The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs: A Novel (22 page)

“Not at all. Humble is exactly what Cobb would have said. How well did you know him?”

Though I’m tempted to be evasive, her quote about honesty makes me want to come clean. The question is, having started can I stop?

“I’m Bobby Cobb’s son.”

Everything changed after my mother’s death, and this label,
son
, became more bearable than recognizing Cobb as my father. Being his son feels blameless. And suggesting he’s my father would give him too much credit, given the way things turned out.

Busy with a tricky bit of the crust, Amy’s fork hovers before clattering onto the plate. “You’re kidding me. Why didn’t you say? You don’t look much like him. Except maybe the eyes.”

I want to thank her for the compliment. “I’m told I resemble my late mother.”

“Wait a minute. Mills?”

“My mother’s maiden name.”

Her lips part, and each colored eye sparkles in its own way as she imagines some version of my past. “So, what, you’re in the witness protection program?”

I think she’s joking but it’s not a bad analog —move across the country, change my identity, start life over. With witness protection you’re not allowed any contact with your past. Me, I’ve gone for total immersion in mine.

“I don’t remember seeing you at the funeral. Pretty much the whole town turned out for him.”

My turn to drop my fork. “I wasn’t there. Okay?” No good can come from this but I press on, feeling defensive. “Sometimes it feels like this town is nothing but a shrine to Bobby Cobb. I can almost smell the incense.” Pierced by the way Amy recoils, I wait a beat before adding, “Sorry … that came out a little …”

“Hostile?”

“Angry. I didn’t mean to sound so angry.”

“Don’t worry about it. You only get angry over the things you love, right?”

It’s strange (and a little uncomfortable) hearing someone articulate this concept. “Look, he and I were very different. It’s just that we fell out some years back.”

Amy appears flummoxed, or maybe she’s already siding with Cobb. “But he was so popular?”

“Well, yeah, let’s just say he wasn’t as popular at home.”

Her head lists ever so slightly to one side as though, physically and metaphorically, she’s starting to see me in a different light.

“He was good with the animals though,” I say. “And hey, what’s not to like in a man who basically gives away his services for free?”

“You think life’s all about making money?”

“If I did, would I be here in Eden Falls?” As soon as I say this I worry that I’ve offended her. If she’s mentally jotting down my answers and keeping tally, I’m not scoring so well. “I don’t think your life should be consumed by your work, that’s all.”

This appears to give her pause.

“Yes, but you’ve chosen a vocation, right? A calling. The line between the two is bound to blur.”

“Maybe. But if you can’t see the divide, if you can’t strike a balance, someone’s going to pay the price.”

She puts down her fork. Twelve inches separates her hand from mine.
No jewelry, no wristwatch, no ring
.

“Is that what went wrong between you and him?” she asks, and I wonder if she is doing the same thing, looking at the fourth finger on my left hand—no band, no indentation, no telltale ring of pale skin where the sun never reached. Have I made my estrangement from my father sound like a failed marriage?

“I … um … I’d rather not …”

“It’s okay,” she says, and we share our first awkward silence.

“So you grew up here? Attend MRH?” she asks.

It takes me a while to remember MRH is Missiquoi Regional High. “Yeah. Just my freshman year. But you’re younger than me, so I’m sure our paths never crossed. You lived here your whole life?” Go back to what works. Use the high beams.

She flinches, as though I hit a nerve. “Why would you think that?”

“I just thought Eden Falls might be home.”

“Nah, I’m just back here for a while. I dropped out of school. I still have a few more credits left to take. This waitress thing is fine for right now. They’re flexible about my hours, and with people like you around, I make decent tips.”

“But you are going to complete your education?”

She bristles, pulls back her hands. “You don’t think it’s appropriate for a smart woman to work as a waitress?”

“No of course not. I mean, no, I think it’s fine. But … I think everyone should get a chance to fulfill their potential.” Why do I sound so self-important?

“Really. You think I’m a stereotype, an academic dropout forced to choose unskilled labor? You think the only math I can do is calculate fifteen percent? You think I have a kid at home?”

