“Studying,” Abel replied. “She thinks I don’t know that the boy she’s studying with is her boyfriend.”
“I remember those days,” I said.
“Oh, you do?” Abel asked, an amused glint in his eye.
“It’s just being a teenager,” I said. “Or weren’t you ever one?”
“I might’ve been,” he replied.
“Well,” I continued. “Teenage girls don’t like their parents to know when they’ve got a boyfriend.”
“Your parents,” Abel began. “They live in Seattle?”
I nodded. “Yep. That’s where I grew up.”
“You’ve always lived there?”
Again I nodded. “Yep.”
I knew better than to ask him, well, anything about his parents, and I should have known better than to ask anything about his wife too. It seemed as if there were lots of things Abel Abbott didn’t like to be questioned about.
“So,” Abel continued. “What did you think of Annabelle’s house?”
“It was cute,” I said. “It actually looks a lot like my old apartment back in Seattle. I guess she passed down her inability to decorate.”
“She never was one for having stuff lying around she didn’t need.”
“Except yarn,” I interrupted. “Her entire bedroom was full of yarn.”
“Okay,” Abel replied. “That’s true. I think between her and Alice, they own more yarn than the entire knitting store downtown.”
“What’s the deal with their weird secret society?” I asked.
“St. Francis?” Abel asked. “It’s hardly secret.”
I sighed. “You know what I mean. Everybody talks about it like it’s the illuminati or something.”
Abel shrugged. “It’s just a bunch of women knitting,” he said. “Seems pretty ordinary to me.”
“Fine,” I said. “Knitting seems like such an old lady thing to do, though. I mean, Alice isn’t that old, and I guess Annabelle wasn’t either.”
“I guess they’ve been doing it since they were kids,” Abel replied. “I heard Alice talking about it once. Besides, the knitting club that they’re in does lots of good for the community.”
“Doesn’t Alice seem a bit, I don’t know, tough to be in a knitting club?”
Abel laughed. “She is tough. I guess she’s had to be, the way she grew up, especially with her leg the way it is. People weren’t very understanding of physical disabilities like hers when she was a kid. At least, that’s the way she tells it.”
“Didn’t she and Annabelle grow up in the same house?” I asked. “I mean, after Annabelle’s parents died?”
“I imagine Alice will tell you this in her own time,” Abel replied, pouring us our third beer. “But Alice’s father was an alcoholic, and he could be abusive. It’s not really a secret, so I don’t mind telling you that part, but I know it was hard on Alice and her brother and Annabelle, even though she never talked about Alice’s father.”
I sat back. “Was he abusive to Alice? To Annabelle?”
“I don’t know,” Abel replied honestly. “Neither one of them ever talked about that.”
“Are Alice’s parents still alive?” I asked.
“No,” Abel said. “Alice’s father was gone before I moved to town, and her mother died a couple of years ago. She still lives in the house where she grew up, though. I help her out sometimes, with yard work and keeping the place up. It’s a little run-down.”
Before I could ask anything else, Abel’s phone began to ring, and he excused himself to answer it. After a few minutes, my glass was empty, and he still hadn’t returned, so I began to wander around the living room, which was a large open space just off the kitchen.
The fireplace at the end of the far wall had a broad white mantel above it full of pictures. There were pictures of Max at every stage of life, and an especially cute one of her in a bathing suit and a pair of oversized rain boots, holding a fish nearly as big as she was. At the end of the mantel, all crowded together, were three pictures. All three of them featured the same slim blond woman, a woman I could only assume was Abel Abbott’s dead wife—Claire. The first picture was of Abel and Claire on their wedding day, the second was of Abel and Claire when Claire was heavily pregnant, and the third was of a smiling Claire holding a tiny, wrinkled baby.
I was still staring at these pictures when I heard Abel walk into the room. I counted to five before I turned around, guilty for wandering off and snooping into what I knew was a private and painful part of his life. Again, that feeling of being an interloper in someone else’s life was ever present, and I didn’t like it.
“I should probably go,” I said. “It’s already getting dark, and I can barely find my way around in the daylight.”
“Do you want me to drive you?” Abel asked. “You’ve had three pints of beer.”
“So have you.”
“Two,” Abel corrected me. “And I’m bigger than you are.”
I rolled my eyes, but I knew he was right. “Just call me a cab,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
“I have to go and pick up Max anyway,” Abel replied. “That was her on the phone. She’s had a fight with that boy, and she’s crying and carrying on about something I don’t understand. I told her to give me half an hour.”
“They’ll probably have made up by then,” I said.
Abel let out a long-suffering sigh and replied, “It’s always something.”
I followed Abel to the front door, grabbing my purse from off the table as we went. He led me around the back of the house to an old garage with a manual door. He lifted it up to reveal an older model Jeep.
“Brakes on the Tahoe need fixing,” he said. “I didn’t get to it today, so we’ll just have to take Old Faithful.”
I stood aside as he fired the Jeep up and backed it out of the garage, and he barely stopped it long enough for me to jump inside. It was a rickety ride back to the hotel, and it was entirely too loud inside the Jeep to talk, and for that I was thankful.
