Fighting for Anna

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  A man’s voice interrupted my perusal, in a deep southern accent. “May I help you?”

  I turned and found a large white man of maybe thirty years of age dressed in green scrubs. A scar marred his features from the top of one cheek to down under his nose and across to the far corner of his lip.

  I smiled at him. “Yes, I wanted to see if you could take a walk-in.”

  “What’s your pet’s name, ma’am?” He poised his fingers over a keyboard.

  “Her name is Gertrude.”

  “And your name?”

  “Well, my name is Michele Lopez Hanson, but Gertrude’s owner is Gidget Becker.”

  The man looked up at me quickly. His voice deepened. “Ms. Becker? I heard she’s—” He stopped, leaving that awkward gap in conversation that happens when people are uncomfortable mentioning the dead.

  “Yes, she’s deceased. I’m her neighbor and the one who found her.”

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am. So you live out near that big new pipeline they just announced?”

  “Um, maybe.” I remembered the sign on the outside of Gidget’s fence the day before. It bore looking into. “And thank you. Anyway, Gertrude had a big fright yesterday, and she managed to break through a window to go for help. I think when she did, she knocked out one of her eyeballs.”

  I slung Gertrude up and onto the counter.

  The man immediately made friendly noises and reached toward her with his palm up. “Good to see you, Gertrude. Had a tough time?” He scratched her belly. She lifted one leg in the air and kicked it spasmodically.

  “I was able to get her eye back in. She seems none the worse for wear, but I wanted to get her a checkup and some supplies.”

  I paused, and in my silence he said, “You know how to pop an eye back in a dog’s head? That’s pretty intense for most people.”

  I smiled. “My father’s a vet, and I helped him out a lot when I was growing up. And with her eyes outside her sockets, it wasn’t that hard. I’m guessing she must have some kind of pug or other googly-eyed dog in her lineage”—I gestured at her—“even with this long coarse fur and dachshund body.”

  He nodded. “I’d have to agree with you.”

  “Do you think you can work her in your schedule?”

  He nodded. “Why don’t you come around the end of the counter and through that door.” He pointed. “Gertrude and I will meet you on the other side.”

  He picked up Gertrude and they disappeared behind a wall then reappeared in the doorway. I followed them into the interior. Narrow hallways led to closed exam rooms and scales on one side of the hallway. The man put Gertrude down.

  “Nice leash.” He grinned. Gertrude followed him far better than she had me. He gestured toward a closed door and pushed it open. “Let’s take her in here. Oh, and I’m Dr. Miller.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Miller. I’m Michele.”

  Once we were inside, Dr. Miller poked and prodded on Gertrude and her eye socket. “It looks like it must have popped out cleanly and gone back in the same way. She appears to be seeing fine,” he said as he held up a treat and moved it in all directions on the right side of her head, watching her eye track it. “Good job.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll send you with an antibiotic in case of infection. Now, let me pull Gertrude’s records.” He typed rapidly on a laptop, his large fingers striking each key precisely. I knew because I was watching his letters appear on the screen, and he made no mistakes. “So, she has a prescription for heartworm medication and one for fleas, ticks, and all of that. Honestly, we gave Gidget the meds free. She sure loved this dog, and she took very good care of her.” He stroked Gertrude’s long, matted hair off her forehead.

  “That is so kind of you. And I’ll pay for today, of course.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Eying his computer and the records about Gertrude, I gestured at it. “Dr. Miller, I was wondering if you know who Gertrude should go to, like from your records. I mean, I’m happy to take care of her. I’d even keep her permanently, but I don’t want to overstep.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, I know the answer to that without looking. Gidget was on her own. She didn’t even drive. A gentleman of about her age would bring her and Gertrude in for their visits.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Ummm—”

  “Jimmy?” I asked, giving him the name the deputies had asked me about.

  “No, not Jimmy. Ummm—”

  I interrupted his thoughts again with the only other name I knew. “Ralph?” The mutual acquaintance through whom I’d met Gidget.

  Dr. Miller did a fist pump. “Yes, Ralph. I’ll see if we have his—”

  “I know how to get in touch with Ralph. And thank you.”

  “Is there anything else you need, then?”

  I pointed at the filthy little animal. “I don’t suppose you guys do grooming?”

  He laughed. “Absolutely. Can you pick her up at ten?”

  “Works for me.”

  “Let’s go back to the spa, Miss Gertrude.” He scooped her under his arm and the two disappeared.

  I wanted to head to the library—that’s where Gidget’s friend and (apparently) chauffeur, Ralph, usually hung out to work on the Giddings Historical Society Newsletter, for which he was the editor—but it didn’t open until ten. I made a quick trip to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and 290 Grind for coffee. When I returned to the lobby of the vet clinic, a Hispanic woman was behind the counter. She reminded me of my Mexican abuela in that she was almost as wide as she was tall, and not very tall. I’d always thought of my abuela as a Latina Weeble, and those were my genes—and my future if I didn’t stay fit.

  The woman greeted me jovially, and I settled in to wait. I’d barely had time to take my phone out of my zebra bag when the door from the treatment area flew open and Gertrude steamrolled through, pulling a teenage girl behind her. The girl had long, skinny legs, a bad case of acne, and a beautiful laugh. She handed the leash to me.

