Traveling Light (36 page)

“If only people could see,” Paula said. “They’d be outraged.”

“Or else they’d buy ’em all just to save them,” Eleni said.

Paula lowered her head. “Why isn’t this illegal?” she asked.

“For the same reason lead sinkers and bullets aren’t,” Rick said, his voice getting chillier by the word.

She thought of the eagle and how the bird had suffered with seizures and organ failure. How Rick had stayed up nights, holding the eagle while he violently seized, so that he wouldn’t hurt himself. Her eagle was one of the lucky few to beat the harsh odds of lead poisoning. Yet he had many hard months of rehab still ahead of him before being released back to the wild, if ever. And for every bird found and treated, Rick claimed there were at least five or six more suffering and dying in the woods alone.

“So why doesn’t the NRA just ban lead bullets?” Paula asked. “I mean it’s our national symbol and all,” she insisted. “Wouldn’t you think they’d give a shit?”

Both men laughed bitterly. Darryl bent down to resume examinations. “I gotta stop talking about this shit; my blood pressure’s rising and my wife’ll fucking kill me if I have a stroke.”

*   *   *

“Paula you should come home, go to bed,” Eleni suggested.

“No, I want to stay and help with the huskies and malamutes.”

“I’ll drive her back,” Rick said. He looked at Eleni and winked that it was okay.

“Okay, Loukoumi.” Eleni turned to the little brown dog. “We’ll go back to the house alone,” she said in an exaggerated way that made both Paula and Rick laugh out loud.

“Maybe Panagiotis will come keep us company. Come, little one.” She climbed into the Escape and shut the door.

Rick ran over to the yard and brought Fotis over, loading him up in the back.

*   *   *

The yard had been divided using bales of hay into those dogs who’d been immunized and checked and those who needed further evaluation and medical treatment. Rick came out of the house, holding two small wet dogs he’d just washed. He placed them in a separate part of the yard. “Two more, Darryl,” he called.

Paula crouched down to pet the husky with her pups. She was positive the mother was the same one she’d grabbed from the barn. Rick crouched down beside her. The dog looked up at her so gently, yearning for love and a gentle touch, that it broke Paula’s heart. She remembered the dog’s shriek as Paula had gathered up the puppies into her sweatshirt. The mother had felt so light as Paula had carried her out—a furry sack of bones.

“What’ll happen to them all?”

Rick looked at her. “Oh … the rescue groups’ll find homes,” he said. “I’m sure it’s already a high-profile rescue on the Net. People from all over will be wanting to adopt, and rescue groups do a great job of screening to find what they call ‘forever’ homes,” he explained. “They’ll probably first sort out those dogs who’ll be more easily adoptable and then concentrate on the ones who need more socialization. Some might never be adoptable.”

“What’ll happen to them?”

“They’ll get sanctuary. Just like some of the raptors I have here, just like Sam,” Rick said as she felt his gaze on her face. “I figure after this you’d be heading full-speed ahead back to New York City,” he said in a way she couldn’t read.

“Why do you say that?” she asked. He didn’t answer.

“You up for washing this mom and her pups?”

“Absolutely.” She stood and launched into a coughing jag.

“You okay?”

She motioned with her hands that she was fine.

“Grab that shampoo bottle and let’s carry them into the house,” he said. “There’s a large crate in the hall. Let’s put ’em all in there. Someone said all four bathrooms are full with dogs being bathed, so I’ll put on a pot of coffee for everyone while we wait.”

He lifted the mother and Paula gathered the puppies.

“As you wash ’em, make sure to saturate their fur and every crease and fold in their groins, armpits,” he instructed. “Wash and rinse each pup three times even if you think they’re clean.”

“You got it.”

Just then Jason arrived, walking into the kitchen as Paula placed the puppies into the hall crate with their mother.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted Paula and Rick. He began asking questions; another reporter had been on the scene taking photographs. He was assigned to cover the story and check on the Jailbird. He stood taking notes in the kitchen while the coffee brewed.

