Evergreen

by Susan May Warren

  Ingrid took off her slicker, hanging it on a hook in the entryway. Apparently they were sticking around. He pulled off his, too, and returned to see Kate starting an IV.

  “Can you help her?” Ingrid said.

  John put his hand on Ingrid’s shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes wet. Then she leaned against him. He slid his arm around her as she fit into the cradle of his embrace.

  “Butter has bloat, and we need to work fast,” Kate said. “I need to slow her heart rate down and get some fluids in her, or she’ll go into shock. Then I need to get her stomach decompressed.”

  Ingrid clung to him as Kate worked on Butter. She finished inserting the IV, then turned to John. “I need to put in a stomach tube, and since my assistant is still ten minutes away, I’ll need your help, John.”

  She took a tube from a drawer and ran it from Butter’s mouth to her rib cage, marking the distance with a piece of tape. Then she inserted a plastic block with a hole in the center into Butter’s mouth, wedging it open, and taped the block in place.

  Butter groaned with the ministrations and even more when Kate inserted the lubricated tube into her mouth. Ingrid pressed her hands to her face, and even John gritted his teeth, watching Butter struggle.

  But the dog swallowed the tube down. Kate gently slid it into the esophagus, working it into Butter’s stomach.

  Suddenly gas and fluid began to spill from the tube.

  Butter whined.

  “John, pick up Butter and hold her in a standing position.”

  He obeyed, and Kate massaged the dog’s abdomen to expel the rest of the fluids. Then, finally, she extracted the tube. John put Butter back on the table. The dog closed her eyes, breathing better.

  “Is it over?” Ingrid said.

  Kate washed her hands in the sink, grabbed a paper towel. “I’m afraid not. That was just to save her life.” She threw the towel into the trash. “I need to get X-rays to confirm, but I believe Butter has gastric dilatation, or torsion. It means that her stomach has twisted and she is not able to eat or digest her food. There are toxins in her body as a result of the fermentation in her stomach. It could rupture, or she could even have a heart attack.”

  Ingrid nodded, her face pale.

  Kate sighed. “She’ll need surgery, something called gastropexy. It untwists the stomach and tacks it in place.”

  Surgery. John had already glanced at the fees when hanging up his rain slicker. This visit alone meant he’d have to downgrade their hotel in Paris.

  “Could it happen again?” Ingrid asked.

  “If she doesn’t have the surgery? Yes, and most likely her situation will become graver more quickly.”

  “She’ll die.”

  “In great pain.”

  “And if she has the surgery?”

  Kate pressed her fingers against Butter’s femoral artery, along one of her hind legs. “It could still happen again, although it’s much less likely.”

  Ingrid ran her fingers along her cheek, wiping away the wetness there.

  John put his hand on her shoulder, hating the decision they’d have to make. “I’m so sorry, Ingrid.” He looked at Kate. “Maybe we should give Tiger a chance to say good-bye—he’s awfully attached to Butter. Can you keep her until morning?”

  Kate nodded.

  “What are you talking about?” Ingrid had rounded on him.

  Uh . . . “Don’t you think Tiger would want to say good-bye?” He frowned. “Maybe you’re right; maybe it’d be too hard for him—”

  “Say good-bye? John. Are you seriously suggesting we put Butter to sleep?”

  The silence in the room turned deadly, and in a second he realized his folly. He swallowed. Glanced at Butter, eyes closed, miserable on the table. “She’s old—”

  “She’s family, John. You don’t . . . you don’t euthanize your family.”

  “She’s a dog, Ingrid.” He reached for her, but she jerked away. He looked at Kate. “How much is the surgery?”

  “She’d have to stay for a week at least. . . . Maybe five thousand?”

  “Dollars?”

  “Well, it’s not in pennies, John.” Ingrid backed up, her hand on Butter. “But last time I checked our savings, we had that and more. We’ve got the money—and Butter needs this surgery.”

  He stood there, trying not to let her words send him reeling, trying not to hear the howl inside. “Ingrid. Be reasonable. It’s five thousand dollars. I had plans . . .” He ran his hand behind his neck, turned away. Big plans.

