She squatted down by Baxter. “Uncle Ray was wrong to take away your special blanket. I think Baxter understands that sad feeling inside you. You didn’t do anything wrong, Hayley. You are a good girl, a very good girl.”
The cat pushed against Delia in some kind of weird group hug and then weaved in between Baxter’s legs. Erica dropped down to a cross-legged pose. “You can sing any song you like here. All of your songs are okay,” she said. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“I don’t have any songs,” said Hayley. “They are all gone.”
They were going to be crushed in sadness, all of them. And then Delia remembered J Bird’s parlor trick with Baxter. Would he do it with Delia?
“Hey, wait just a minute. Baxter knows a song.” She ruffled the fur along his neck, hoping to dust off the misery that had descended on them. “Come here, boy.”
Delia sang, “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play . . .” a song that J Bird and Baxter sang together. It turned out that “Home on the Range” was a very popular song with dogs if one were to consult YouTube.
Baxter flung his head back and howled, yipped, and howled again. With each refrain, he sang with total commitment, his great head back, his throat open to the world, his wolf genes awake and powerful.
He would sing as long as Delia did, and she figured the demonstration was good for a few rounds. But then Hayley dropped to her hands and knees and howled, mimicking Baxter, leaning into him, her eyes closed, letting her small voice travel straight up, not ready to sing words, but now chancing a different kind of song. In the spirit of the moment, Erica began to howl with the duo, leaving only Delia to lead the chorus in words. For Louie, this was too much dog music, and he hopped on the picnic table and showed his lack of interest through personal grooming.
Breathless, they simultaneously came to the end of the song. Something ancient and wordless reverberated through Delia.
Hayley rocked back on her heels. “I sent that song to Mommy. I want her to come and find me. Now she will know where I am,” said Hayley, with a kind of assurance that left Delia reeling.
There had to be more that she could do to find Hayley’s mother. Delia knew she would do anything.
CHAPTER 36
Juniper
Three text messages and no reply. What was wrong with Ben? He could always be counted on to return her messages. And he was the only person she could talk to about Delia and their father. After their conversation last night about Tyler and the ghosts of their childhood furniture, her mind had twitched and tightened all night. Ben had been her father’s best friend, the only one who still treated him like a friend, not just a guy with schizophrenia.
Today was Juniper’s day off, and she had to meet Greg at the café. He had just called to say that the second oven was being delivered. She headed out the door with Baxter as she called Ben’s vet clinic to see if today was a crazy, busy day filled with emergencies. Maybe she could stop by if she called him on the way.
She was sure the whole thing about Delia was stress; she was freaking out about leaving her job and that little girl. Juniper had never seen her so obsessed with a case. Delia had always been the model of firm boundaries with her clients. Maybe it was nothing to worry about. Then again, when Delia tried to make a connection between the tiger feet on their dining room table of their childhood and the tiger-in-the-house fears of the little girl, Juniper went on red alert. Crazy alert. Ben was the only one she could talk to; he would understand crazy alert. She could always count on him.
“South Portland Animal Clinic,” said Jill, the receptionist.
“Hi, it’s J Bird. Is Ben able to take a phone call or is he too busy?”
“He’s home sick today. Some kind of flu. This is the second time in the last two months that he’s come down with it.”
In the background, a cat yowled pitifully.
“That’s funny, I just saw him a few days ago. I had no idea he was sick. He’s been having a tough time, on top of the whole knee surgery, which doesn’t look all that great to me. Is he still limping around?” said Juniper.
“Yeah, his knee doesn’t seem to get all that much better. I thought knee surgery was a guaranteed improvement. We really need Dr. Ben back, healthy and full time again. It’s been hard on all of us.”
“I just tried texting him and he won’t answer. You don’t think he’s mad at me for some reason, do you? Mostly people don’t get mad at me anymore now that I’m a grown-up and especially since I make such awesome desserts.” Juniper made a note to bring the vet staff some cinnamon rolls. The power to soothe people through baked goods never got old for her.
“Maybe he’s annoyed because you still haven’t had Baxter neutered,” said Jill.
She had reminded Juniper of this shortcoming several times. Even though Jill was joking around, Juniper felt pushed, and she didn’t like being nagged about something so important.
“Didn’t I tell you? Delia and I are thinking of starting an illegal puppy mill. We figure Baxter could spawn hundreds of golden retrievers,” she said.
“Okay, I see that you’re sensitive on the topic of Baxter’s virility. And besides, Dr. Ben would never get mad at you, and you know it. You’re family to him.”
“Thanks. I’ll bring you guys something that will temporarily make up for my deficit in canine family planning,” said Juniper.
Ben was part of their family. He had been there for them when they could’ve kept falling, after their parents died, but he had swooped in like a superhero. He had walked them through the funeral preparations, interfaced with Juniper’s school when Delia had her own college classes to attend to, and promised them that he would always be there for them, no matter what.
Did he really have the flu? Was he in trouble financially and he had no one to confide in? He and Michelle had two kids ready to go to college, one this coming year and one the following year. She would do anything to help him.