“No, I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“Is running Bedside Manor—dreadful name by the way—something you’ve dreamed of your whole life? This is you fulfilling your potential?”

“I didn’t really choose to do this. It’s just something I have to do for right now. But I agree with you, about the name.”

She straightens and smiles, but it’s the smile of a bitter victory. “Something you have to do. Something that feels a bit like a chore, a burden, unpleasant but unavoidable.”

“Exactly.”

She shakes her head and stands. Given her expression I’m pretty sure I’m in trouble. “It sounds as though we have something in common, but one of us sees the dilemma very differently.”

If I could get away with saying nothing I would. “Sees what?” I ask.

“That doing right by someone else, especially someone you love, means having to ditch your pride.” She sighs, reaches into her breast pocket, pulls out the bill, and slides it across the table. “Thank you,” she says, sounding anything but grateful. “I’ll take that when you’re ready.”

On the way home I drop by Fancies Convenience Store to pick up a few groceries. First impression: there is nothing particularly fancy about it. It’s a converted red barn, rustic, complete with high ceilings and original post-and-beam construction. But I was wrong. Oh, it’s no Piggly Wiggly, what with the tight aisles and Lilliputian shopping carts, but for a small town store, Fancies is surprisingly well stocked. It has its own deli, butcher shop, and there’s a homemade ice cream counter. Beyond transparent strip curtains lies a chilling treasure trove of beer and wine. I wonder if they have a barista?

The collision of our carts is the stuff of
Ben Hur
.

“Sorry about that.”

“Not a problem, Doc.” Steven, Ginny Weidmeyer’s fiancé, grasps the handlebar of his cart like he’s hanging on to a Harley for dear life. I notice a list between his thumb and forefinger and then, like most folks who get to talking in a supermarket, I can’t help but peruse the items Steven is about to purchase: a box of Land O’ Lakes butter, half a dozen bottles of Grolsch beer, a pint of Cherry Garcia, and a bag of Lavazza espresso. I remember Ginny telling me how Steven always brings her a cappuccino first thing in the morning.

I look up. He appears to have noticed the way curiosity turned into scrutiny. I’ve got to say something.

“Expensive caffeine habit?”

Steven considers me and forces a polite smile. “Ginny wants to make me tiramisu, whatever that is.”

I flash my eyebrows, pretending to draw a blank, when what has really caught my eyes has nothing to do with liquor-soaked ladyfingers and everything to do with Chelsea, the kidney stone cat. Hidden behind a bag of confectioners’ sugar and a tub of mascarpone cheese sit several small cans of cat food. These are the antithesis of Chelsea’s vital prescription diet. These are the ones you see on the TV ads, served on a silver platter to a fluff y white Dr. No cat by a white-gloved butler.

“How’s Chelsea doing?”

“She’s absolutely fine,” says Steven, with far more animosity than apathy. “Ginny gets all crazy about her. I mean she’s old. What does she expect?”

“As I recall Chelsea’s ten. Not that old for a cat.”

“Not that young either. Ginny tends to lose her perspective. It’s like a while back when Chelsea needed her booster vaccinations and she didn’t want her to have them. I said, ‘What are you worried about, you think Chelsea will go all autistic on you?’ ”

He cracks up. Waves his list in my face.

“Got to grab some heavy cream. For me, not the cat.”

And with that Steven steers around me and heads for a refrigerator full of dairy products.

Unfortunately, with only one cash register open for business, I come in line behind him as he loads up the conveyor belt.

“Need to see some ID,” says a pimply young man with lunar landscape cheeks as he sweeps the bar code on the Grolsch beer.

Steven runs a thumb and forefinger down his goatee, the two meeting and tugging on the hairs at the base of his chin, as though the cashier himself might want to think about facial hair as a way to spare the public from the horrors of his acne-scarred features.

“You don’t think I look twenty-one?”

“Store policy, sir. Everyone gets carded. Everyone.”

