Tomorrow's Sun (Lost Sanctuary)

by Becky Melby

  “Adam!”

  She turned her back as she yelled at him. She probably thought it was funny, but she was too nice to say so. “I left two bowls of food for Pansy last night. One at home where Bl—he—can’t find it and one by the bridge where we saw her last. I checked that one on my way here, but that was kind of early for her. She’s used to getting fed after school, so maybe she’s found it now.” His voice was starting to sound weird. He didn’t want his grandmother thinking he was going to cry. Pansy wasn’t his cat.

  “How’s Lex holding up?”

  “You know how girls are. She sewed Pansy a new pillow. It’s purple and—” His voice crackled. Jake said that was normal for his age. “Hey, I gotta go. Thanks for the cookies.” He hugged his grandma then ran outside and smack into Emily. “Oops. Sorry.”

  “Where’s the fire?” Her mouth kind of smiled, but her eyes were all red.

  Whatever Jake had found, she wasn’t happy about it, or maybe she was just sad. Maybe they found out who Mariah was. Adam glanced at his bike. He was dying to know what it was, but if he took the time to ask, he’d have to forget about stopping at the bridge. And he had to find Pansy. He couldn’t handle too many more days of hearing Lexi cry at night. “Gotta get back before Blim—my stepfather figures something’s up.”

  Emily stepped aside. “Ride safe.”

  “Yeah. I will.”

  The back roads were faster than the bike trail and he’d avoid going through town. He pedaled onto Highway D and strained to see Emily’s house. The trees were filling in and it was almost totally camouflaged from the road now, but he got a quick glimpse of Jake, hunched over with his head down.

  He was in the middle of the bridge when it hit him. Jake and Emily liked each other! Sure, she’d been crying and he was slumped over like Eeyore on a really bad day, but that probably meant they liked each other a lot. Practically everybody in seventh grade was going out with somebody, and remembering who was with who was like watching a magician doing a ball and cup trick. He didn’t get it, but he’d learned enough to know that if a guy was mad and not talking to a girl and she was crying and saying bad things about him, they were probably in love.

  Jake and Emily. Now that was cool. He let out a wild-cheetah yell. Lexi would absolutely freak. She’d probably start drawing the dress she wanted to wear for the wedding. Maybe it would help her forget about Pansy.

  ‘Cause he had a scary feeling the cat might not be coming back.

  Pansy hadn’t touched her food. But he’d no sooner turned the corner than the orange cat appeared on the opposite side of the road, padding proudly, head held high, with a mouse in her mouth.

  Relief hit so hard, it stung his eyes.

  The next thing he saw was blue. Big and blue and waddling along the roadside like a gigantic Weeble. In Ben’s hand was Adam’s pellet gun.

  Adam skidded to a stop, tossed his bike into the bushes, and hid. He had to do something. He patted his pants legs and an idea hit. He grabbed his mirror, shined it at the sun and angled the reflection onto the road about two yards in front of Pansy.

  Look, you stupid cat!

  Adam slunk deeper into the bushes and rested his arm on a branch. With just a slight twist of his wrist, he made the patch of light quiver on the gravel. Pansy slowed. Her head lowered. Her whole body crouched. The mouse dropped. Adam checked for cars then moved the light, inch by inch, into the street. Pansy followed.

  Ben took aim.

  “Keep moving.” Adam mouthed the command and dragged the light closer, faster. Just two yards to go. Still no cars from either direction. A miracle.

  The air rifle pumped. The noise should have scared the cat, but she was mesmerized by the traveling, trembling light. One more yard and Adam would grab her, run for the bike, and—

  “Pansy!” Lexi screamed from the house. The cat startled. The gun fired. Pansy shrieked. Her body lurched, landing within inches of Adam’s feet.

  Oh God, please. Adam burst out of the bushes. Tears blurring his vision, he crouched. Lexi’s screams and Ben’s curses filled his ears. He laid one hand on the sun-warmed fur. “She’s breathing, Lex!”

  Lexi slid in the gravel on the steep driveway and dashed into the road. A car horn blared, brakes squealed. She didn’t look up. Sobs shook her as she dove to the shoulder, landing hard on her knees. “Pansy. Wake up. Wake up, baby. I’m here. God, let her be okay.”

  Amber eyes opened. A soft mew. A tiny pink tongue licked Lexi’s fingertip. Lexi laughed, but it still sounded like a sob. “She’s okay.”

  Adam wasn’t so sure. The only thing he knew was they needed to get her far away from the cursing man with the air gun. “Try to pick her up. We gotta get out of here.”

  Lexi nodded, running her hands over the orange fur. She gasped. Blood covered her fingers. “Her front leg. It’s broken.”

  On the other side of the highway, Ben spat in the gravel. “Get away from the stupid cat or I’ll shoot you, too!” He added a string of hate-filled words.

  “She might try to fight you.” Adam slipped his backpack off. “We’ll have to put her in here so we can both get on the bike. We’ll be halfway to Grandma’s before he makes it back up the driveway.”

