The Tiger in the House
Page 1
Highest Praise for Jacqueline Sheehan’s Novel
THE CENTER OF THE WORLD
“How far would you go to save the life of a child? That’s what Kate Malloy, a young, motherless environmental researcher, must ask herself in this searing tale of love and desperate acts set against a backdrop of surreal beauty and unspeakable cruelty. Enthralling, exhilarating, The Center of the World is full of characters who must trust and love without any assurance that either will be returned. It’s a cinematic tale whose characters and their difficult choices will stay with you long after you’ve closed the book.”
—Suzanne Chazin, award-winning author of the Jimmy Vega Mystery Series
“Breathtaking . . . Sheehan’s enthralling novel, through tales of grief and happiness, offers readers a strong sense of catharsis. The author smoothly captures the intricacies of cultural exchange with grace and intersection. Readers who enjoy family dramas, romance, and have a sense of wanderlust will easily fall for this captivating read.”
—Library Journal
“Jacqueline Sheehan’s riveting novel fuses family anguish, political drama, and page-turning storytelling. I journeyed across Guatemala and back to the United States, long past bedtime, desperate to know the outcome of this unlikely clan. The Center of the World is a deeply satisfying read of the heroics and viciousness we rarely hear of—and choices we hope to never face. I loved this book.”
—Randy Susan Meyers, national bestselling author of Accidents of Marriage
“An emotionally charged tale that explores the mother-daughter bond, complete with beautiful prose.... Sheehan’s background in psychology is evident in the pinpoint family dynamics.... Sheehan places the reader in the middle of war-torn Guatemala and expertly carries her narrative through war and peace, fear and security, and love and redemption.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Set in alternating worlds of 2003 Massachusetts and 1990s war-torn Guatemala, The Center of the World is an epic story of war and peace, love and fear, family and friendship. Writing with honesty and grace, Jacqueline Sheehan examines to what length we would go to protect those we love, reminding us that sometimes secrets must be unraveled before our hearts can mend. In turns heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Center of the World is the perfect book club selection—intelligent, thought provoking, and utterly captivating.”
—Lori Nelson Spielman, international bestselling author of The Life List
“Juxtaposing the past and the present—the gruesome horrors of war with the emotional turmoil of lies and self-discovery—this novel takes readers on an unforgettable adventure. The characters are rich and layered, and the story is brimming with deep, familiar love, the ache of lost love, and the inspiring courage it takes to fight for what’s right, even if that road is a rocky one.... A story of love, family and discovery.”
—RT Book Reviews, 4.5 Stars, Top Pick
“The day I discovered novelist Jacqueline Sheehan marked a great moment in my reading life. In The Center of the World, her best book yet, Kate Malloy truly has a heart that is a compass, holding fast to true north as she searches for her daughter. Again and again, Sheehan finds new ways to prove to the world that mothers are the strongest people on earth, and will literally go to the ends of the earth to keep a daughter safe.”
—Jo-Ann Mapson, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Solomon’s Oak, Finding Casey, and Owen’s Daughter
“Jacqueline Sheehan’s striking new novel, The Center of the World, is a sure-handed exploration of grief and transcendence. I found these characters memorable, the story compelling, the author’s ability to make a place come alive on the page a rare gift. Sheehan is a writer with a large heart, and her book is destined to win countless readers.”
—Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances, a Washington Post Notable Book
Also by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Center of the World*
Picture This
Now & Then
Lost & Found
The Comet’s Tale
*available from Kensington Publishing Corp.
THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE
JACQUELINE SHEEHAN
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE TIGER IN THE HOUSE
Discussion Questions
J BIRD’S FAMOUS RECIPE FOR APRICOT GINGER SCONES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2017 by Jacqueline Sheehan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-899-9
eISBN-10: 1-61773-899-9
First Kensington Electronic Edition: March 2017
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3898-2
To Ruth Lundin. You would have loved the food in J Bird Café.
CHAPTER 1
Jen and Richard ate dinner at the seafood place over in South Portland that their daughter raved about all the time. And it was as good as expected. She had the lobster roll and Rich had a mountain of fish and chips. It was the sort of place where you go in and order, pay, and then they give you a number, like Hannaford’s grocery store where the deli crew takes your order.
