An Unexpected Grace

by Kristin von Kreisler

  Lila’s left arm was too weak to lift even part of Grace. Lila had to get help. Slowly she and Grace made their way back into the house.

  “Adam? It’s Lila.” She gripped the telephone receiver.

  “It’s been a while.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  He paused, like he was letting that sink in. “What’s up?”

  “Grace cut her paw. She needs to go to the vet. I can’t lift her into the car.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Tears came to Lila’s eyes. “Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Adam brought a royal blue hand towel, which he gently wrapped around Grace’s paw. He picked her up from her kitchen bed as if she were made of Baccarat crystal, and he carried her outside. Lila followed them up the path to his silver Honda and opened the door to the backseat. He set Grace down and closed the door behind her.

  When Lila slid in the back on the other side, Adam said, “Hold the towel around her paw and press on the wound.”

  Lila pressed, and she kissed Grace’s widow’s peak. As Adam sped down the hill, Grace whined and licked Lila’s hand like she was trying to comfort her. Lila blinked back tears.

  Adam glanced at her in his rearview mirror. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Nobody ever told me how terrible it would be to see Grace suffer,” Lila said, her voice cracking.

  Dr. Armand Hightower was not so high as his name would have led you to expect. He was short, pudgy, round, and bald—a croquet ball of a veterinarian, whom Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts might have whacked through hoops. But behind his aviator glasses, there was compassion in his eyes.

  Stooped over Grace’s paw, he pushed apart her bloody fur and probed, then dabbed the spot with gauze. “She’s got a nasty cut.”

  Lila wrapped her arms around herself to keep her heart from pounding through her chest and bounding off like a wounded deer. “I don’t know what happened. I let Grace out like I always do,” Lila said. “I thought the yard was safe. I wish I’d checked for something that could cut her.”

  Under the fluorescent lights, everything in the room seemed jittery, including the doorknobs and stainless steel towel dispenser. The leopard in a photo on the wall was frowning.

  When Adam wrapped his arm around Lila’s shoulder, she avoided looking up into his eyes because she expected to see judgment toward her for failing to keep Grace safe. But, to Lila’s surprise, he smoothed her tee shirt with his hand and showed no sign of blaming her. Grateful, she leaned against him like she was a horse outside in a blizzard, and he was a warm barn wall.

  When Dr. Hightower was about to carry Grace to surgery, Lila asked, “Will she be all right?”

  “Once we clean the cut and stitch her up, she should be fine,” he said.

  “You’ll be good to her?” Lila asked.

  “Don’t worry.” Dr. Hightower glanced at Adam and smiled.

  “You’re sure?” Lila asked. “She’s had a terrible life.”

  “Come on, Lila. Let’s go sit in the waiting room,” Adam said.

  She kissed Grace’s widow’s peak again and hugged her. “We’ll be right here, Grace. I promise.”

  You could tell that Dr. Hightower wanted his waiting room to be a happy place where everybody’s needs were met. On a table in one corner were children’s games, building blocks, and Dr. Seuss books; in another corner, a tin of shortbread cookies, a jar of dog biscuits, and a pot of coffee. On the walls were posters of robust dogs and cats who gave clients hope that their own pets could be healthy. Sitting in chairs were teddy bears to clutch, as needed. Lila grabbed a fuzzy white one.

  “Want some coffee?” Adam asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “A cookie?”

  “No.”

  “How about a dog biscuit? You should eat something to keep up your strength.”

  Despite her worry, Lila smiled at him.

  Lila and Adam sat side by side in molded plastic chairs. He stretched out his legs in front of him and crossed his ankles. When he reached over and took her hand, she was glad instead of wary, as she’d have expected. Reassurance seemed to be residing in his epidermis. Though strong from hauling apple crates, his hand was gentle.

  “So tell me. Did your phone line snap in two or something ?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “So why the month’s silence?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t feel right calling you.”

  He chuckled. “You wanted to be pursued?”

  “No.”

  “Then what? Something to do with your ex-boyfriend?”

  “Probably. At least partly,” Lila said. “It’s been a crazy time.”

  “You need to get over it.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “How about trying?”

  Adam rubbed his thumb over the top of Lila’s hand. “There’s this lady who seemed to blame herself about a dog’s cut paw. She wished she’d gotten on her hands and knees and combed every inch of half an acre before letting her dog out this morning.”

  “I wish she had,” Lila said.

  “Seems a little excessive to me. Too much to expect of herself, don’t you think?”

  “She feels guilty.”

  “Guilt’s a waste of time.” Adam twirled a button on his shirt. “Feeling like something’s your fault is a way to fool yourself into thinking you’re in control. Problem is we’re not in control of much in this world. Most of what happens is beyond us.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “It is,” Adam said.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Is letting loose of things a problem for you?”

  “You could say that.”

  As the waiting dragged on, Adam got up, poured himself a cup of coffee, and shuffled through magazines by the receptionist’s desk. When he came back to the sofa, he handed Lila a People; on the cover famous couples were gazing with longing at each other.