When we pulled into the parking lot, Abel cut the engine, and I looked around, realizing something. “I never told you where I was staying,” I said. “How did you know?”
Abel looked at me and gave me another disarming smile. “Everybody knows where you’re staying,” he replied. “You’ve been the talk of the town since you got here.”
“Is that stereotype really true?” I asked. “Small town, big gossip?”
“I’m just glad they’ve all got something better to talk about than me,” Abel said. “It’s too bad you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Another rumor you heard?”
“So you’re staying?”
I don’t know why I did it, but right then I wasn’t sure what to say, so I simply shrugged and slammed the door closed. He drove away, rolling the window down slightly to wave at me as he went.
Once Abel was out of sight, I turned to go inside and nearly tripped over a dark shape at my feet. After a few seconds of forcing my eyes to focus, I realized to my astonishment that it was Sherbet at my feet, staring up at me with his odd-colored eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, bending down to him. “I thought you never left the house?”
In response, Sherbet rubbed himself up against my outstretched hand. I stayed there, squatted in the parking lot, for a few more minutes before I stood up, feeling the world swirl around me as I did so.
“I think I should stop drinking beer with men I don’t know in towns I don’t know,” I said to Sherbet. “And now I’ve got to go inside. I guess you’ll have to find your own way back home.”
I didn’t even get two steps forward before Sherbet was in front of me again.
“Go,” I said, in a fruitless attempt to shoo him away. “Please! Go home!”
Sherbet continued to follow me, and I realized he was going to follow me all the way into the hotel. I couldn’t imagine that the night clerk would appreciate a cat following me inside, but I wasn’t sure how to get him to go away
. I didn’t want to stomp my foot or be mean. I guessed, technically, he was my cat, and therefore my responsibility.
I pulled out all the odds and ends from my purse and shoved them down into my pockets and made as much room inside as I could. Then, as carefully as a relatively sober person could, I picked Sherbet up and set him down into my bag. I thought he might jump back out, but instead he curled into a ball and began to purr.
“What do you know?” I whispered to my bag as I stepped in through the sliding double doors. “Maybe I am the animal lady after all.”
Chapter 13
I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING WITH THE PLASTIC HOTEL room service menu stuck to my face. I sat up and peeled it from my cheek. Sherbet was curled up next to me, snoring, which was all he’d done since I’d brought him to the hotel room the night before. He’d jumped right up on the bed, scratched at one of the pillows, and settled in for the night.
I’d never had such an agreeable bedmate.
With a groan, I forced myself out of bed and trudged over to the coffeemaker. It was one of those one-serving coffeemakers with the little cups, and I heard my sister-in-law’s voice in my head telling me how wasteful and terrible for the environment they were. The thought made me want to make six cups of coffee. Instead, I made just one cup and sat back down on the bed. Sherbet stirred and settled himself down on my lap.
I hadn’t even had my first sip when my phone started ringing, startling us both out of our pleasant company. Sherbet jumped out of my lap and disappeared under the bed. I figured my mother was the disturbing force, and so I reached over to the nightstand and picked up my phone. It wasn’t my mother. It was Eli.
“Hello?” I croaked into the phone.
“Mae?”
“I think so,” I said. “Although I’m so hungover, I’m not entirely sure.”
“Hi, Maeve,” Kate said, her voice sounding annoyingly awake. “We’re all in the car this morning.”
I sighed. This was my cue to stop talking about being hungover, and probably my dose of karma for thinking a hateful thought about her so early in the morning. Rowan had already learned more than one questionable phrase from me over the years. “Hi, Kate,” I replied.
“We’re calling because Rowan has something she wants to tell you,” Eli said. “She said she couldn’t wait until you came home.”
“Well, you better tell me what it is,” I said. I took a sip of my coffee and reveled in its deliciousness. “What’s so important that you couldn’t wait, Rowan?”
There was a flourish of whispering on the other end of the phone, and then my niece said, “Mommy and Daddy are having a baby! A girl baby!”
I raised the cup at the same time I dropped my phone, and in my surprise, I spilled the coffee, the scalding liquid soaking through my T-shirt and burning my chest. I let out a string of curse words and jumped up in a furious attempt to remove my shirt.
“Mae?”
My brother’s voice floated up to me from my phone on the floor.
“Mae? Are you there?”
I winced and bent down to pick up the phone. “I’m here,” I said. “I’m sorry. I spilled my coffee.”
“Don’t use those words at school,” Kate said to Rowan. “Any of them. They’re bad words.”
“I know,” Rowan replied, and even though I couldn’t see her, I knew that she was rolling her eyes at her mother, and the thought brought temporary comfort to my now inflamed chest.
“I’m so happy for you guys,” I managed to say through the pain. “Kate, I just saw you five days ago. You don’t even look pregnant!”
“I know,” Kate said. “I’m just fifteen weeks. We had some genetic testing done, and the tests told us the gender.”
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Fine,” Eli replied. “Everything is just fine, but Rowan couldn’t wait to tell you. We’re telling Mom and Dad later today.”
“That’s wonderful news,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re having another one.”
“Mommy and Daddy said I could name her,” Rowan squealed.
