Say No More (9 page)

Don’t what? And who was she talking to? Bit? Bit was lying under the table now, not doing a thing.

I shook myself. Water flew from my coat, speckling the linoleum with drops of runny brown. Ah, the relief! I felt drier and warmer already.

Lise appeared in the doorway, an old towel stretched between her hands. “You didn’t.”

“She did.” Chuckling, Grace tugged on the fridge door and searched inside. She took out two bottles of root beer, popped open the caps, and poured them into mugs. Foam bubbled over the rims. She haphazardly mopped it up with a dishrag. “Told you I’d wait outside with her while you got the towels.”

“Yeah, I heard you. The problem is I didn’t really
hear
you. My mind was on Hunter, the funeral, this crazy day ... anywhere but here.” Lise threw the towel on the floor and trudged into the living room. Grace followed, a mug in each hand, kicking the baby gate shut behind her.

Bit and I sat next to each other behind the gate, our noses pressed between the vertical bars.

“Spill,” Grace said. “Your guts, not the root beer, please.”

“Pffft ...” Lise’s bangs lifted off her forehead with the puff of air. “I don’t know, Grace. You’ve already done more than enough. I don’t want to drag you down into this cesspool that is my life right now. I mean, I’m twenty-eight and a widow with a five-year old son who won’t talk or stay put and ...” — she set her mug on the end table and laid both hands over her belly — “and another on the way. What a mess. And today, just as I’m dealing with everything that’s happened, more gets thrown at me.”

Bit sniffed my head all over, my ears, my neck. I twitched a lip at her. I didn’t need to be cleaned up right now. She took the hint and lay down, stretching her paws out and placing her head between them. Bit was an attentive mother, but not obsessive. I was almost six months old now and she was quick to let me have my independence.

“Hunter’s just upset, Lise. He misses his daddy. Maybe he went looking for him?”

“No, he knows what happened. He saw it, remember? I know exactly why he ran.”

“Okay. Why?”

“Because I told him we were moving up north, to be near Grandma Becky.”

“And?”

Lise’s shoulders sagged. She chugged the root beer and set the mug between her feet. “I told him we couldn’t take the animals.”

“Of course you can’t have sheep at a condo. He’ll get over it. Take him to the Cincinnati Zoo up there a few times. Zebras and giraffes are much more interesting than sheep.”

“It’s not just the sheep, Grace. We can’t have dogs at Mom’s condo.”

Grace swung her mug over to the end table so fast the froth sloshed over the top of the glass and onto her hand. She flicked some of it off, then wiped the remainder on her pants leg. “Not even Bit and” — she glanced furtively in my direction, her voice plummeting to a whisper — “the puppy?”

“No. The condo management almost went to court last year over a guy who brought in a service dog after he lost some motor function following a stroke. They caved eventually, but still —”

“Shut. Up. What a bunch of ... I won’t say it. But what are you going to do with all of them?”

“I already have a home lined up for Scout with a breeder out in Oregon. Janice referred a family to me that’s looking for an adult or two, so I’m hopeful they take Cricket and Chase. As for Bit and Halo, well, I had to call Estelle and tell her we were moving soon and she agreed to take them. For now. I’m hoping that by the time the baby is born, things will have stabilized with Mom, and I’ll be back to work full time and can find a place of my own close to her, because there aren’t even supposed to be children in the condos, but they made an exception because of my circumstances. Then I can take the dogs back. Except ...”

“Except what? There’s something else, isn’t there? Is the ... Oh my God, is the baby okay?”

“What? Oh, no, no. Everything’s fine on that account as far as I know. I go for my first real OB visit next week. It has to do with Cam. He, um ... he wasn’t completely honest with me about a few things.”

Grace slapped a hand over her mouth. “He had a mistress?”

“God, no.”

“Drug habit?” Grace’s brows drew down to hood her eyes. “Street or prescription?”

“No!”

“Okay, Lise, you’re freaking me out. What could Cam possibly have done? He was as vanilla as they get.”

“I thought that, too. But his lawyer called yesterday afternoon and —” She inched closer to Grace, then glanced into the hallway to make sure Hunter wasn’t nearby. “You remember I told you a few years back, when Cam was just out of grad school, how he tried to start up a consulting business with a friend, but the friend bailed on him and then the business went belly up just a few months after he’d started it?”