*   *   *

It was after eight that evening before they’d washed the last of the huskies in Rick’s master bathroom. Paula was drenched and filthy. Rick had stepped outside to help Darryl with something when she spotted a folded pair of Rick’s cutoffs and a shirt on a chair. She quickly changed into them, wrapping her clothes in one of the damp towels and placing the bundle by Rick’s bedroom door to grab on the way out later.

Paula sat down on Rick’s bed for a moment. The top covers were strewn with towels, grooming rakes and brushes along with dog collars, some used and others with store tags. She pushed the paraphernalia aside and then rolled flat to stretch her back.

*   *   *

She woke up, the sun shining pink through her eyelids. The feel of breath was warm on her neck; as she leaned back deliciously, a body pushed against her. Peaceful breathing was coming from behind her, pressing against her back with its every rise and fall. An arm was slung over her hip, with a hand holding her stomach, cradling her. She slipped back into the blissfulness of the dream of being held, as she’d done on the downstairs couch of Roger’s brownstone—such a sweet dream, until both her eyes flipped open.

She looked around and jerked up, realizing where she was.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Disoriented, she ricocheted around the room like it had become a pinball machine, bashing into the dresser, knocking things over in frenzied disorientation. “Shit, shit.” She tried to get her bearings. Here she was, a married woman, asleep in Rick’s arms—so close to smell his warmth, not wanting to get up. “Oh God, I’m sorry,” she said, walking backward, looking for her shoes. She bumped against the half-open bedroom door. “Oh shit, I must have fallen asleep. Sorry.”

Sam looked up at her from the foot of the bed; Rick glanced up but then turned over. She raced out of his house down the slope and toward the grassy road. Hopping as she put on one boot, then the other, the laces from both trailing behind her as she ran all the way back to the guesthouse.

CHAPTER 15

Later that morning Rick approached her as she was in the flight room with the eagles.

“Paula,” he said with sincerity. “I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable.”

She’d looked down at her shoes. “Hey—no big deal—I forgot about it already.” She shrugged it off and made a funny face, nudging the fresh roadkill closer to the center of the room. He bent over to help drag the carcass. She could tell he didn’t believe her just by the phony nonchalance of her voice.

“You just looked so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you to drive you home,” he explained. “So I crashed next to you, like we do in the ICU with the critical all-nighters.”

Yeah, but you usually aren’t snuggled up to me with your arm around my waist.

“Hey—like I said, no prob.” She looked at him like
just drop it.

*   *   *

A few days later Paula was in the raptor ICU, feeding the barred owl his last meal of the day.

Jason had just left after popping in to check on the bird’s progress for his weekly series in the
Cook County News Herald
documenting the owl’s recovery. People were calling the paper as well as Rick in support and wanting to make donations to Northern Lights Wildlife Rehabilitation. The
Duluth News Tribune
had picked up the series and it was soliciting phone calls of support from the Duluth area.

The owl was finally out of danger and upgraded to guardedly optimistic, as Rick called it, to the point where they’d started hand-feeding him chunks of muskrat with a pair of tweezers. Rick explained that barred owls don’t eat mice; they are known for living on a diet of skunk—so their poor sense of smell, in this case, served them well. With each bite the owl’s two dark brown bars arched over his eyes to create an expression of perpetual surprise.

Paula’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. Ordinarily she left it off, but since Eleni was back at the guesthouse with Loukoumi and Fotis, making stuffed peppers for dinner, Paula had left it on. Pulling it out, she looked at the number
.
Shit.
It was Roger. After three weeks of being underground in the Hadron Collider. She almost didn’t answer it but knew she’d just have to face him later.

“Hey,” Roger said, his voice elated. “God, I’ve missed you.” She heard the hunger in his voice, but rather than eliciting a rush of desire, it made her feel as if she’d eaten something bad.

“My mother’s been here.”

“Eleni? You’re kidding.”

“That’s the only one I have.” The sarcastic edge in her voice surprised her. “She’s been here for seventeen days.”

“Jesus. And I haven’t read about it in the newspaper by now?”

“Ha, ha, very funny, Roger.” The comment made her angry, though only weeks ago she’d have been laughing right along with him. “It’s actually been really nice,” she corrected him, and it occurred to her she didn’t even want to relate the events of the past five weeks. The eagle now being rehabilitated in the flight room, the barred owl she’d been feeding, the puppy mill rescue and watching the husky pups waddle over to their mom in the little wire corral that Rick had set up in his living room. “We’ve really had a great time.”