  “What plans could possibly be more important than saving Butter’s life? A new snowmobile? Maybe repairs on the car?”

  “How about a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe to see your daughter for Christmas?”

  He didn’t mean for his words to carry such a sharp edge—didn’t mean to say them at all, really. But that’s what she did—drove him beyond himself sometimes. Drove him to make decisions out of his control.

  Drove him to be the one to face reality.

  John took a breath and faced her. He could admit he’d sort of hoped she’d hear his words, let them sink in. In his wildest dreams she actually smiled at him. Agreed.

  Not a chance.

  Ingrid’s mouth was a tight bud of anger. She shook her head. “So this was why you didn’t want to do the live Nativity. Because you wanted to spend our savings on a crazy trip to Europe?”

  “I thought it would be a nice surprise.” He noticed how Kate had grabbed her stethoscope.

  “A surprise is flowers, an overnight trip to Minneapolis, even—let’s go wild—diamond earrings. A surprise is not stealing me away from my home for Christmas—”

  “But no one except Darek and Ivy will be here. And they have their own family now!”

  “I’ll be here. And Butter—Butter will be here. I know the kids are moving on with their lives and that Christmas won’t be the same, but it doesn’t mean we have to run away. How do you think Amelia would feel if we showed up in Prague only to tell her that we had to bury Butter?”

  A tear dripped off her chin. “Don’t you know me at all, John? I don’t want a trip to Europe. I want the dog you gave me to live.”

  The dog he gave her. In a clarifying moment, he saw it.

  He’d brought Butter home just a month after they’d lost their last child to a miscarriage.

  He ground his jaw tight and nodded to Kate. “Do whatever you need to do to save Butter’s life.”

  Then he turned, grabbed his slicker, and headed back out to the van, where the rain stirred up the mud and chill of the dark autumn night.

  INGRID ADDED STEVIA to her pumpkin latte and gave it a stir before meeting Noelle Hueston by the door of the coffee shop. “I can admit it was a sweet gesture. I mean, of course I miss Amelia. And I’d love to see Prague. But Butter is part of the family.”

  Noelle nodded and held the door open for her. After the rain a week ago, autumn was creeping in more every morning, a sharp chill to the air hinting at the winter hovering just a month or so away. Ingrid had finally scrounged up the enthusiasm to tackle the live Nativity project by rooting out the supplies from community storage. Thankfully, Noelle had shown up to work, her blonde hair tucked under a red bandanna, a vest over her thermal shirt.

  “I’m sure John will come around,” Noelle said. “Sometimes men simply can’t see how to fix something, so they walk away. Like Eli did after Kelsey died. He even packed up all of Kelsey’s things as if wiping her out of our lives would make it better.”

  How Noelle and Eli had managed to put their lives back together after the murder of their daughter still amazed Ingrid.

  “How is Butter doing?”

  “She’s up and around. Recovered from the surgery, although the vet says it’ll take a while for her to be fully back to normal.”

  “And John?”

  “Still grieving his trip to Europe.” They crossed the street to the old real estate office–turned–community storage, and Noelle dug out the keys, courtesy of her hus
band, who’d picked them up from Seb Brewster, the mayor.

  “Sure, I would love to go,” Ingrid continued. “But not right now. What if Casper—and maybe even Owen—wanted to come home for Christmas?”

  Noelle eased the door open, and shadows fell over the array of Deep Haven accoutrements: boxes of garland that wound around the light poles along Main Street; the lighted candy canes and wreaths; banners for the annual dragon boat races, Fourth of July, art fair, and Moose Madness festivals; the Christmas lights for the tree in the park. Even the costume for the Deep Haven Huskies mascot had managed to find its way into the assortment.

  A cornucopia of hometown pride.

  Ingrid shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re still doing a community live Nativity after all these years.”

  “I know. But it’s part of the landscape of Deep Haven. And besides, this year you, the Christiansens, are heading it up. It’s going to be fabulous.”

