St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets

by Annie England Noblin

I thought about my parents, about how my mother would react to the news that I was considering staying in Timber Creek indefinitely. I thought about Rowan too and about how she would be upset if I missed important moments in her life because I was nearly four hours away. But the truth was that four hours was hardly a continent. I’d never lived more than an hour from my family, not even during college. Surely everyone, save for Rowan, could understand my need to try something different.

  I could hear Holly in my head asking me how I was going to deal with not only inheriting the house of my dead birth mother but also living in it. The truth was that I didn’t know. Looking at the house hadn’t been so awful, and I liked Sherbet the cat. Besides, Annabelle had left me the house for a reason, hadn’t she?

  I got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and then realized that the clothes I’d laid out were still just as wrinkled as they’d been when I pulled them out of the suitcase. Not great, but it would have to do, and for now, telling the rest of my family about my decision to stay would just have to wait.

  Chapter 14

  I TRIED TO IGNORE THE QUESTIONING LOOKS THE ELDERLY woman driving me gave me as we drove along. I wondered if she thought I’d brought someone back to my room for the night and was now doing the walk . . . uh, drive, of shame. It would be a lie to say that I hadn’t at least thought about what it might’ve been like to have Abel in my room, but this cranky-looking lady didn’t need to know that. I thanked her when she dropped me off, and I slid into the front seat of my car and plugged in the directions to Gary’s office.

  To say that Gary was surprised to see me was an understatement. I waited with the receptionist while he finished up with a client, a rotund woman who loudly proclaimed as she was leaving that she would “take that cheating bastard for all he’s worth” and winked at me.

  “What are you doing here?” Gary asked. “After showing you the house last night, I figured you’d be on the interstate back to Seattle before daylight.”

  “I thought about it,” I replied, sitting down on his leather couch, the cushion still warm from the behind of the soon-to-be divorcée. “I’m going to stay awhile longer, I think.”

  “Oh?” Gary seemed surprised at my admission.

  I shrugged. “At this point I don’t have much to lose.”

  “So you’d like to take possession?”

  “I would.”

  Gary stared at me for a few seconds before unlocking the middle drawer of his desk and pulling out a thick manila envelope. “There will be more where this came from,” he said, nodding toward the envelope. “Get the rest back to me when you can. Nothing in here will have to be notarized.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and . . . for Annabelle.”

  Gary waved one hand in the air. “It’s nothing, really,” he said. “Like I told you, Annabelle and I went way back. But if you ever decide to sell, promise me you’ll give me first shot. That house would be great for rental income.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  “Good,” Gary replied, standing up. “I hate to cut our visit short, but I’ve got a midmorning appointment.”

  “No problem.” I stood and followed him to the door. “Thanks for seeing me on no notice.”

  “No worries,” he said.

  “Did you make your reservation?” I asked. “I’m sorry that I was late meeting you.”

  “Barely,” he replied. “Yulina spent entirely too much time chatting with you. It’s not your fault.”

  “She was telling me a bit about Annabelle, and it sounds like they were good friends. They were in a club together?”

  “Oh, that stupid St. Francis.” Gary rolled his eyes. “I had to put a stop to that. No husband likes to come home from work and hear about all the gossip his wife heard from the town busybodies. They can’t leave well enough alone if you ask me. It’s going to get them into trouble one day.”

  I felt my left eyebrow tick up a couple of notches and replied, “Well, thanks again for the help.”

  Gary gave me a distracted wave as I left the room, his nose already buried in the vast pile of paperwork spread across his desk. I showed myself out, clutching the manila folder, and headed for the house on Maple Street.

  * * *

  When I got to the house, it was midmorning, and Alice was already there, waiting on me. I’d called her on my way to Gary’s office, and she’d agreed to meet me. When I opened my car door and Sherbet jumped out, Alice said, “Well, I’ll be.”

  “He must’ve followed me to my hotel or something,” I said. “I had to shove him down into my bag to get him up to the hotel room.”

  “That cat stayed with you in a hotel room?”

  I nodded. “He did. The only thing I can figure is that he must’ve jumped up into Abel’s Jeep last night when he took me back to the hotel. Slept all night and ate sausage for breakfast.”

  Alice smiled knowingly at the mention of Abel’s name, but she didn’t comment on it. “Sherbet’s always been an unusual cat,” she said finally. “Annabelle used to take him for walks on a leash like a dog.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I began to giggle. “I used to see that sometimes in Seattle in the apartment building where I lived. I thought only hipsters did that to be ironic.”

  Alice shrugged. “I don’t know what a hipster is,” she said. “But I do know that Sherbet must have taken a shine to you, and that’s a good thing, because he can be a real asshole when he wants to be.”

  “I guess that’s something we have in common,” I said.

  Alice let out a croak of a laugh. After a few minutes of Sherbet purring up against her leg, she said, “So, when you called, you said you thought that you might stay here awhile?”

  “I was thinking about it,” I replied. “It’s not like I have anything compelling back in Seattle.”

  “Annabelle would be glad to know that you’re not going to sell right away,” Alice said approvingly.