She texted him. “R U OK? I saw you with the guy outside the café. Call me.” She slid the phone into her bag, grabbed Baxter, and headed to her car.
The day was a bell ringer for fall: a brilliant blue sky, with the first maple trees tinged with red, as if their leaves had been professionally and expensively highlighted. Baxter leapt into the backseat. After meeting with Greg and catching up on renovation details in the morning, she’d shop for baking supplies at Whole Foods. As she snapped her seat belt into place, her phone rang. Ben.
“Where are you?” he said. He sounded tired, his voice deeper than usual, as if he had woken up moments ago.
“I’m on my way to the café. Where are you? Jill told me you had the flu.” She paused, dreading the direction that she had to take. “Are you in trouble? You can talk to me. I’m not a kid anymore.”
The staggered breath came through the phone, an exhale that shuddered. “I’m not far from your place. I don’t want to meet you in South Portland; I don’t want anyone from the office to see me. Can you meet me at the 7-Eleven near you?”
“Jesus, Ben. You sound terrible. Sure, I can meet you there. I’m only a few blocks away.”
* * *
Juniper parked on the far side of the convenience store. She kept her eye on the rearview mirror, waiting for Ben. After ten more minutes, he pulled in next to her, driving the old pickup that he drove to work every day. He turned his head her way and cupped his hand in a sign for her to come into his truck. She rolled down all her windows halfway for Baxter.
“Stay. I’ll be right back,” she said, turning around to face Baxter. But she knew in dog language that translated into, You are being abandoned.
She slid into the passenger seat of Ben’s truck. He hadn’t shaved this morning and possibly not the previous morning.
“What’s wrong with you?” she said. Delia always said that losing their parents had burned the chitchat out of them.
“Nice to see you too, J Bird. Can you give me a minute here?” He wrapped his hands around the steering wh
eel, straightened his arms, and pushed back against the seat. “This isn’t easy for me. I haven’t told anyone that this is a problem. . . .”
“Look, I saw you with that guy outside the café. Are you in financial trouble, taking cash payments off the books? Everybody does that once in a while. That’s what all my bosses have told me. A client pays you in cash and you don’t report it. You don’t have to go all desperado about it. You’re not perfect,” she said. For so long, Ben had been her gravitational center, and she wanted him back again.
Ben looked confused. He slid his upper teeth along his lower lip. “Cash payments off the books? If only that were the problem.” He rubbed one palm along the side of his face. “I don’t want you to worry about me, kiddo. I’m not going renegade with the financial books.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “God, sometimes you remind me so much of your mother. You are just as beautiful as Susan,” he said.
Ben was the only person other than Delia who ever mentioned her mother or her father. Even hearing her mother’s name felt like sunlight. “Then what is it? You can’t fool me; I know you too well,” she said. She heard the pleading in her voice, sounding more like the teenager she left behind.
He rubbed his hands along his chinos. “I started taking pain meds right after the surgery. Everybody does, right? My knee didn’t heal up like they said it would and I had to get back to work, so the doc kept writing the scrip. I tried to stop taking them twice, and I was so sick that I was sure that I was going to die. It’s like having the flu times one hundred. J Bird, I’m addicted to pain meds.”
Not Ben, not their Ben. For a few breaths, she stared at him, this trembling, unshaven man who had served as her personal landing pad when she had tried all the usual drugs in college, when she didn’t even tell Delia, when she thought she was pregnant but wasn’t, and when Ben found her the best dog on the planet to be her pal. He had called her three years ago and said, “I want you to come down to my clinic. There’s someone here who needs you.” No one had truly needed her before Baxter. Ben had known that about her; he knew everything about her and still loved her, just like her mother and her father would have done.
“Are you flipping kidding me? Have you not received the worldwide memo about pain meds? That they’re addictive?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know, I know. It wasn’t the surgery so much as the physical therapy. I just couldn’t stand the ongoing pain. It took up all the space in my mind. The oxy got me through the day so I could go back to work.” A bead of sweat rolled down his right temple.
“Could you turn on the ignition so we can roll down the windows?” she asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the rising temperature in the cab of the truck as well as the heat that rolled off Ben.
“I can’t. I’m freezing,” he said. “It’s like there’s an intruder in my brain.”
He wore a sweatshirt with the University of Southern Maine emblem on the front. If Juniper had on a sweatshirt, she’d pass out from the heat. She reached over and touched his chilled and damp hand. “Have you told Michelle” she asked.
“Not yet. I will. She thinks I have the flu and she’s mad at me for not ever getting a flu shot. She’s never taken a drug in her life, not when the kids were born, not ever. She doesn’t even take aspirin. This would be hard for her to understand.”
“Are you working with a doctor to help you cut down?”
Ben glanced up to the left. “I thought I could handle this on my own. But you’re right, kiddo, I’ll call my PC, and we’ll work on a more gradual decrease. I promise.” He nodded nervously, signaling that the topic was coming to a close.
“Wait. Who was that guy who drove up to the café? He gave you something. What did he give you?”