The best part was the picnic table behind the seafood shack overlooking
the ocean. Jen imagined how the meal would have gone if they were twenty-five years younger and still had the relentless yearning for each other, or if Rich could think of anything to say at all, even that. They ate mostly in silence. Jen liked it better when they were in the active years of parenting, working as a team, laughing so much.
When they were done eating, they each slid into the Chevy Silverado pickup and buckled up. Rich turned to her and said, “Let’s take the long way home, over where they’re selling off the big Johnson farm.” Okay, that felt good. She slipped in a CD of early Bruce Springsteen and grew a little younger, rolled her window down, and tapped her fingers along the side view mirror. They sailed past sea grass and red-winged blackbirds perched on top of cattails. The houses grew smaller, more like the old days, less monstrously rich. Jen nudged her sandals off and wiggled her toes.
It was the end of August and the hint of lengthening nights announced itself already at eight o’clock.
“Look up there,” said Rich, taking his foot off the gas and reaching over to turn down Bruce Springsteen.
A cloud slid over the low-hanging sun. Up ahead, there was a small child in the road, thumb in mouth. The road had turned to gravel a few miles back and they crept along. The gravel sounded like Styrofoam balls crunching beneath the large truck wheels.
The child wore white shorts. There wasn’t another car parked along the road, no houses, just a bulldozer that had torn into the earth, making way for a new foundation.
Jen pulled her hand into the truck, getting ready for something. She slipped her sandals back on. The truck would be terrifyingly large to a child.
They pulled up close to the child, who was sucking her thumb. Jen was a small woman and she knew how to talk to kids, and she wouldn’t be as frightening as a man or a truck.
The child was a girl with soft brown hair. The white shorts were actually underwear; she wore white underpants and a T-shirt with a faded Disney princess. Jen wasn’t sure which princess it was.
She tried to think of something nonthreatening to say that wouldn’t alarm the child. The girl looked to be about five.
“Hey there,” said Jen, six feet away. The child was barefoot. “My name is Jen. Can you show me where your mommy and daddy are?”
Jen took two more steps to the child and pointed back at the truck. “That’s my husband, Rich.” She stopped in front of the child and squatted down to be eye level with her.
The girl had been crying; her face was covered with dust, and the tears left two stripes along her cheeks.
“I’d like to help you find your family,” said Jen. What was that along the kid’s arm and neck? Jen stopped breathing. It was blood.
“Sweetie, are you hurt?”
The thumb stayed firmly in the girl’s mouth. Jen forced a smile.
“Everything is going to be okay. You wait right here.”
She turned at the sound of the truck door closing. “I’ve already made the call,” Rich said, sliding a cell phone into the front pocket of his jeans.
He had a Windbreaker in his hands. “Here, put this on her.”
CHAPTER 2
“It’s not that they live forever, but they should,” said Delia. “Instead, dogs live in an accelerated universe, parallel to ours.” She was helping Ben, the local vet, at his annual Spay & Neuter Clinic. He had called her when one of his volunteers quit. They started at six in the morning and wouldn’t end until seven or eight that night. Ben made tiny stitches along the nether parts of a female terrier mix.
“You don’t usually talk about parallel universes. I suspect it’s the atmosphere of anesthesia talking. But in general, I know what you mean.” Ben wore his special glasses for surgeries, the same as reading glasses, but larger, the kind that old people wore in the eighties, large and round, circling their eyebrows and the tops of their cheeks. Thick black frames.
Delia wasn’t a vet tech, but she had known Ben since junior high. He was a good friend of her father’s. His last remaining friend. The best thing about Ben was that he knew the worst parts of her family and she didn’t have to explain anything.
Ben straightened up, rolling his shoulders back with a groan. “This girl is ready to go back to the recovery room.”
This was the part that Delia liked above anything else at the S&N clinic. It was her job to carry the still-anesthetized animals in her arms. She didn’t have kids of her own, never had the feel of a babe pressed against her chest, and she wouldn’t claim that hoisting freshly neutered dogs and cats was the same as a carrying a baby, but there was something about it that stirred her. She protected the animals when they were vulnerable and unable to care for themselves in the postsurgical moments. Not unlike her job as a caseworker with foster kids.