  “I’m not doing it for her,” I said, sounding harsher than I meant to. Softening my tone, I continued, “Look, it’s not that I’m not appreciative, but she never showed any interest in knowing me when she was alive. I just don’t understand why she would leave everything she had to me in death.”

  Alice fixed me with one of those birdlike stares. It wasn’t an unkind gaze. It was more thoughtful, and for a moment, I could see her as a young woman—without the glasses and gray tinge to her hair, without the fine lines around her eyes and mouth, and it occurred to me that she must have been quite pretty in a delicate way that, even now, she tried to hide. “It was a complicated thing,” she said finally. “Giving you up.”

  I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s mine now, I guess.”

  Alice touched my shoulder and then with a sly grin said, “I’ve got a key Gary doesn’t have, you know.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ve got two,” Alice replied. “Come on.”

  I followed Alice down the porch steps, and around the side of the house to where a ramshackle shed stood. Honestly, I thought it might collapse at any second. “What’s in there?” I asked, taking a step back. “It looks like it might fall in.”

  “It’s sound as can be,” Alice replied, pulling a key from her cardigan and holding it up to me. “This key right here, the silver one, is the key to the shed.”

  “What’s the other key for?”

  Alice grinned. “That’s the key to your mother’s prized possession.”

  I took the keys and put the first one into the lock and popped it open. After the dust cleared and I’d finished hacking up at least half a lung, I squinted into the darkness. “I don’t see anything,” I said.

  Alice brushed past me and reached inside the shed and felt along the wall. A few seconds later, light bathed the room.

  “It’s a car,” I said.

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

  I nodded. The car, a Volkswagen Beetle, was in pristine condition. It was the old body style,
the first body style, and it was a powder-blue convertible. I wanted to get in and drive it right that second. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Most people don’t take the time to restore a classic like this,” Alice continued. “It’s not practical for Washington, especially in the winter, but your mother loved that car. That’s where most of her money went.”

  I ran my hand along the hood. The metal was cold beneath my touch. “The engine is in the back, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “It is,” Alice replied.

  “My brother had a friend in high school with one like this,” I said. “It wasn’t a convertible, and it wasn’t in great shape. But it’s how I learned to drive a standard.”

  “You have a brother?”

  “An adopted brother,” I said. “He’s four years younger than I am.”

  “How lovely,” Alice said. “My brother was five years older than me.”

  “Was?”

  “He died,” Alice replied. “A long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Alice waved her hand in the air. “It was a long time ago,” she repeated. “Before you were born.”

  “Still,” I said. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine losing my brother.”

  Alice smiled at me. “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “Eli,” I replied. “He’s a dentist in Seattle. He’s got two kids—Rowan and Theo—and they just called this morning and said another is on the way.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got family,” Alice said. Her voice was wistful, and I could tell she meant what she said. “Family is important.”

  “You and Annabelle were like family,” I said.

  “We were.”

  I kept my focus on the car. It really was beautiful. Sure, it wasn’t a Mustang or a Corvette, but there was something special about it, nonetheless. It was chilly outside, but not too chilly to take a spin around town with the top down midday.

  “Do you want to take it for a spin?” Alice asked, jerking me out of my daydream. “She hasn’t been started in a while, but I bet she still runs like a top.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “As long as you’ll let me drive,” Alice replied. “I’ve got a few errands to run. You might as well come with me . . . I mean, if you want to.”

  “I don’t have anything else to do,” I said.

  “Grab the keys,” said Alice. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 15

  I STARED OUT THE WINDOW AT THE HOUSES AS WE PASSED them by, and Alice tapped the steering wheel with her fingers to the beat of some seventies disco song I’d never heard. My mother hated disco. She listened to fifties bubblegum pop almost exclusively. I wondered idly if Annabelle liked disco. Surely if Alice liked it, Annabelle had too.

  I noticed as we drove that the houses were looking older and less well kept. Some of the houses down Argyle Street, where we turned off, were abandoned. At least, they sure looked that way.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To my house,” Alice replied.

  She pulled the car into the driveway of a shotgun house the color of mud. Despite the run-down condition of the house, there were beautiful mums planted in the flower boxes in the windows and what looked like a new fence going in around the back.

  “I know it’s not much,” Alice said. “But I grew up in this house.”

  “The flowers are pretty.”

  Alice smiled. “My father built this house before my brother was born. It’s cheap and drafty. But it’s been home for a long time.”

  I got out of the car and followed Alice to the front door. She went inside and motioned me inside when I hesitated. “I can wait out here,” I said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Alice replied. “Come.”

  I followed Alice into a small living room with shag carpet, two threadbare recliners, and an old box television set sitting on the floor. There was a little dog asleep in front of it, and when the door closed behind me, it looked up and started to growl.

  “Oh, hush, Mitzi,” Alice said. “We aren’t here to bother you.”

  “That dog does not look happy to see us,” I said.

  “That dog isn’t happy to see anyone,” Alice said. “She’s half-rabid, I swear. She keeps escaping from the yard and terrorizing the neighbor’s children. Animal control came last week and said I had to put a fence up or they were going to cite me.”