He turned his face away, fogging the window as he spoke. “Street oxy. My doctor cut me off and said I shouldn’t keep taking it.” Ben turned back to her again. “He didn’t know that I was addicted. And there’s a limit to how much anyone, even doctors, can provide now. But I found this guy and he sold me a bag of oxy. Don’t ask me where he gets it because I didn’t ask him. I doubt that the answer is through legal means.”
Juniper’s personal landing pad evaporated. Something had Ben, something owned him.
“You’re buying street drugs?” She couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “I want my Ben back again. You’ve stepped over a line, and you’ve got to turn back. Make an appointment with your PC and then call me, because I’m coming with you. If you don’t, then I’m calling your wife. Do you understand what I’m saying?” she said. She was ready to cry, to hit him, honk the horn, or kick the inside of the cab until all of her toes broke.
Ben looked at her, nodding his head like a bobblehead doll, and squeezed his lips together. “Yeah, okay, okay.”
“And keep that trash away from J Bird Café. I can’t believe you used the café to meet your dealer. Did you hear what I just said? You have a dealer!” She opened the truck door. “I mean it, Ben. Call me as soon as you make the appointment or I will do exactly what I said.” She slammed the truck door as hard as she could, turned around, and mule-kicked it. She didn’t look at him as he drove away.
Inside her car, Baxter greeted her as if she had been gone for hours, not minutes. “Our guy’s in trouble, Bax. We’ve got to help him.”
CHAPTER 37
Delia gripped the sheets and pulled herself from the clamoring dreams. She had slept badly after seeing Hayley the day before. Her father’s dream voice rang in the gray light of morning. Tennessee spring lamb.
How could Delia tell Mike or even J Bird that she heard her dead father’s voice as she was finally drifting off to sleep at five a.m.? And it wasn’t even an entire sentence that she heard, just a fragment. Tennessee spring lamb. How could she explain that only her father would have said that and only Delia would understand it? Worse yet, that now she had to go to Tennessee and sift through information that they had already covered?
Baxter, ever the meter for distress, had nosed her awake. It was nearly six. That meant J Bird already left, otherwise the dog slept as close to J Bird as he could manage.
“Good dog, Baxter. You’ve saved me from sleeping too late.” Delia walked the already exuberant dog to the back door and opened it so that Baxter could relieve himself. The backyard was small and not Baxter’s first choice for anything except peeing. She looked at the clock on the microwave. Six thirty. She had plenty of time to take a brain-cleansing walk with Baxter on Willard Beach.
“Let’s go to the beach, big guy,” she called to the dog. When he heard one of his favorite words, beach, he spun circles around her while she pulled on jeans, tank top, and jacket. Was she ever as grateful for anything as Baxter was for a good walk on the beach?
By the time they pulled into the parking lot at the beach, all the regulars were there. Baxter greeted his dog friends, the Great Dane, the standard poodle, and the Australian cattle dog. She followed along behind as the dogs ran together, occasionally stopping to slobber each other with dog kisses.
Delia couldn’t shake the dream about her father issuing his spring lamb proclamation. She was already worried about how disembodied voices and amplified scents might merge into a kind of thought disorder that could bump her off the track of normal people. Did she just say normal? Did she just say anything aloud, or was she only thinking?
She’d been at the business of human tragedy long enough to know that in the midst of disasters, anyone could look delusional, that the senses either sharpened like a Japanese Santoku knife, or the person dissolved into a sludge of muddled thinking. For most people, the altered state was temporary, and if the disaster could be modified (abusive husband arrested, housing arranged, teenager goes into drug rehab), they could return to whatever their base rate of coping with life had been before. Not always, but it was what Delia hoped for. But for some people, the new normal crushed them and pulverized the bones of their psyches.
She took off her sandals and let the moist sand rub the rough s
pots off her feet. Better than any pedicure.
Her dead father hadn’t delivered a message to her before, but she firmly believed it was from him. It was just like him to get in a triple-layered message. Just like him on his good days. Smart, complex, funny.
His annual food column about spring lambs had caused him more distress than any of the others. His favorite restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, specialized in offering spring lamb. The chef prepared it with a reverence that made it possible to eat something as sweet and innocent as lamb. It was one of her father’s major food conflicts and even if he hadn’t suffered from schizophrenia, the magnitude of the dilemma could have kick-started a breakdown in a sensitive person.
Rare. The best roast lamb was rare, with a side of scorched rosemary and roasted baby red potatoes, drizzled with butter. Did she still have one of his spring lamb columns about the horrible, yet delicious, sacrificial lamb dinners that he ate once a year? His columns were syndicated; she could still find them online if she needed to.
Slam! Baxter delivered a piece of driftwood by bumping it into her leg. He dropped it at her feet and then slowly backed up, his eyes flicking back and forth from Delia to the stick. She picked it up and tossed it into the shallow waters of low tide. Baxter took off like a rocket, leaping into the salt water.
Delia was sure that the spring lambs in Portsmouth were local, not from Tennessee, but would she really have known that when she was a teenager? Or did the message mean that Hayley was the spring lamb? She didn’t need an ancestral visitation to figure that out. Most kids in foster care were the spring lambs, or they had been at one time. Bleating little kids, searching for the scent of their mamas under every leaf, confident that all would be right with the world if only they could find her.
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