St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets

by Annie England Noblin

  “And what about my father?” I asked. “Did you know him? You were her best friend. Surely you knew who the father of your best friend’s child was.”

  Alice’s eyes darted away from mine for the first time in the conversation, and her left hand began to fidget with the grip of her cane. “Not even best friends tell each other everything,” she said quietly. “We all have secrets.”

  I sighed. “I’ve had a good life. It’s not like I wasn’t loved and taken care of. I have great parents. I don’t hate her for giving me up.”

  “Then what is it?” Alice asked.

  I thought about the letters I’d sent Annabelle—the way they all came back, one by one, without ever even being opened. I thought about the way I refused to acknowledge that my birth mother’s refusal to know me had hurt more than I could have ever admitted, to anyone. “It’s nothing,” I replied. “I’m just incredibly overwhelmed, that’s all. I don’t want to deal with the responsibility of whatever it is she wanted me to have. Can’t you give it to someone else?”

  Alice shrugged. “I suppose we can.”

  “Don’t you want it?”

  “Listen,” Alice replied, ignoring my last comment. “Didn’t you tell me during our first conversation that you owed a lot of money?”

  “What?”

  “When you answered the phone,” Alice said patiently. “You thought I was a creditor.”

  I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I lost my job a few weeks ago. I had to move back in with my parents.”

  “So why don’t you just talk with the lawyer? See what you’ve been given. It might turn out that you can sell the house and use it to pay off whoever it is you owe money to.”

  “That’s your suggestion?” I asked. “To profit off my birth mother’s death?”

  To my surprise, Alice chuckled. “Well, I wasn’t going to put it like that, but, Maeve, she wanted you to have it. Whatever you decide to do would have been fine with her, just so long as it was yours.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t know what I can do before then.”

  “What if I could schedule a meeting with you and Gary, tomorrow, at Annabelle’s house? Just listen to what he has to say and consider your options. You can drive back to Seattle after that.”

  I sighed. “Okay, fine, whatever.”

  Alice took that as an invitation to search out the lawyer named Gary and drag him out to the porch where I was still sitting. Trailing him was a tall, thin blond woman. She looked impossibly elegant and out of place, except maybe if she’d been with Abel.

  For some reason, I found myself wondering if the blond woman and Abel were an item, until Alice placed her hand on my shoulder and said, “Maeve, this is Gary Johnson. He’s the lawyer in charge of Annabelle’s estate. I’ll leave you two to chat for a minute or two.”

  I stood up and reached out to take the hand Gary extended. Behind him, I watched Alice take the arm of the blond woman, and together, they walked back inside.

  “She’s pretty,” I said, more to myself than to Gary.

  “Who?” Gary asked. “My wife?”

  “The blond woman is your wife?” I asked, trying to keep the incredulous tone out of my voice.

  The man standing before me wasn’t ugly or anything—he was just . . . odd-looking. With his curly red hair and smattering of freckles combined with his crisp black suit, he looked a bit like how I imagined Carrot Top would have looked if he’d picked a nine-to-five job instead of steroid use. It seemed odd that the glamazon I’d just seen could be married to this man, but then again, who was I to be judging anyone? I didn’t even have a job, and this guy was a lawyer.

  “Her name is Yulina,” Gary continued. “And she’s my wife, yes.”

  “Cool,” I said, hoping he couldn’t read the shock on my face. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “I wish the circumstances could have been better,” he said, and he flashed me a very white smile.

  “So,” I said, wanting to get right to the point. “Alice says that Annabelle left me something in her will.”

  Gary nodded. “Would you prefer to come by my office tomorrow and discuss it, rather than right here out in the open?”

  “I’d rather get it out of the way,” I said. “Unless she left me a porn stash or something.”

  Gary’s expression didn’t change. “No, it’s nothing like that,” he said. “But she did leave you with nearly everything she owned—her house, her car, what was left in her bank account and insurance policy after burial, her cat, etc., etc. I don’t have the list right in front of me, but I can get it and we can discuss further at a more appropriate time.”

  “Her cat?”

  “Yes,” Gary said, his lip curling in what appeared to be disgust. “Her cat, Sherbet. He currently resides at her Maple Street house—just up the street. Alice comes by and feeds him, I think. So far he’s eluded the live trap. He’s a nuisance, according to neighbors.”

  I wanted to sit down again.

  “I know this must be overwhelming for you,” Gary continued, as if he sensed that I was starting to panic. “I had planned to call you after the funeral, but of course, that was before I knew you would actually be here today.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to all of this . . . or what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Will you be in town tomorrow?” Gary asked.

  “I hadn’t planned on it,” I admitted. “But I do have the hotel room for another night or two, so I guess I could stay. How long do you think all of this is going to take?”

  “Let’s meet tomorrow afternoon—say, around four o’clock? I can’t meet before then, because I’ll be in court all day. But if this time is agreeable, I’ll show you the house, and we can talk then.”

