkeye pulled himself up to look into B.J.'s sweet, accommodating face. "I say marry me, Dr. Hunnicutt, because you're the complete package."
And just like that, the tears turned to laughter.