Steven looks over his shoulder at me, shakes his head, digs out his wallet from the front pocket of his jeans, and hands over a driver’s license. The kid takes it, finishes scanning the cream before inspecting the laminated plastic card like it might be a fake.

“Thanks, Stuart,” says the cashier, this time sliding the license across the stationary belt.

Steven snatches it up as if it’s the ace he’s been waiting for.

“Steven’s my middle name,” he says to me. “Hated the name Stuart.”

I’m pretending to be fascinated by a Brad and Angelina article in
People
magazine. As though I never spied his toxic cat food. As though I couldn’t care less about him preferring Steven to Stuart. As though I wasn’t quick enough to notice how the man supposedly from Manhattan has a driver’s license not from the “Empire State” of New York, but from the “Sunshine State” of Florida.

Next morning, at nine on the dot, I stroll downstairs to the waiting room and make a peculiar yet gratifying discovery—there’s a client waiting to see me. And that’s when I notice Doris, my steaming cup of morning cheer, not behind the reception desk but strolling back and forth outside the front door. Unbelievable. She’s already on a smoke break. Now I know why she’s permanently wearing a ski jacket. It’s not that the reception area is too cold for her, it’s because she spends more time outside than in, sucking down cigarettes.

I greet the client, assure him I won’t be a moment, and head outside.

“Nice job on the roof,” says Doris. She winces into a drag, jabbing the glowing end of the cigarette in my direction. Paradoxically she cocks her little finger, like an English lady drinking tea.

I follow the red dot of her laser beam and glance back at the house.
The ice dams
. After my interview with Greer and my disastrous encounter with Amy, I completely forgot about getting rid of the fresh snow with the rake. Thankfully, it looks like Lewis did not.

“You do realize there’s a client waiting?”

“Yes, Dr. Mills. You’ll notice his file has been waiting for you on top of the reception desk.”

I’m not good at glowering but I try my best.

Doris shifts what little weight she possesses from one foot to the other. “The Wi-Fi people said they’d be by this morning.” She prefers to say “whiffy” to “Wi-Fi.” “And Mrs. Haggerty left a message. Wants you to see Puck again.”

I think about this. I can convince myself that blood tests and X-rays on her lingerie-swallowing dog make for good medicine, but if I’m honest, with time running out, I’m desperate enough to perform any kind of money-making diagnostics, even if the woman scares me to death.

“Tell her she should bring him in,” I say, without explanation and head back inside. This time I notice Frieda’s “Missing” poster. I put it up on Cobb’s Wall of Fame. So what if the golden Amelia Earhart is upstairs dozing in front of my refrigerator.

I pick up the file. Damn, another disappointing Post-it note—
$!

“Mr. Minch.”

“That’s Dr. Minch.”

The man correcting me is a stout fellow who is unwilling to meet my eyes. There’s a cheap cardboard cat carrier in his right hand.

I close the door behind us in the exam room. “My apologies, Doctor, what can I do for you?”

Dr. Minch places the carrier on the table between us, wheezing with the exertion. “Neutered male cat. I’m guessing ten or eleven years old, give or take. I adopted him as a stray a few days ago. He has a sarcoma between his shoulder blades.”

His synopsis of the creature inside the box is monotone, matter of fact, but he and I both know the word
sarcoma
was slipped in like a secret handshake, enough insider jargon to let me know he’s probably not got a PhD in engineering. How long can I last without asking?

“A sarcoma?”

“Correct.”

Dr. Minch has little spittle bubbles at the corners of his mouth.

“Is this … speculation … based on prior experience?”

Something lights up in Minch’s piggy eyes. “There’s a discreet, firm, nonfluctuant, nonpainful mass, approximately one-by-one centimeter in size, symmetrically aligned between the dorsal spinous processes of the scapulae. Now you tell me, Dr. Mills, what else might it be?”

I’m not loving his condescending tone. He already strikes me as the kind of man who carefully lists his credentials when he sends a friend a birthday card. Nothing will annoy him more than my refusal to inquire about his doctorate. Having said that, Minch’s lexicon sounds dangerously familiar.