  “She doesn’t look like she could do much damage,” I said.

  “She won’t bite, but she growls and barks and scares people,” Alice said. “She was my mother’s dog, and I know she’s basically the worst dog to have ever lived, but I promised my mother I’d take care of her.”

  “So you live here alone?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but I didn’t know what else to say.

  Alice nodded. “My father has been gone for a long time, but I lost my mother two springs ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I replied.

  “It’s okay,” Alice said, dismissing me. “She’d been sick for a long time. Early onset dementia. It was just her time.”

  Alice led me into the kitchen and motioned for me to sit down at the table.

  “Annabelle grew up across the street,” Alice said. “In the house where the children Mitzi doesn’t like now live. Her parents and my parents were good friends. After Annabelle’s mom and dad died, my parents took her in. We were fourteen. She lived with us until . . . well, until she got pregnant with you.”

  “Was your father mad Annabelle got pregnant?” I asked.

  “My father was mad about a lot of things,” Alice said, somewhat dismissively. “He was angry in general.”

  “Did your parents send her away when they found out?”

  Alice shook her head. “No,” she said. “They never found out.”

  I was about to ask her why not, when there was a knock at the front door. I peered around the kitchen opening to see Abel Abbott standing in the doorway. He was dripping with sweat, despite the relative coolness of the day. His white undershirt clung to him, and a flannel shirt was wrapped around one arm.

  “I snagged my arm on a damn nail,” he said, stepping into the house. “Do you have a first-aid kit?”

  “It’s in the bathroom,” Alice said, jumping up. “I’ll be right back.”

  Abel came into the kitchen and sat down beside me. “Hello again,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I thought you were leaving.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure my car would even make it back to Seattle,” I replied.

  Abel laughed. It was a hearty laugh that reached all the way up to his eyes. Then he winced as he rested his arm down on the table.

  Alice returned with the first-aid kit and set it on the table between us. “Abel, that looks bad,” she said. “Maybe you ought to go to the ER.”

  “Is there a nail in there?” I asked. I leaned over to inspect his arm.

  “Nail gun mishap,” he said.

  “Do you want me to drive you to the ER?”

  “I’m not spending all day in there,” Abel said. “I can get the nail out. Do you have any tweezers in that kit?”

  Alice dug around in the kit and produced a metal pair of tweezers. “The kit is a bit old,” she admitted. “I don’t know how sterile everything is.”

  “Do you have a lighter?” I asked.

  “In the top drawer,” Alice replied, pointing to a cabinet by the kitchen sink.

  I took the tweezers from Alice and fished the lighter out of the drawer. “Just a second,” I said.

  “What are you doing?” Alice asked. “You aren’t going to use that to pull out the nail, are you? I really think he needs to see a doctor.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “I used to do this all the time at the newspaper where I worked. The building was half-condemned, and people were forever stepping on nails. Nobody could afford to go to the doctor without health insurance.”

  “And everybody just trusted you to pull rusty
nails out of their feet?” Abel asked. “I hope you gave them a tetanus shot while you were at it.”

  “They got a tetanus shot down at the mobile vaccination clinic,” I said, sitting back down next to Abel to inspect his arm. “And they trusted me, because I was in nursing school for a semester back in college.”

  “Just a semester?” Abel asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, taking hold of Abel’s wrist with one hand and poising the tweezers above the nail with the other hand. “As it turns out, while I’m fine with blood and guts, I have a terrible bedside manner.”

  “Ow! Fuck!” Abel yelled, jerking away from me as I plucked the nail from his forearm. “Jesus, you could have warned me!”

  “What fun would that have been?” I asked. I held the bloody nail up for him and Alice to see. “Besides, I was afraid you’d squirm.”

  Abel accepted the alcohol Alice handed to him and said, “I don’t think I need stitches.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I said. “But you probably do need a tetanus shot.”

  “I had one a couple of years ago,” Abel said. “My daughter pulled a board from her tree house and left it lying in the grass. I didn’t see it and stepped on it.”

  “I remember that,” Alice said, placing gauze and medical tape over Abel’s arm. “I’m sorry about this, but you know how much I appreciate this, right?”

  Abel nodded and stood up to give Alice a hug. “I know,” he said. “And you know I’d do anything for you and Mitzi.”

  At the sound of her name, Mitzi jumped up, ran up to Abel, and practically leaped into his arms. He held her up to his face, and she licked his nose, making happy little grunting noises the whole time until he put her down.

  “Mitzi loves Abel,” Alice said matter-of-factly, when she caught me staring at the scene, openmouthed. “She loved my mother and she loves Abel; everybody else gets barred teeth and barking.”

  Outside, there was a crack and then a yell from behind the house. Abel let out a curse and ran out the front door. Alice and I followed him outside to where a man was standing on the other side of the newly posted fence with a sledgehammer.

  “You’re on my property!” the man yelled, raising the sledgehammer above his head and bringing it down onto the already splintering wood. “I warned you!”