  “Here’s something to distract you,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Lila set the magazine in her lap.

  After he studied the table of contents of a Sports Illustrated, he looked at her unopened People. “You’re not reading.”

  “I can’t. I’m too worried.”

  “I can’t, either. I was just pretending.” He closed his magazine.

  “Thanks for caring,” Lila said.

  “Couldn’t help but.”

  “I appreciate it. Really.”

  Adam checked his watch and put his wrist in front of Lila so she could also see the time. Though they’d been there less than an hour, it felt like three days. As he got up and paced the room, his loafers’ heels tapped the tile floor. He stopped and studied a poster of a black Lab with a chartreuse tennis ball in its mouth like the one Grace carried around. But the Lab’s was new, and Grace would have nothing to do with any ball except hers, which housed more germs than a New Delhi gutter.

  When Adam came back, Lila whispered, “You should get another dog.”

  “I will eventually.”

  “The right time will come.”

  “It does. For everything.” Adam settled back down beside her.

  Another fifteen minutes inched by like a slug on Thorazine. Lila counted how many times Adam checked his watch: eleven. He may have counted how many times she rubbed her forehead—until the number needed commas. But rubbing her forehead didn’t stop the worry.

  A woman in tennis togs came into the clinic with her basset hound. A man chewing an unlit cigar dragged in his German shepherd mutt. When an elderly couple struggled from the parking lot with three cat carriers, Adam got up and opened the door for them. They whispered apologies to no one in particular as the waiting room filled with hostile squawks and yowls.

  Lila barely heard them because she was picturing Grace conked out on an operating table with an anesthesia mask over her muzzle, or lying, woozy, in a recovery cage. Grace’s fur would be matted with blood, and her pa
w would be throbbing. If she were conscious, she could be worrying that Lila and Adam had left her at the clinic forever. Lila ached to get her home.

  Finally, Dr. Hightower walked Grace into the waiting room, and Adam and Lila rushed to her.

  Her right paw and lower leg were wrapped in elastic white tape, and her eyes were glassy. Still, she swished her tail and emphatically said, Thank God you’re here! Please, please, take me home!

  Lila got on her knees and wrapped her arms around Grace, careful not to jostle her. Lila squeezed her as tightly as she dared as Grace squeaked and licked Lila’s face.

  “Good girl,” she said.

  I love you, said Grace’s whimpers.

  As Adam stroked her head, she pressed it against his hand. Home! Home! begged her nuzzles.

  Lila thanked Dr. Hightower. Three times. He gave Adam antibiotics, pain medication, a printout of care instructions, and the bill. Dr. Hightower asked that Adam and Lila bring Grace back for a checkup on Monday. When Dr. Hightower returned to an exam room, Adam went to the receptionist and handed her a credit card

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Lila leapt up and tore across the room.

  “I can pay,” Adam said.

  “You can not.”

  “The bill is bigger than you think. You don’t have a job.”

  “I don’t care how much the bill is for. Grace is mine.”

  “Is this going to put you into debt?”

  “No. And I’m not your ex-girlfriend.”

  “I was just trying to help.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  Adam’s lips turned up slightly, the beginning of a smile.

  Lila and Adam settled Grace in her pumpkin position on the kitchen pillow. Her face looked droopy, and her bandaged paw stuck out like a short white cane. But she seemed as if she’d soon get back to her old self. As Lila broiled her a chicken breast, relief welled up inside her and made her giddy.

  Adam seemed relieved too. He changed Grace’s water and set the bowl next to her so she could drink without getting up. When her chicken was done, he cut it into pieces and showed Lila how to sneak in pills so Grace would swallow them and never know the difference.

  As he walked to the front door, he said, “I don’t want to distress you again by suggesting you call me. But if Grace needs anything, you know where I am.”

  “I do.”

  “No broken phone lines.”

  “None,” Lila said. “And thanks. You’ve been our saving grace.”

  Adam put his hand on the doorknob, as if he were about to leave. Then he turned around and brushed Lila’s lips with a quick kiss. It told her that whatever was between them was not going to be platonic, and she’d just washed up on the beach of a relationship.

  As he walked up the path to the street, Lila’s Horny Guttersnipe tap-danced around the entry and hummed, “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

  “I don’t care what you want,” Lila told her. “I’m not getting involved with any man. He’s just a friend.”

  Lila’s Horny Guttersnipe winked. Tee-hee!

  While Grace was sleeping off her anesthetic, Lila tiptoed out of the house to walk downtown for more chicken. When she came to the stone ducks at the gate’s entrance, they still wore sunglasses, but now they also sported ratty wigs like you’d buy at a party store. Delighting in the absurdity of tangled, brunette locks on ducks, Lila rummaged through her purse and found a wadded pink ribbon from a floral arrangement someone had sent her in the hospital. She tied the ribbon around the neck of one of the ducks and stood back to admire her contribution.

  They seemed free and happy, as if they’d given up being on guard at the gate all the time and had taken up lolling around and enjoying the sun. With the ribbon, they weren’t identical twins anymore, either. Now they looked like a duck and a drake. If you looked at them just right, you could almost call them a couple.