She slid her arms under the small dog, careful to hold up the wobbly head, and walked to the back room, where other dogs in various stages of consciousness were placed in wire crates. The techs put old towels on the bottoms of the crates. Delia knelt down and edged the terrier onto the towel. She placed her hand on the warm belly and felt the thumping of the heartbeat.
She retraced her steps and returned to the surgery room. Ben stretched his arms overhead, then placed both palms on his lower back and pushed his hips forward.
“My wife tells me that my posture is terrible. She says my profile looks like a question mark. She wants me to go to yoga or tai chi. I don’t think that I’m old enough for tai chi. I saw old people on a TV show moving in slow motion doing something called qigong. Please tell me that I’m not there yet.”
Ben was in his early fifties, and Delia knew age had nothing to do with his reluctance to exercise. He’d been an athlete as a young man but never made the transition to sports that an older man could enjoy, not tennis or biking, never mind the more esoteric areas of tai chi. His old days as a high school football player resulted in a recent knee surgery. He was six months post knee surgery and still limping.
The next dog, a female mixed breed somewhere between beagle and boxer, was brought in and quickly anesthetized. Ben picked up the scalpel, leaned over the spread-eagle patient. The scalpel clattered to the floor. He picked up another scalpel from a stainless steel tray. “Clumsy today,” he said.
Delia reeled between two things that pulled at her attention. What was different about Ben? He was a stellar vet. Animals loved him. His staff, almost all young women who were vet techs, liked working with him. The staff at the animal shelters said he was their best vet, always willing to work on injured animals even when no owner could be found to pay for the expenses.
She didn’t hesitate when he called her for help. How could she? He had been there for her and her sister Juniper when their parents died. She would do anything for Ben, including assisting him so that fewer animals might end up abandoned at the shelters, terrified and bewildered at the turn in their lives.
But something was different, so slight that if she hadn’t known him well, it might not have registered at all. Delia, cursed with a powerful sense of smell, had sniffed an acrid overlay from his usual older-man scent, as if a new chemical had been added to his molecular mix. And the way he reached for his scalpel, a premature surge of his wrist, faster than his slow, deliberate pace. Then dropping the surgical instrument. The movement lost something in the jerkiness, a bit of connection with the dog that lay anesthetized, her lower belly ready for the slice that would take away all future puppies. No, it must have been Delia’s lack of sleep, her newfound restlessness since she had actually handed her resignation to Ira, with three months’ notice, which was too long for Delia but not nearly long enough for Ira. She now had four weeks left.
Jill, the receptionist, opened the door. “There’s a phone call for you, Delia, from the foster care place over in Portland.”
How could Ira possibly know that she was working at the S&N clinic? She had turned off her phone when surgery started. He must have called her sister. This was going to be bad.
Delia followed Jill back to the reception desk and pi
cked up the phone.
“Hi, Ira,” she said.
“Sorry to pull you out of the clinic,” he said, “but we’ve just had a request for an emergency placement. We’re going to need you.”
CHAPTER 3
Delia sat in the parking lot of Foster Services. She was keenly aware that she hadn’t filed her latest case notes, becoming less organized, for the first time ever, as her job drew to an end. She pulled out her laptop and typed furiously before meeting with Ira.
She hadn’t typed her notes from yesterday yet. She imagined titles for her case notes, which would be frowned on by Ira, potentially viewed as minimizing a child’s tragedy or mocking the disaster of parenting gone haywire by alcohol, drugs, mental illness, or general meanness.
She never kept the titles, at least not yet, although they remained in her head. Sometimes titles captured an entire life or just a single interview. “Transformer Joe” for a boy who changed from sweet to tyrannical in an instant. “Don’t Take My Blankie Away” for a child who had traveled through the worst of times with a shredded blue blanket, now the size of a paperback. “We’re Just Atoms Combining and Recombining,” a title for a family of four kids who had been dispersed among three foster families until Delia had campaigned hard for one family to take all four kids.
Imagining the titles was part of what helped Delia remember the most important details of a person’s life, like labeling a photo in an album. But so few people still had photo albums. They had photos on their phones, or in the cloud. Although she was embarrassed to ask, she didn’t clearly understand what the cloud was. And specifically, if you put something in the cloud like a photo or a kid’s placement file, could you ever take it away from the cloud? She’d ask one of the interns. One of the great things about graduate interns was that you could peel the latest technology right off them.