  I thought it over. If I stayed another night and then waited around until four p.m. the next day, that would almost inevitably mean I’d have to spend tomorrow night in Timber Creek as well, unless I wanted to drive back to Seattle in the dark, which I hated to do. But what were my other options? I knew I couldn’t ignore this, even though I wanted to.

  “Okay,” I said. “I guess I can do that.”

  “Perfect,” Gary said. “The address is 410 Maple. You can almost see the house from here. From where we’re standing, it’ll be on the right side of the road. If you have any trouble or have any questions before then, let me know.” He handed me a slightly bent card from inside his wallet.

  “Thanks,” I said. As he was turning to walk away, I called after him, “Hey, could you please tell Alice that I had to go? I’ve got some phone calls to make if I’m going to be staying an extra couple of days.”

  “Sure,” Gary replied, waving to me over his shoulder. “Take care.”

  I walked to the curb and stood for a few more seconds before I pulled my keys out of my pocket and slid into the seat of my car. I rested my head against the steering wheel and again resisted the urge to cry.

  Chapter 10

  WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE LEFT YOU A HOUSE?” MY mother asked on the phone that evening. “A whole house?”

  I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn’t see me doing it—well, probably because she couldn’t see me doing it. “A whole house, Mom,” I said. “And a car too, and I guess what little bit of money she had left after the funeral and burial were paid for.”

  “Well, that was kind of her, don’t you think?” my father replied, ever the diplomat. He’d clearly been listening in from his office on the other side of the house.

  “It’s just a lot to deal with,” I said. “And I’m not sure I want the responsibility of sorting out what’s left of someone else’s life.”

  Both of my parents were silent for a second, and then my mother said, softly, “Well, maybe she’d planned to contact you, but she died before she got the chance.”

  I sighed. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m sure you’re right, but I’m overwhelmed, and I want to come home.”<
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  “Then come home right now,” my mother replied. “You don’t have to stay there. We can call our lawyer right now and have her contact this Gary person.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “But I think I need to at least see Mr. Johnson tomorrow and go over everything with him. Then I’ll come home.”

  “Do you want one of us to drive up and be with you?” my father asked. “We could both come, if you need us.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “Call us as soon as the meeting is over,” my mother said.

  “I will,” I replied. “I promise.”

  I ended the call and flopped down on the hotel bed, stomach first. I had text messages from Holly and Eli to answer, but I couldn’t rally the energy at the moment. I thought back to a story I’d written when I first started working for the Lantern. It had been a profile of a new Mariners shortstop who’d worked his way up through high school, college, and AAA baseball, before finally being drafted entirely too old, at thirty-six, to play pro baseball. The player, whose name escaped me and who had lasted only a couple of seasons with the Mariners, had been one of the most optimistic people I’d ever met. He’d reminded me a lot of Eli, both in personality and in circumstance when he’d been younger. The difference was that this guy had spent his entire life in the foster care system and never been adopted.

  I remembered wondering how someone whose life had been so hard, so unfair, could turn out the way he had. My editor had called it “strength of character,” and I’d used the term in my story. Ever since that interview, I’d wondered what my life might’ve been like if my birth mother kept me instead of putting me up for adoption. For all intents and purposes, I’d had an idyllic childhood. I’d been raised by two parents who loved me, gone to good schools, and had plenty of food to eat and a refrigerator that was always full. I’d basically been given every opportunity a kid could be given to succeed.

  And yet here I was, thirty-six and a complete and total mess. There were people in the world who could go through enough hardship for ten people and still rise to the top, while I couldn’t even get up off the bed and return a couple of text messages. Clearly my strength of character needed a little work.

  Groaning, I rolled over onto my back and opened the text from Holly. It read: Call me when you can. Sorry I couldn’t be with you today. Have you seen any more of Abel Abbott? I’m telling everyone I met a famous author. Christine is jealous.

  I grinned, despite my mood. I was sure Christine was jealous. She was one of those crunchy granola outdoor types who probably owned every single book Abel Abbott wrote, just like my brother.

  Before I could stop myself, I opened an Internet search on my phone. I typed in “Abel Abbott” and waited for the results. After a few unsuccessful attempts to connect and a call to the front desk for the Wi-Fi password, my search returned thousands of hits. I ignored the voice of my freshman English professor in my head telling me that Wikipedia was not a credible source and clicked on Abel’s Wikipedia page.

  Professionally, Mr. Abel Joseph Abbot was the author of five nonfiction titles, all of which were New York Times Best Sellers. The majority of what he’d written had been translated into dozens of languages and was even the inspiration for a short-lived television series. His biggest seller was his autobiography, entitled Dead of Winter.

  I scrolled down to read about his personal life. He was born in the Midwest and was the oldest of two. His brother, Arden, was two years younger. His parents had been survivalists, leftover hippies from a bygone era. Abel and his brother spent their formative years living in the Canadian wilderness. When he’d been twelve years old, his parents were caretakers of a small piece of land in Canada. The Canadian winter, often brutal, had been especially so that year. An unexpected blizzard in April prompted Abel’s parents to leave him and his brother at the cabin where they lived to make the trek into the nearest town for supplies. Their parents never returned, and the brothers were forced to stay in the cabin and forage for food and fuel until they could be rescued nearly a month later. They never found the bodies of their parents.