  Right. If she and John were still talking to each other by then. They were like the old live Nativity tradition—soldiering on despite a lack of attendance. Ingrid began to search for the costumes, the manger, the lights and props.

  “What are the chances of the boys coming home for Christmas?” Noelle asked.

  Ingrid unearthed a box marked Wings. “Slim. None. Casper e-mailed me a few days ago and said he loved Roatán. He can’t leave his work.”

  “And Owen?”

  Ingrid swallowed past the boulder in her throat. Opened the box and found torn and tangled wings. Sighed. “I haven’t heard from him since Eden’s wedding.” She’d hoped he’d rejoined the hotshot firefighting team in Montana, but an e-mail to the head of the team had dispelled that hope.

  Noelle had paused in her search. Ingrid looked up.

  “I’m sure he’s okay,” Noelle said softly. “Time heals all wounds.”

  Really? She didn’t want to say it, but she doubted even Noelle believed that. “I know. I just can’t get past this idea that we need to do something. I’m still their mother, even if they are adults, and I should help them fix this. But if I interfere, it could make it worse.”

  “You’ll never stop being their mother, but the fact is, you can’t pick them up, kiss them, and make it all better anymore.”

  Ingrid smiled at the image of baby Darek flinging himself into her arms.

  Maybe not, but she wanted to. She still had plenty of good mom left in her. She closed up the box. “So I have wings, and there’s the manger.”

  “And I found the Mary and Joseph costumes.”

  “But where’s the set? There should be a barn or something.”

  Ingrid’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the number but didn’t recognize it. Bracing herself for a telemarketer, she answered.

  “Is Ingrid there?” The voice on the other end bore the washboard tones of a lifelong smoker. At first she didn’t recognize it, but then . . .

  “Kari? Is this you?”

  “Hey, Sis.”

  Hey, Sis. Sixteen years since Ingrid had heard, Hey, Sis. Not since the day Kari called looking for a place to land.

  The day John had turned her away. Not that Ingrid blamed him, really. But the simplicity, the significance of her greeting rang through time and hollowed Ingrid out. “Are you okay? How did you get this number?” She hadn’t exactly meant it to come out angry, but she heard the catch in her sister’s voice, so she hurried to add, “It doesn’t matter. How are you?”

  “I called the house, and Darek answered. He gave it to me.” Kari’s voice trembled, and Ingrid couldn’t bear to imagine where she might be. In a hospital or even in jail, calling for bail money.

  No, that thought seemed mean. Probably her sister had happily remarried, finally built a new life for herself and her younger son, Romeo.

  She’d heard from her parents that the Army had redeployed Matthew, Kari’s older son, for another tour of duty. Maybe . . . “Is Matthew okay?”

  “Yeah. He’s fine. He’s still overseas until Thanksgiving. And that’s why I’m calling.”

  Noelle glanced at Ingrid, then grabbed a box and headed out to the Caravan.

  “I need someone to take Romeo until his brother gets home.”

  “Take Romeo?”

  A hiccup of breath, sounding too much like crying. But Ingrid resisted the urge to comfort Kari. Her sister had made a mess of her life, starting with her affair with Romeo’s father, which ended her marriage and launched her two children into a life with live-in boyfriends, eviction notices, and welfare.

  “I’m going into treatment . . . at least until Christmas, and I have no one to take him.”

  True. Their mom couldn’t handle a sixteen-year-old kid, not with Dad’s Alzheimer’s creeping up on him. She had her hands full visiting him at the nursing home every day.

  “Please, Ingrid. I know we haven’t talked for a while—”

  “Sixteen years, Kari. You’ve ignored all my letters.”

  “I know . . .”

  Ingrid was sure there must be a defense hanging off the end of that sentence. But maybe Kari had grown up, because she said nothing.

  Or maybe she really did need Ingrid. “Why now? Can’t you wait until Matthew gets home?” Not that she didn’t want her sister to get help if she needed it, but—“I mean, aren’t you living with someone—?”

  “It’s court ordered. I was arrested and . . . I’m leaving tomorrow. I tried calling you last week, but I couldn’t get ahold of you, and then I thought maybe I could put it off, but we lost the request for a delay of sentence, so . . .”