  “Good luck, ma’am,” she said.

  “Thank you.” I shook my head. What have I gotten myself into?

  Gertrude beamed up at me. She wiggled and danced, shaking her bright white dreadlocks around her. She was far too small to be related to Puli sheepdogs, but her coat bore a startling resemblance. I settled up for the damages, including dog food and a leash. Then Gertrude and I were on our way.

  Like at the vet, we were practically the first ones to the library. Giddings wasn’t a tiny town by Texas standards, but neither was it what you’d call metropolitan. It fell somewhere in that range where citizens expected big-town services on a small-town budget. Their library, though, was big-town quality. It resided in a tan-brick building with a stucco façade and a giant swatch of blacktop in front for parking. I suspected a conversion from a strip retail center.

  I debated whether to take Gertrude in. I felt sure only service dogs were allowed inside. “You don’t look like a service animal to me,” I said to her.

  Gertrude wiggled.

  “All right, here’s what we’re gonna do,” I told her. “I’m going to leave the car running and the air conditioner on and you’re going to stay inside and be a very good girl. Deal?”

  She wiggled at me some more, making her fringe ripple.

  As I walked down the walkway from the side parking lot, I looked back at the Jetta and saw Gertrude in the driver’s seat, standing on her hind legs, with her front paws at ten and two on the steering wheel. I shook my head. I approached the double glass doors at the front of the building. A colorful poster faced out from inside the door. Giddings Public Library Annual Fundraising Drive. Spaghetti dinner! Raffle! Silent Auction! Proceeds to benefit YOUR LIBRARY!

  I pushed through, making a mental note to put the event on my calendar. I walked through the vestibule into a familiar musty odor. Old books and high humidity. A large bulletin board held another copy of the fundraising flyer and other small-town staples: a roommate-
needed announcement, a stock trailer for sale, a lost-cat poster with tear-off strips for the phone number to call if “Kity” appeared. I took one, thinking I might be able to offer them my editing services for their next poster.

  I passed the circulation desk on my right and headed for the tables behind the computer stations where Ralph usually worked. While I’d only been in his presence a few times, we’d exchanged emails, too, so I knew him better than I knew anyone else in town. When we met here last spring, he’d been excited that I was an editor and author. He’d hit me up for articles for the newsletter, and he’d introduced me to Gidget. The rest was history. But there was no Ralph in sight today, nor did I hear him. Even though the library was a quiet zone, Ralph held court without regard to the rules, and no one seemed to mind.

  I circled back to the front counter. It had been empty moments before, but now a petite woman with a crown of chin-length grayish-brown waves was stacking returns in a book cart. Her pink sweater set buttoned at the neck, where it met up with a strand of pearls. She looked familiar.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  She stopped and studied me with eyes that were a watery blue. “May I help you?” Her voice had the barest of tremors to it. Almost like vibrato.

  “I’m looking for a fellow named Ralph that I’ve met in here a couple of times. He—”

  She interrupted me. “Yes, Ralph’s quite a regular.” She smiled and the skin on her face crenulated.

  I took a step closer to her. “Exactly. Have you seen him?”

  “No, not today, but he usually comes in around noon on weekdays.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Are you a friend of his?”

  “Sort of.” I waffled my hand. “I wrote a few articles for the historical newsletter and helped him bring it into the digital age.”

  The smile reappeared on the woman’s face, this time lifting the corners of her eyes up in graceful swoops toward her hairline. “You’re the author. The one who’s writing Gidget’s memoirs.”

  I felt my face crease in surprise. “I am, but how did you know?”

  “Oh, Ralph and Gidget were over the moon about it. After Gidget met with you, he brought her in a couple of times so the two of them could put her thoughts together for you.” She leaned toward me. “Personally, I can’t wait to read it, even if there’s folks in town who think you shouldn’t put someone like her on a pedestal. I’m Tabitha Rope, by the way.” She touched her sternum for a moment. “Beautiful pendant.”

  I shook her hand. “Thank you.” Adrian had given me the enameled monarch locket. It was soldered shut with a picture of us and a smattering of his ashes inside. “Michele Lopez Hanson. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m not so sure it’s going to happen now, seeing as how the source of my information is no longer with us.”

  “Oh dear. I’d heard Gidget passed. It’s just so sad. I didn’t know her all that well myself, although we both grew up here just a few years apart in age. Maybe Ralph could be your source.”

  Tabitha looked twenty years younger than Gidget. I adjusted my mental tabulation of Gidget’s age downward. “Did you go to school together?” I asked.

  “We would have, except Anna—that’s what she was called back then—went to the Wendish school.”

  “What’s Wendish?” I asked.

  “It’s a religion, or more accurately, a Lutheran denomination of Christianity. The Wends came from Germany to Texas in the 1850s and set up a big community here that thrived through the middle of the last century. And they’re the ones who don’t like the idea of this book.” She came around the desk and led me toward a display across the room.

  “Wendish,” I said again, following her. I liked the word, but it was new to me.