“Really,” Roger backed off quickly. “Well, that’s good.” He could barely veil his surprise.

An awkward silence followed.

“So how’s France?”

“It was great.”

Was?
“Where are you calling from?”

“Home.”

“Oh. I thought you had a few more weeks.”

“I did, but I had to come home early. Some sort of ruckus at the department.”

“Oh.” She didn’t have a thing to say.

“God, I can’t wait to see you,” he said with the conviction men have when they’re just about to sit down to a good meal.

Her stomach tightened. It hadn’t done so in weeks, and to think that only a few days ago during the fire she’d ached for him. She’d never been one to be fickle.

“When are you coming home?” he asked, only it sounded more demanding.

“I-I-I’m not sure.”

“Well, I’ve got a huge surprise waiting.”

“I-I’m committed for a while longer.”

“Doing what?” The way he asked implied there was no right answer. Anything she might say would be shot down as inconsequential. “Well, can’t you just come back this weekend?”

“I-I’m not sure.”

“I’d come out there and drive that car back with you, but I’ve got to be at Columbia this week. Just store the car somewhere and fly back with your mother. We can always have it shipped or get it one weekend and drive back together. I know how you love to drive.”

He didn’t even mention Fotis.

“I don’t know, Roger. I have my dog, too. Let me think about it.”

“I’ve got an incredible surprise waiting for you,” he said, his voice agitated with excitement.

“What?” Her voice was flat—probably another loose, almost flawless diamond from Antwerp.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you,” he seductively tried to goad her into begging and squealing as to what it might be, but she didn’t.

“Well, okay.” He seemed disappointed. “I’ll tell you.” He sounded embarrassed by her lack of enthusiasm and it made her feel sorry for him. “I’ve had the brownstone redone.”

He continued haltingly, waiting for her reaction. “Last week I got a file of photos from the interior designer. They’ve worked on it all summer. Thought I’d surprise you, but so much for that,” he said. “I’ll forward the file right now, you can take a look at it.” She could hear him distractedly monkeying with his phone to e-mail it.

“Fine.”

“New bed,” he went on. “New bathrooms, kitchen, the whole place—you wouldn’t even recognize it; I didn’t.”

“What’d you do with all your stuff?”

“Some of it was yours, too, you know,” he said in that scolding-father voice.

She closed her eyes.
Here we go again.
“Whatever, Roger.”

“It’s all gone.”

“Really,” she commented. “Where’d you move it?”

“It’s gone—I got rid of it.”

“Everything?”

“Each room is completely new and refurnished,” he said.

“You trashed it all?”

“It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, Paula, I swear,” he said; his voice had the eagerness of a TV announcer selling a vacuum cleaner. “I hired that design firm you’ve always wanted to use.”

She felt the quiet space between them expand and didn’t know what to say or believe.

“This summer I’ve done a lot of thinking,” Roger broke the silence. “I realized that you’ve been right all along. It’s high time we live like a ‘real married couple,’ as you always say.”

“Oh.” Her insides thrashed with guilt. Torn-up pieces were vying to speak. “Well, that’s good.”
Why now? Why not ten years ago?
The tension between them grew painful.

“So, hey—,” Roger broke the silence. “How ’bout meeting me home this weekend? You’re not on a schedule or anything, are you?”

“Uhhh—I’m committed for another week, maybe two,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“I told you I’m very busy here, Roger,” she raised her voice. If it were possible, she would have stalled indefinitely.

“Well, you don’t sound very excited,” he said.

“I’m just in the middle of something. I’ll get back to you later,” she said, picking up another hunk of bloody red flesh for the owl.

“Well, okay,” Roger said. She heard more disappointment. “Maybe that’ll work out better.” She heard him thinking. “This way I’ll get used to the brownstone, get things ready for your return.”

“My return.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound so different.”

“I’m fine.” It was the first lie she’d told since arriving in Grand Marais. It made her stomach hurt with a familiar ache.