“Not the details, but I remember the gist of it. No shame in that. Don’t most of all small businesses fail?”

“Yeah, but turns out Cam omitted some details when he explained it all to me. There were bank loans. Big ones. Much bigger than he’d ever let on.”

“And you knew this when you married him? Did you know how much they were for?”

“No, I didn’t. I know, I know. That sort of thing should all be up front when you marry someone, but Cam just seemed so responsible about everything. Not to mention the fact that I found the whole environmental risk assessment thing too far over my head to be of interest. Plus, he stayed close to home just so he could help his aging parents with their farm, all when he could have had much more lucrative jobs in Louisville or Cincinnati or Nashville. I was the one who pressed him for the move and the new job. His parents were doing fine and I had finally convinced my mom that my dad needed to be in a facility where they could care for him 24/7, but she was having health issues of her own. So moving north just seemed like the right thing to do. Cam resisted. He stalled. He even suggested I take a leave from my job to go help my mom. I should have known there was something up. It wasn’t like Cam to be so ... uncooperative. Maybe that’s not the right word, but he was, in his own subtle way, avoiding making any big moves.”

Grace tugged a crocheted throw, one of Estelle’s creations, from the back of the couch and spread it over her lap, tucking her feet neatly beneath her. “He defaulted on the business loan, right? Or was about to.”

“Yes, but that’s not the worst of it. After the funeral, his lawyer got in touch with me. Asked if Cam had life insurance, something that would cover any debts we might have. He did, but it was barely enough to cover funeral expenses. That’s when everything really started to unravel. This house ...” Lise’s eyes swept around the room, taking in the carved mantel over the seldom used fireplace, the high ceilings, the doorways with their glass transoms. “This old,
old
house that we worked so hard on — I’m going to lose it to the bank. There’s no way I can swing it. The debts are too much and even with the money we were saving up to get us a new house up north, it wouldn’t even come close to covering it. Cam had taken out a second mortgage to pay on his loan, because he was getting behind. He never told me any of this, Grace. I feel so stupid for trusting him and not having more of a hand in our finances. He could have asked his parents for help. God knows they owed him
something
for all the time he’s put in on that farm.”

“You could still ask Estelle.” Grace tilted her head. “Couldn’t you?”

“I can’t, Grace. The amount is astronomical. She’d have to give up her retirement, sell the farm ... No, it’s just too much. Besides, I can only blame myself for not having been more aware of things. It’s going to take awhile to get it all sorted out. I meet with the lawyer on Tuesday. Then I have to take Hunter to a specialist Thursday and for tests on Friday. Somewhere in there I have my own doctor’s appointment. Meanwhile, I need to streamline my life, even if that means giving up some things I truly love. This house is the least of it. I’m going to miss seeing the lambs in springtime. Most of all, I’m going to miss the dogs.” Her head sank down to meet her shoulders as the weight of everything bore down on her. “What happened today ... I’m grateful for what Halo did, believe me. I’ll never forget it. But it only makes it harder.”

“I wish I had room, Lise. I’d take you in, kids, dogs, and all, but ...”

Lise clenched her eyes shut for a moment, fighting back the tears that she kept to herself so much, but one leaked out of the corner of her eye. She swiped it away with her fist, then punched the pillow in her lap. “I’m going to survive this. I will. I’ll be okay. I have to be. For my mom. For Hunter... The baby.”

Scooting across the couch, Grace wrapped her arms around Lise and hugged her hard. “Don’t forget yourself, honey. You have to get through this for
you
. Or else there won’t be anything left for anyone else.”

“I’ve been telling myself that, but it’s just so damn hard.” Lise sat back, her fingers teasing at a loose thread on the hem of her sweatshirt. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the end table and blew her nose. “There are times I wake up and I don’t think I can get through the day without losing my shit. Yesterday I bured the grilled cheese and I almost went postal on Hunter for spilling his orange juice. Then I had to tell him about the move and not being able to take the dogs with us ... No wonder he took off.”

“I can only imagine how tough this is for you. You call me anytime, you hear? I don’t care if it’s 3 a.m.”