  “We have a really nice Wendish display this summer.” She gestured to a glass-fronted case in front of her. Bonnets, like the one I’d envisioned yesterday when I pictured an eighteen-hundreds woman on Gidget’s porch. Colorful carved wooden eggs. Old letters addressed in a Scandinavian-looking script. My father’s best customer was an old Norseman who ran cattle on a ranch a few miles outside of Seguin. I remembered his singsong accent, and how I’d marveled when he spoke in his native tongue. I’d even seen him write in it once when he made notes about a course of treatment my dad had prescribed for one of his young bulls.

  “This is great.” Continuing our line of conversation about Gidget’s schooling, I said, “So, the Wends didn’t let their kids go to public school?”

  “They didn’t used to. They left Germany to escape religious persecution and discrimination.” She reminded me of my high school history teacher, her eyes twinkling as she shared this slice of the past with me. “They wanted to practice their own religion, their own way, with their own culture and their own language. That included educating their children. I remember some of the old-timers around town speaking Wendish when I was a kid, but by then, it had mostly died out in favor of German and English. Turns out that over here they had more in common with the Germans than they’d thought. Assimilating was a necessity for survival.”

  “I grew up with a Baptist mother, a Catholic father, and an Aztec-leaning grandmother, so I can understand the Wends’ situation. It’s kind of like being caught in the Holy Bermuda Triangle.” It also reminded me of the rumblings I was hearing from Christians in America more and more frequently of late, over things like the HERO dispute I’d talked to Brian about that morning. So many of our ancestors in the United States arrived here for freedom of religion. I made a mental note to keep that in mind as I edited the gay marriage and HERO pieces for Juniper.

  She laughed. We walked back to the circulation desk. “We carry your book, you know,” she said, winking at me.

  “I like hearing that.”

  She went around behind the high counter. “I think Gidget’s story will be interesting. After she ran away—”

  “Ran away?” I said.

  “Um, yes. She decamped to Houston without a word to her parents not long after she graduated high school.”

  “She hadn’t told me that,” I said, and pursed my lips. An artistic young woman escapes her strict religious upbringing and small-town life. She goes on to become a fancy art gallery owner who hobnobs with celebrities just a few years later. It was a good story.

  “Her life was pretty glamorous by Giddings’ standards.”

  That part—the glamorous stuff—Gidget had begun sharing with me. The doors whooshed open behind me, and we turned as one toward the newcomer. It was a young mother with two little boys, possibly twins. They were gap-toothed and freckle-faced and scuffling their cowboy boots along the floor. Sweat trickled down their young faces. The mother had a steely determination to the set of her mouth and her narrowed eyes as she gripped the neck of each boy. The two youngsters were trying hard to look innocent.

  I turned back to Tabitha. She was smiling that beatific smile again.

  She whispered, “Those boys are a handful.” Her voice returned to normal. “So where were we? Oh yes. When she came back, it was as if she’d given up the life a lot of us would’ve liked to have had in her place.” Again she lowered her voice. “Ralph told me someone dumped her at her family’s old homestead, lock, stock, barrel, and dirty dishes from the sink.”

  “That’s just so awful!”

  Tears created a hazy film over her eyes. “I didn’t see Gidget much, but Ralph talked about her a lot, and I’m gonna miss her.”

  I pictured Gidget, alone, scared, and destitute in her house. But not alone. She had Gertrude. That thought jerked me upright to all of my five foot two inches in height. “Gertrude,” I exclaimed. “Ack! She’s out in the car. I enjoyed our chat. Thank you so much.” I turned and fled back to where I hoped my unlocked and running Jetta was still parked as Tabitha called out a farewell.

  ***

  Gertrude was none the worse for her time alone in the Jetta. In fact, she looked downright entitled in my seat, curled up with her nose tucked under her long, funny hair
and her sides rising and falling rhythmically with her sleeping breaths. I almost felt guilty about waking her and shooing her into the passenger seat. Almost.

  I turned the radio on to KTEX. The DJs were cracking jokes about same-sex marriage and the HERO ordinance. I decreased the volume until the music came back on. I’d forgotten to leave a message with Tabitha for Ralph, but I had his email. I shot one off to him via my phone from the parking lot, asking him to get together as soon as he could. I checked for messages from the kids—none—and stalked them on Instagram and Facebook. Nothing new, and it brought that sad, lonely feeling from the night before back to me.

  I zoomed home, Gertrude riding shotgun, and parked the car in the shade of a line of oak trees next to the Quacker. I turned off the car and ferried the bags from the trunk into the trailer. The heat was so intense I nearly melted, which surprised me. I was raised in Seguin, so I knew heat. We weren’t that far away in miles, but we were light years apart in humidity. Here, it was damper. The hots were hotter, and the colds were colder. And we still had four months of summer temperatures to go before things cooled off in the latter half of October.

  As a result, the air conditioner in the Quacker was running at full throttle. Condensation dripped from it onto the warped linoleum floor. Replacing that floor was near the top of my “projects” list for the summer. Gertrude buried her head under the pillow on my bed where she’d leapt, uninvited, as soon as I’d opened the door and let her in. I guess the previous night’s sleeping accommodations constituted an open-ended invitation.