“Oh really?” I asked. “Mommy and Daddy said that?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And do you have a name picked out yet?”
There was a pause, and then Rowan replied, “I’m thinking Vampirina or Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
I covered my mouth with my free hand to tamp down the giggle that threatened to escape. Vampirina and Princess Twilight Sparkle were both cartoon characters that Rowan loved. I was a little more partial to Vampirina, myself, but I wasn’t about to say that in front of Kate. “Those are both great choices,” I said, still choking back a laugh. “Thank you so much for calling and telling me about this.”
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” Eli said. “We want it to be a surprise.”
“We’re having a gender reveal tonight on Facebook Live,” Kate continued. “So don’t say anything on social media either.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d never understood gender reveals. Nobody cares that much about the stupid gender of a baby that they want to take time out of their day to watch you shoot a balloon filled with colored sand or whatever it was that people did during those ordeals. My mother told me when Kate was pregnant with Theo that the reason I didn’t understand was because I didn’t have a child of my own. I guessed she could be right.
“Mom!” Rowan said. “Why do we have to wait? I want to tell Nana and Papa now!”
“It’s just a little while,” Kate replied.
“But I want to tell them.”
“You can wear your Big Sister shirt.”
Rowan sighed and the call dropped. I didn’t try to call back. I knew that the morning drive was not long enough for Kate to convince Rowan that the gender reveal was a better idea than allowing their oldest child to burst in and proclaim, “It’s a girl!”
Rowan and I, much to Kate’s dismay, were a lot alike. I’d always been good with children, but when Rowan was born, the bond was immediate. I wondered sometimes if Kate wasn’t a bit jealous of our relationship. Kate ended up defending herself against the both of us more often than she probably should have had to.
Once, several months ago, I’d been out to dinner with Eli, Kate, and Rowan while my parents watched Theo. He’d been a newborn, and Kate, a bona fide germophobe, refused to take him out in public until he was at least two months old. Rowan and I voted for pasta, and Kate and Eli wanted to try the fancy new sushi place in downtown Seattle. While Rowan and I both loved sushi, I knew that the wait would likely be an hour or two, and neither Rowan nor I was interested in that. As the four of us sat in the car arguing over where to eat, Kate turned exasperatedly toward Eli and said, “I can’t believe how alike those two are. I mean, they aren’t even related.”
Kate realized what she’d said the minute the words were out of her mouth. From the back seat, I could see my brother’s jaw set in a hard line, and we drove in silence the rest of the way to the Italian restaurant. The next day, Kate called to apologize, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that she and Eli must’ve had a horrible argument about it when they got home the night before.
I told her not to worry about it. What she’d said had been insensitive, but Kate hadn’t meant to be cruel. She’d said it without thinking. She and I weren’t best friends, but she loved my brother, and I knew she’d never say anything to hurt him or me or anyone else, really, on purpose. But her words stung, and Eli knew it. Now that Eli had children, he had a family by blood, and he was keenly aware that was something I didn’t have. He worked hard to make sure I never felt left out, but it wasn’t as if I could forget the truth.
I got up from the bed and rummaged around in my suitcase to find a clean shirt. I should have hung my clothes in the closet the night before, but I’d been too tired, and now everything I’d brought with me was wrinkled. I laid out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt on the bathroom countertop and shut the door, hoping the steam from the shower that I was about to take would release the wri
nkles. If I showed up back at home in wrinkled clothes, my mother would think something awful had happened that I wasn’t telling her and grill me about why I couldn’t be bothered to look presentable out in public, rather than what it was—sheer laziness on my part.
I was happy for Eli and Kate. Really, I was. Ever since we were kids, Eli had wanted to have a big family. He spent more time thinking about weddings and families than any girl I knew, and Kate was from a big family already. She was in the middle of seven children. Both Eli and Kate worked hard to have a stable and successful life, and for the first time, I began to think about how different our lives had become.
It was true—getting married and having a family hadn’t been on my radar. I’d never thought about having a job that made money, saving for my future, buying a house, or taking summer vacations to the beach. It wasn’t my style. Still, I wanted . . . something. I wanted something so special that it warranted a phone call early in the morning. I wanted to have something that was mine, just mine, that I could feel proud of and want to share with my family. Maybe I didn’t want exactly what Eli had, but I wanted some variation of it.
I stepped into the shower and let the water warm me from head to toe, careful not to let it touch the tender skin on my chest from the spilled coffee. As I lathered my hair, it occurred to me that I’d begun to see everything in my life as temporary. My job, my apartment; my baseball player boyfriend was a lot of fun but not forever—as I’d recently and publicly become painfully aware. Even my visit to Timber Creek was simply a thing I had to get through while I was waiting for my Real Life to begin. I was thirty-six years old.
Wasn’t it time my Real Life started?
Maybe I wasn’t looking at my visit to Timber Creek the right way. Maybe it was an opportunity. Maybe I was being given a chance to start over in a new place. Hell, I owned a house here, didn’t I? I didn’t have to go back to Seattle right away. I could stay for as long as I wanted, and I didn’t have to wait for anything.
St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets Page 11