  Abel and Arden were sent to live with their grandparents in Seattle, a huge change from what they’d been used to their whole lives.

  “It was a hard time,” he’d said in an interview with GQ magazine. “I was a kid trying to keep it together for the sake of my brother, and at the end of the day, all I wanted to do was disappear. Since I couldn’t do that, not really, I spent most of my time outside, trying to remember everything my parents taught me about survival and living off the land.”

  There were more quotes from him about writing that I scrolled past, hoping to get to the good stuff. He’d been married at twenty-two years old to a woman he met in college named Claire Hunter. Together they’d had one daughter, and they’d lived much the same life that Abel had known as a child, since both he and Claire were avid outdoorspeople. At the end of the page there was a small paragraph about his wife falling ill after the birth of their daughter. They’d given up their rugged lifestyle for the comfort of small-town living in Washington State. The paragraph ended by saying that Claire had died when their daughter was just two years old.

  I spent another hour perusing various websites and articles about Abel, hoping to find more information, but they all gave the same basic breakdown. His last interview was given not long after his wife died, and the interviewer asked Abel what, if anything, he had to say to his readers.

  “Tell them,” he said, standing up and thus signaling the end of the interview. “Tell them they can all go to hell.”

  Since that interview, he’d stayed out of the public eye. Little was written about him except for a small blurb about his wife’s death, which gave no further information about how she died. There were three more articles begging the question—“What happened to Abel Abbott?” All the articles ended the same way—requests for an interview with the famed, and now reclusive, writer had been denied.

  I was sure Holly had plans to get me to ask him for an interview at Bitch Rant, and I had a feeling she was going to be sorely disappointed in his response. Besides, I really doubted I’d ever see him again. I had one more day in Timber Creek before I beat the pavement back to Seattle, and after the last experience, my days of mingling with any man in the spotlight were over—sexy famous writers included.

  Chapter 11

  I WOKE UP LATE THE NEXT MORNING AND ORDERED ROOM service on Holly’s dime. She’d called me the night before, and when I recounted to her the day, she told me to order dinner on her. I’d fallen asleep before I got the chance, and I figured breakfast was as good a time as any.

  After that I did something I hadn’t done for a long time—I lay in bed and watched bad movies on the Lifetime network until I fell asleep crossways, on top of the covers, wearing only a T-shirt. The next time I opened my eyes, my phone was ringing. It was a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?” I croaked.

  “Maeve?” the man on the other end asked. “Is this Maeve Stephens?”

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting up. “Yes, this is she.”

  “Maeve, this is Gary Johnson. I thought we were meeting at four p.m. today at Annabelle’s house?”

  “Oh shit!” I said, jumping up. “Shit, shit. I’m so sorry.”

  There was a pause, and then Gary said, “When do you think you can be here?”

  “Give me ten minutes.”

  I threw on the least wrinkled clothing I could find in my suitcase, and I pulled my hair back into a bun and threw my deodorant into my purse. It was nearly ten after five before I pulled up next to the house on Maple Street. It took me three wrong turns to find it. Parked in the only parking spot was a sleek gray Lexus SUV, its windows tinted black.

  When Gary saw me pull up, he and his wife stepped out of the Lexus and waved. “I was starting to think you stood us up,” he said. He was smiling broadly, but he sounded slightly annoyed. His curly red hair was slicked back, and his freckles appeared almost glowing.


  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “I want you to meet my wife,” Gary said. “Maeve, this is Yulina.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said, reaching out my hand to her.

  “It is nice to meet you too,” she replied in a thick accent that I couldn’t quite place. “I can see Annabelle in you. The resemblance is very strong.”

  I smiled, because it was the only polite thing I could think of to do. “I’ve heard that before,” I said. “But I have to say, it always surprises me to hear it.”

  “Yulina and I have dinner reservations at six o’clock,” Gary cut in. “They’ll give our table away if we’re late.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up. I fell asleep in the hotel room.”

  “No worries,” he replied, relaxing his jaw.

  I don’t know what I expected to see, but the neat little bungalow had not been it. Alice had been right, though—the houses on this side of the street were a lot smaller. There was a narrow sidewalk leading up to the green-painted privacy fence, which matched the green-clapboard-and-rock exterior of the house.

  “This is an old part of the town,” Gary continued. “Not a bad part, because there aren’t really any bad parts of Timber Creek—some of them are just dingier than others.”

  “Yes,” Yulina replied, speaking up. “And Mr. Abbott is quite close.”

  “You ready to go inside?” Gary asked, jangling the keys in my direction.

  Just as Gary opened the door, an orange shock of fur bolted past us and right through the threshold, knocking Gary off his feet so that Yulina had to steady him.

  “Damn cat,” Gary said under his breath.

  “That is Sherbet,” Yulina said. “He is Annabelle’s cat.”

  “Damn cat,” Gary repeated. “Alice tried to take him home with her, and he just came right back again. Causing a ruckus all over the block.”