Lise’s head bobbed in a nod, but her lip was quivering again. “Why didn’t he tell me? We could’ve figured something out. Now I’ve not only lost him — I’ve lost everything.”

“Hey, girl.” Tapping a finger on Lise’s still slim abdomen, Grace gave her friend an admonishing look. “You still have the two most important things in your life and a good mom who’s going to help you get back on your feet. I know things are pretty bad, but they could be a whole lot worse.”

A weak smile flitted over Lise’s lips. Still, she looked anything but optimistic. Grace rose, folded the throw hastily, and draped it over the arm of the couch. “I need to get to bed. I’ll be over after work tomorrow with more boxes. I expect to see progress before I get here, though. Got it?”

“See you.” Lise didn’t get up to see her friend out the door. She just sat there, staring off into space, too exhausted for tears, as the door clicked shut behind Grace.

It saddened me to see Lise like that. I pawed at the baby gate, signaling her to let me out so I could crawl up onto the couch next to her to let her stroke my fur. But Lise didn’t move. Not even when I let out a soft whine. I didn’t want to make too much noise and wake Hunter, so I sank down next to the gate.

When Lise needed me, when she was ready, I’d be waiting. It’s one of the things dogs do best. We are very,
very
patient. We can be foolishly hopeful that way. It’s not that we
want
to wait for the things to come our way. It’s that we usually have no other choice. Why torment yourself with what you can’t control?

Patience, though, requires faith. And we always ...
always
have faith in our humans. It’s why our bond with them is so strong, what makes us indispensable.

—o00o—

A bellow of anger came from the office at the end of the hall. I popped up from my spot over the register and sped down the corridor, turning the corner by the window just tightly enough to avoid crashing into the mountain of boxes piled against the wall there. I slowed as I reached the doorway, cautious.

Seated in the tall-backed leather chair before the computer where Cam used to spend hours, Lise swept a stack of yellow papers onto the floor.

“My God, this is going to take weeks — no,
months
to sort out.” Defeated, she plowed her hands through her hair and cradled her head, elbows planted on the desk. “And I thought this couldn’t get any worse. What dream world was I living in? The Land of Make-Believe? Never-Never Land? Everything’s Rosy in Faderville? Talk about naïve ... Why didn’t Cam just come clean? I mean, exactly when was he planning to tell me he owed so much money? When we found our dream house and the bank turned us down? How could I have been so —?”

The floor creaked beside me. Lise whipped her head up to see Hunter standing in the doorway. He looked down the moment their eyes met.

“Oh.” She twisted her wrist to check her watch. “I promised you lunch half an hour ago. Sorry, sweetie. I just need to finish with this drawer of papers first. Then I promise I’ll take a break. I’ll make your favorite: grilled cheese.”

He twisted his face in disapproval.

“Right. I burned it the last time, didn’t I? Peanut butter?”

The same face.

“And grape jelly?”

His head swiveled back and forth.

“Chicken fingers?”

A light shrug, a faint nod.

“Okay, then. Chicken fingers it is. And corn. I know you like corn. You do like corn, right?” she asked, but she didn’t sound very sure about it. She pushed the chair back on its rollers and stood, reaching her hand out. “Come on. I’ll start lunch. The paperwork can wait. Meanwhile, we’ll put your coat on and you and Halo can play ball in the yard.”

She led him down the hallway and to the back door in the kitchen. A minute later she had him bundled up in his puffy blue coat and matching Spiderman hat and mittens. She flung open the laundry room closet, fished out an old tennis ball, and dropped it into Hunter’s open palm. The yellow fuzz on one side of the ball was shredded so badly the rubbery insides were showing. She’d tried to give me new balls to play with, but I always abandoned them in favor of this one. Newer wasn’t always better.

“Throw it until you’re both too tired to play anymore, okay? Lunch should be done by then.” With that, she spun him around and nudged him out the door. “You, too,” she said to me.

I raced out into the sunshine, relieved to be out of the house. As much as I loved Lise, there was a cloud hovering over her lately that made it difficult to endure her company for long. I’d tried hard to offer comfort, to distract her with kisses and games of fetch, but she seemed mired in troubles that she didn’t want to burden the rest of us with.