  Sentence? Oh, she didn’t want to know. “Where are you?”

  “Duluth. The social worker said she could bring him tonight. I’ll sign papers to make you and John his legal guardians. It’s just until Matthew comes home.”

  Ingrid sighed. Noelle returned for the box of crushed wings.

  “Yes, Kari. We’ll take Romeo.”

  “I figured it out.” John shot a nail into the two-by-four, securing it to the top plate for the back wall of Darek’s house.

  Overhead, the blue sky stretched without blemish across the horizon. A slight wind bullied the leaves off the trees and across the decking of Darek’s unfinished house. After living in the lodge following the fire, then in an apartment in town once he and Ivy got married, Darek hoped to have the interior walls finished and the roof shingled by the first snowfall.

  “Your mother is afraid of the empty nest.” John had taken off his jacket and worked in a thermal shirt and his jeans, a stocking cap over his bald head. Next to him, Darek wore his tool belt, a pair of work jeans, a short-sleeved shirt printed with the words Jude County Hotshots.

  Darek put down the next board, shoring it up to the pencil mark on the top plate. “I think she just didn’t want Butter to die, Dad. I mean, I guess I agree with Mom.”

  John looked at him.

  Darek held up a gloved hand. “Okay, yeah, I see your point. Five grand is a chunk of cash.”

  “For a dog.”

  “Our dog, Dad. Butterscotch is a part of the family.” He held the board in place, picked up the gun.

  There were moments when Darek seemed more like a friend than his eldest son, and John sometimes caught himself talking out of turn.

  But certainly Darek would understand this. “I know she is. And I didn’t know how much until I realized that Butter, in a way, took the place of Benjamin.”

  Darek glanced up, catching him with his blue eyes, so much like Ingrid’s. He frowned under his gimme cap.

  “Your little brother.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Darek went back to his work. “It’s just, we don’t talk about him.”

  “I always thought it might be too difficult for your mom. She took it hard.”

  “I did too. We thought we’d have a little brother for Christmas.”

  Christmas. Yeah, he’d forgotten that Benjamin had been due in late November.

  “We got Butter instead.” Darek nailed the
board into place. “You got that bottom plate?”

  John picked up the two-by-six and began to nail it across the bottom of the wall. “Getting your mother a dog to ease her pain after the miscarriage probably wasn’t the brightest gift, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “I think it was the perfect gift, Dad.” Darek kicked some of the wallboards into place, held them as his dad nailed them. “Except, can I ask why you and Mom never had another child?”

  The question stirred up the memory, the swift rush of pain to his chest. “I nearly lost your mother, too, that day. I decided that six kids were enough.”

  Darek went silent. Then, “With nearly losing Butter, maybe Mom is reliving all that pain again.”

  Since when had Darek gotten so insightful? “You sound like an old married man.”

  Darek laughed. “I am. And . . . I’m going to be a dad again.”

  John looked at him, and Darek grinned. Nodded.

  “Really. When?”

  “Sometime this spring. Ivy just found out this week. Don’t tell Mom yet—we’re going to surprise her at Christmas.”

  “I’m not sure you should wait that long.”

  “Ivy’s idea. She wants to give Mom a picture of the ultrasound for Christmas.”

  “Another good reason why leaving for Christmas wasn’t my best idea.” John finished nailing the bottom plate and set down the gun. “But I have to admit: I never thought it would land me in the doghouse.”

  “It’s not the trip, Dad. Mom’s upset about Owen and Casper. And the fact that they’re fighting. And maybe, yeah, this Butter thing has stirred up the past. Maybe she’s just seeing an end too soon to her mothering.” He positioned himself on the far end of the wall, next to John.

  “I thought she’d be thrilled to have the house to ourselves. You know, with Naked Tuesday and everything.”

  Darek looked at him, appalled. “Really? You had to say that?”

  John grinned.

  Darek shook his head. “Pick up that end and start acting like my father.”

  John laughed. “On the count of three.”