  Lexi’s face contorted as she slid her hands under Pansy. The cat moaned. “We’re going for a ride, sweetkins, just like always. We’ll take you to the doctor and he’ll fix you up and—” Pansy hissed. The claws on her good paw splayed and raked Lexi’s arm. Lexi flinched but didn’t pull away. “Come on, girl, I know it hurts, but we have to do this to make you better.” As she talked, Pansy settled like a wilting flower. Lexi eased her into the pack. “It won’t be long, baby, we’ll get you—”

  The gun fired. A pellet grazed the gravel less than a yard behind Lexi’s feet. Lexi’s eyes shot wide.

  “You two get away from that blasted cat or—”

  “Madsen! Are you insane?” A screen door slammed. Herb Klein stomped out of the house next door. “I just called the police, and I hope they slam your stupid hide in jail. Of all the crazy … Adam? Lexi? You okay?”

  “We’re fine. Pansy’s hurt. Could you call my uncle and tell him to come get us?”

  “You bet. You two come over here until he gets here. Madsen, put the gun down or I’ll go get mine.”

  The gun clattered to the sidewalk. “It’s just a stupid toy.”

  “Tell that to the cat. And the cops.”

  Finally. A witness. Jake stood with his arms around Adam and Lexi, staring at the broken butterfly clock and listening with quiet joy as Herb regaled the blue-uniformed officers with tales of Ben’s rages. He’d witnessed Ben smacking the cat onto the concrete and repeated numerous threats he’d heard through the screens in the past week.

  “You guys know I’ve called before, and I know you can’t do much if all he’s doing is yelling, but I always said if that”—he stopped, clearly searching for a cleaned-up word—“if I ever saw him hurt a hair on either one of those kids I’d—”

  “We appreciate your call, Mr. Klein.”

  Ben played down every accusation. He spoke to the officers as if they were old drinking buddies. “You know what the pressure of single parenting is like. Sure, I lose it once in awhile.” He painted a picture of a poor, bereaved man doing his best to raise his late wife’s children to be upstanding citizens. “I wasn’t shooting to hit the cat. It’s my daughter’s pet, why would I want to hurt it? I was just putting a little fear into it. Not like I used a shotgun, you know. I shot it off just for the noise and the st—cat turned at the last second and got in the way. I’d never hurt a fly. Just ask my kids.”

  The female officer nodded. “We will.”

  Jake couldn’t read their faces. He had no idea if they were buying the story. He gave his address and phone number and said the social workers could pop in anytime. They’d find the kids happy and cared for.

  Finally.

  Maybe there wouldn’t even be a trial. Maybe the county would just step in and award the kids to
him.

  “Jake?” Lexi leaned into him. The tears that dampened his shirt were for the cat alone. “Can we take Pansy to the vet now?”

  The female officer nodded. “No more questions for now.” She gave Lexi a maternal smile. “Hope Pansy’s good as new in a few days.” She looked up at Jake. “And I hope things go their way.”

  The officer pointed to the front door. “Let’s go, Mr. Madsen.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Lexi walked through her grandparents’ back door and into Grandma Blaze’s outstretched arms. “We had to leave her until Monday.”

  Pansy’s surgery had lasted almost an hour. Jake left in the middle of it to take Adam home, but Lexi wasn’t budging. The vet promised she could see Pansy as soon as the operation was finished. So she’d waited. She had to be the first face Pansy saw when she came to. And she was.

  Next to Mom dying, walking away from Pansy was the hardest thing she’d ever done. When the anesthesia fully wore off, Pansy would wake up in a cage. She’d never been caged before. She’d be terrified, and Lexi wouldn’t be there to tell her everything was going to be fine.

  “Thank goodness you found her and she’s going to be okay.” Grandma Blaze lifted her chin. “And thank goodness you’re here. And safe.”

  “But what if—”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Why don’t you take a shower and get some rest before the barbecue. Emily’s clearing her stuff out of your room so—”

  Lexi pulled away. “Emily? She’s here?”

  Her grandmother grinned. “I thought you knew. I invited her to stay here when she left the hospital.”

  “I knew, but I thought she’d be gone by now.” And no one said she took my room. With long strides she walked through the dining room and turned the corner. Laughter came from her room.

  Adam sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, holding his mirror over his head. A blob of light danced on Emily’s face as she stuffed clothes into a bag. Emily turned. “Lexi! Adam’s been telling me what happened. Poor Pansy.”

  Lexi stared at a gray T-shirt on the floor. She never threw clothes on the floor. The bed was made, but the quilt was lower on one side than the other.

  Emily reached toward her and rested a pasty-pale hand on her shoulder. “And how are you?”

  Tears she thought she’d run out of pressed against the backs of her eyes. She didn’t know why. Emily’s voice was kind, her touch gentle. Adam liked her. And if Adam could be believed, so did Jake.

  But Lexi didn’t. “Fine.” She would not shed those tears.

  “What are you wearing to the barbeque?”

  Her best friend was lying in a cage, her leg in a cast. What she wore to a silly barbeque wasn’t important. “Nothing special.” She reached behind the door, yanked her robe off its hook, and folded it in her arms, just the way she’d held Pansy only hours ago. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  And you’d better be gone when I get back.