  28

  Adam lived half a mile from Lila in a white Victorian farmhouse whose peeling paint and missing shingles made you think of a senior citizen in need of a hug. Once you walked along the stone path that curved around his vegetable garden, though, all you thought about was green thumbs. Hanging off vines were emerald green snow peas, lettuce grew like a carpet, and the zucchini looked like they were going to need birth control. On the front porch a wisteria climbed the railing, and two wicker rocking chairs invited Lila and Adam to sit. They didn’t because he wanted to print photos he’d just taken for her.

  He left Lila in the living room and went into his study. Grace was home watching Animal Planet after Dr. Hightower had just proclaimed her cut “improving” and covered her stitches with a hot-pink elastic sock. She’d lain on his exam table as if she were the Queen of Sheba and acted like she’d have been shocked if Lila and Adam hadn’t fallen all over themselves to light the myrrh in her incense burner. At home, they’d fed her chicken. After Adam had settled her on the bed in front of the TV, they’d left so he could show Lila gates she might want to paint.

  While his computer printer hummed, she snooped around the living room. A wingback chair and brass floor lamp sat on an oriental rug in front of the fireplace. Above the mantel was a watercolor of an orchard, perhaps where he’d picked apples growing up, and a Betsy Ross flag hung above the stairs. Floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books covered one wall. Next to a Morris chair by a window in the corner, a brass telescope was aimed at the sky.

  Lila bent down and studied a photo of a little girl who must have been Adam’s niece, a little older than Rosie—blonde braids, a missing front tooth, and eyes that slanted at the outside edges like his did when he concentrated. An Irish setter, for whom Adam must have bought the cow costume, was sleeping at her feet. She was holding a calico cat on a porch swing, painted the same violet as a picket gate that Adam and Lila had just seen.

  “Some ancient languages supposedly didn’t have a word for ‘violet,’ ” he’d said. “The theory is that people hadn’t physically evolved enough yet to see violet’s end of the color spectrum.”

  “Imagine the colors we can’t see,” Lila said.

  Adam focused his camera on the gate and clicked. “There must be lots of pleasures waiting for us to evolve to them.”

  He seemed like he was addressing Lila’s color-loving artist, but her Horny Guttersnipe shimmied.

  Lila ordered her, Sit down and fold your hands in your lap!

  She sulked. Phooey!

  Adam handed Lila three photos printed on computer paper. Thrilled, she shuffled through them.

  The first was the violet picket gate under a trellis and flowering passion vine. The second was Chinese red, as tall as three people, with a green-ceramic roof and hinges as black as ravens’ wings. The last, made of iron bars, was flanked by brick columns that served as pedestals for two stone Buddhas. High above them seven strings of prayer flags extended from a redwood’s trunk like ribbons from a maypole.

  “Look at the interesting things behind those gates,” Adam said.

  Here we go again. The art critic. “Uh-huh,” Lila said.

  He noted two mossy griffins holding up a stone bench in the English garden behind the violet pickets, and miniature stone pagodas tucked among ferns behind the Chinese gate. “See the monk raking leaves under the prayer flags? He’d make a great painting. Especially his yellow robe.”

  “The color’s saffron,” Lila said.

  “You paint people, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So why not him?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “There’s a whole world behind those gates. That’s what I want you to see.” To help her examine the photos, Adam turned on a lamp with a brass bugle for a base. “I know what I’m talking about. I’m right.”

  “And not the least bit pushy or judgmental.” Lila smiled.

  “Exactly.” Adam’s grin had triumph in it. “I’m just looking out for your best interests.”

  Just as companionably as they’d bathed Grace, Lila and Adam mad
e a salad with lettuce and carrots from his garden, a stir-fry with chicken and his snow peas, and brown rice, which Lila spooned into his favorite thrift-store bowl. Glazed in the bottom was the face of a lion like Rosie’s Gerald, but Adam’s lion looked perplexed, as if he couldn’t figure out where the mound of mint jelly beside his wildebeest carcass had come from. Lila and Adam served themselves on attractive but mismatched china thrift-store plates.

  As steam from their food glowed in a blue candle’s light at the kitchen table, they discussed the Second Time Around Shop, where Adam had bought the plates.

  “I’ve found a better place to get great things,” he said. “Goodwill has an ongoing auction on the Internet.”

  “Never heard about it,” Lila said.

  “You’d be amazed what you can find there. That bugle lamp in the living room cost five dollars, and all it needed was a little polish. I got a dollhouse for my niece. It was practically new.”

  “Sounds better than eBay.”

  “A lot less expensive. You have to check every few days because auction items change, but that’s no big deal. You can find the site if you Google ‘Goodwill.’ ”

  Lila took a bite of chicken; its delicious smell would have driven Grace wild. “Lately Google hasn’t helped me much. I’ve been disappointed.”

  “Google’s practically a miracle,” Adam argued. “What were you looking for?”

  “Oh, just a woman I was trying to find around Monterey.”

  “You can find anybody on the Web.”