  Emily stepped out of the shower in her own bathroom. She’d showered at the Bradens’ early this morning, but if she was going to do anything with her hair for the barbeque, washing it again was a necessity.

  Head wrapped in a giant terry-cloth turban, she stared at her reflection with a more critical eye than she had since before the accident. Her skin looked dry and blotchy from eighteen months without moisturizer. Skin that had once been accustomed to monthly facials had done a poor job offending for itself while she’d been preoccupied with deciding if life was worth living. The split ends hidden by the towel had fared much worse. She wrote “hot oil treatment” on a Post-It note on the mirror, right under “moisturizer”. Looking up at the burned-out bulbs, she thought back to a matter of days ago when none of this mattered.

  Jake was right. Someday the new, freed Emily Foster would actually want to be part of the real world. She’d want friends, maybe even dates. Until then, she needed to polish her rusty social skills and relearn confidence.

  She needed life practice. Not “kiss and run,” but maybe “have fun and run.” So there it was—a new, rhyming life philosophy.

  And what better place to start than here, where everyone knew she wasn’t staying and relationships were temporary. Like Post-It notes. Not too sticky.

  She glanced at the time on her phone. She had two and a half hours before Blaze would pick her up. Enough time to replace the makeup and nail polish expiring in bins in her basement, pick up salad ingredients and a tub of peanut butter cookie dough, and do something drastic with her hair.

  As she picked up her keys from the kitchen counter, an idea took shape. Lexi could use some cheering up. She pulled out her phone and stared at it. She didn’t have Blaze’s number.

  She did have Jake’s.

  Walking into what had once been the dining room, she nodded with approval. The wall the room had shared with the front parlor was gone. The openness was freeing. It confirmed what she’d known all along—she was right, and Renaissance Man, the guy with the biceps of a contractor but the heart of a poet, was wrong. She smiled, her gaze drifting to the dust-coated card table. Two imprints in the plaster dust marked the places he’d rested his arms. “Your eyes are the stars of the midnight sky. Tell me your name, fair princess.”

  She’d overreacted, let her baggage get in the way again. His reaction had startled her. “What are your chains, Emily?” She needed to explain. But how much? How many links of her chain could he handle? Would he even answer her call? She walked to the window and stared out at her spruce tree. Karen twittered on a high branch. Cardinal Bob was nowhere to be seen or heard. For once, the song of the red-brown bird didn’t sound scolding or commanding. She sounded lonely. “Sure, you chase him away and miss him when he’s gone.”

  Emily leaned her forehead against the window frame and dialed.

  It rang four times then went to voice mail. “Hi, this is Jake with Braden Improvements. We’re here to make your space a better place. Leave a message and I’ll return your call ASAP. God bless.”

  Had the last two words always been part of his message? She had no idea. “God bless.” His smile came through in the soft benediction. It caught her off guard. When the tone sounded, she scrambled to remember why she’d called.

  “Jake. This is Emily. I was just heading to Walmart and thought maybe Lexi would like to ride along, but I don’t have your mom’s number. If you could give me a call and—”

  Chimes announced an incoming call. “Hello?”

  “Emily? It’s Jake. Sorry I missed your call.” No disgust or condemnation colored his greeting.

  She explained why she’d called.

  A long pause followed. She was about to say maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, when he cleared his throat. “That would be so good for her. Thank you.” He gave her the number. She wrote it in the plaster dust next to his arm prints. “I’ll warn you, though, she gets pretty silly when she’s happy.”

  “I could use some silly about now.” She turned back to the window, back to Karen and her lonely song. “I’m sorry I didn’t respond the way I should have earlier. Sometimes I—”

  “These apologies are going to have to stop, Miss Foster. Let’s make a deal. When you do something that genuinely offends me, I’ll let you know, okay?”

  Cardinal Bob swooped onto a low branch. Emily smiled. “I think you’re far too ni—polite to do that.”

  His laugh widened her smile. “I heard that. You almost called me nice.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “So you don’t think I’m nice?”

  Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  Jake laughed again. “I’ll expect an answer to that question tonight. Have fun with my niece.” The connection ended—before she could tell him she wasn’t going to read the letters without him.

  Lexi threw her brush at her dresser. “Without asking me? Why would you do that?”

  The brush smacked the pen Emily had left there and projected it into the waste basket. “I don’t n
eed a haircut.”

  “That’s just an option, Lexi.” Her grandmother’s hands left her hips. She fished the pen out of the basket. “Emily’s getting her hair cut and she said if you wanted a trim at the same time…” A heavy sigh puffed her cheeks. “She thought it would be fun if you picked out nail polish together.”

  “I don’t wear nail polish.”

  “Lex. Emily just wants—”

  “I know what she wants!” Every muscle in her body turned to steel like the strings on her guitar. Pressure built in her chest, demanding to be screamed out. “We don’t even know her. You let some stranger sleep in my bed and use my things and now you want me to go off with her to who knows where!”