Dr. Cole gave her a curious look, but he did not seem perturbed. “Exactly what happened? Did she fall?”
“She doesn’t fall. She jumped off the table. She always does that. It’s not a long way down. She can jump from much higher up and not hurt herself.”
He pulled a tiny flashlight from his pocket and shone a pin of light in each of the cat’s eyes. She squinted, and her pupils contracted. “Nothing wrong there. Her responses are normal.”
Lily tried to think back through the past couple of days. “Could it have been the cantaloupe?”
“You gave her cantaloupe?”
Great, she had killed the cat with fruit. “I hope it’s not toxic to cats. She was crying for it, so I figured—”
“A little cantaloupe is okay, but not a lot.”
“I gave her only a spoonful.”
He palpated her belly. “I don’t feel anything unusual in her abdomen, but she should have an X-ray.”
Lily’s hands began to go numb. The last time this had happened was right after Josh’s accident, when the telephone call had come from the trauma center. She’d thought she would never survive the drive to the hospital, yet somehow, she had made it. Now, she was getting into Dr. Cole’s truck, holding the nearly comatose cat wrapped in a blanket in her arms. There hadn’t been time to get the carrier.
Dr. Cole raced through downtown, right through a red light, as rain pelted the windshield. Somehow, even in her panic, the detached part of Lily noticed the interior of his truck. Unlike Josh, Dr. Cole was not a neat freak. The cab was a mess of papers and tissues, a jacket thrown on the seat next to a library book.
At the clinic, they rushed inside, the reception area quiet and dark. Dr. Cole whisked the cat off, turning on lights as he went, leaving Lily to wait an eternity, trying not to bite her nails.
Fifteen minutes later, he came back. The cat lay in his arms, unmoving. This couldn’t be happening. He was a veterinarian. He was supposed to save little animals in distress. The cat hadn’t been in an accident. She hadn’t shown any sign of illness. The universe was playing a sick, cruel joke. The room began to spin, and Lily sat down, the blood draining from her head, and realized that she was about to faint.
Chapter Twenty-five
Kitty
The doctor lets me down gently. Of course, I can’t help landing on my feet. But I wobble a little, pretend I’m recovering from a terrible trauma. Shaky and slow, I tiptoe around the waiting room. My tail swishes back and forth, and I sniff every corner.
“So she’s okay?” Lily says in a trembling voice. She’s pale, a little grayish.
“She appears to be fine,” Dr. Cole says. “Do you need some water?”
“No, I’m okay. She’s not sick? She looked…I mean…”
“She’s not sick as far as I can tell.”
I trot over to Lily and purr, rubbing against her legs.
“You crazy cat! I’m going to kill you!” Lily tries to sound angry, but her tone betrays her relief. She scoops me into her arms, nearly collapsing my lungs. “You scared me to death!”
Not to death, exactly. She’s still very much alive, but I may not be for long if she keeps squeezing me so hard. She kisses the top of my head. “It’s a miracle. Thank you, thank you. How did you save her?”
She puts me on the floor again. I give myself a good shake and set about cleaning my fur.
Dr. Cole smiles, and a sliver of light enters the dark room inside him. “She made a remarkable recovery all by herself.”
“Maybe it was the quiet in here?”
Dr. Cole looks around, as if feeling the silence for the first time. “It is pretty quiet. No dogs and cats making noise in the kennels.”
“You have kennels?”
He jabs his thumb toward the back of the clinic. “I can show you if you’re interested.”
“Definitely.”
They look at each other, and a moment later, he scoops me up and tucks me under his arm, and Lily is following us through a swinging door into a back hall. He gives her the complete tour of the pharmacy room, break room, and grooming table, then points toward the surgery suite. Lily peeks through the tiny window in the door. “Must’ve taken you a long time to learn how to use all that equipment.”
“We learn five species. Not just one.”
“Have you ever had an animal die on the operating table?”
“Doesn’t happen often, but we did have one cat react to anesthesia a few years ago. We tried to revive him, but we weren’t successful. This is very rare.”
The moment stays with him, like the other memories and darkness knocking around inside him.
“I’m sorry. Was it awful?”
“I got emotional, yeah, and I’ve been practicing for over twenty years.” He scratches me on the head. “Emotional burnout is a major reason people leave this profession.”
“Are you burned out?”
“In a way. I’m thinking of going part time, giving my colleague the extra hours.”
“What do you do to unwind?”
“I hike, play guitar, read. But my job can also be incredibly satisfying when I’ve helped someone. Just yesterday, a desperate client brought in her papillion. He hadn’t been eating for two days. An ultrasound revealed a gall bladder problem that would’ve killed him. But we did surgery right away and saved his life.”
Papillion, a breed of dog with ridiculously gigantic ears but a weak sense of hearing.
“That must be an amazing feeling,” Lily says.
He nods, still holding me under his arm. “It can also be overwhelming. I try to get out and enjoy the air.” He opens a door into a back room with a concrete floor and several large, long cages. The smell of dog grows too strong in here. “These are the kennels. We stopped boarding cats here a while ago. They were right across from the dogs.”
Lily nods, but she’s frowning.
We leave the room, not a moment too soon, and head down another hallway that loops back around toward the front.
“I’ll be right back,” he says at an office door. “I need to return a client call. I won’t be long.” He hands me to Lily and disappears into the office, but not before she has glimpsed the picture on his desk, of Dr. Cole with his arm around a beautiful woman who has long red hair—an older version of Bish.
Lily withdraws, closing up inside, and carries me down the hall. On a corkboard on the wall, photos of various dogs and cats are posted next to squares of paper. On the paper are cryptic, scrawled notes. Lily reads aloud:
“‘Dr. Cole saved Toby’s life. We love him forever.’” Then another one: “‘Dr. C, thank you for fixing my kitten.’” She looks at a wooden plaque. “The city honored him for services to various organizations and for volunteer work to help wildlife in the community. Oh, look at these cards from people whose animals have died.” There’s a picture of a striped tabby cat with green eyes. “‘Dr. Ben Cole is a wonderful doctor.’”
She turns and nearly drops me on the floor. “I didn’t see you there,” she says.
Dr. Cole has been standing behind us. I knew exactly where he was the whole time.
“Sorry I startled you.”
“You’ve touched so many lives.” She’s impressed, but still all closed up inside.
“Just doing my job.” He shoves his hands in the pockets of his lab coat.
“Thanks for saving the cat’s life.”
“She did it all herself.”
“But you helped.”
They look at each other, and despite all I have done to bring them together, an invisible wall goes up between them again, each of them trapped in a private darkness.
Chapter Twenty-six
Lily
On the drive back to the cottage, nobody spoke. Lily tried to untangle the myriad emotions coursing through her, like rivers meeting and separating and meeting again. She hugged the cat, who was wrapped in the blanket, and savored her weight, her warmth, her tiny beating heart. Perhaps one of her remaining nine lives had
come to the rescue. How many did she have left?
Or maybe Dr. Cole had saved her. He seemed the type to quietly perform miracles without a word. What great feat of heroism had he performed in the surgery suite?
Lily still struggled to reconcile the image of the morose, gruff man she had first met with the way his grateful clients perceived him and the way he’d looked in the photograph—young and happy and smiling, his face ruddy and his eyes bright. Together, he and his wife had looked blissful and deeply, irrevocably bonded, as if their love had been made from stardust and sprinkled over them, casting a spell. Together, they gave off an aura of timeless joy.
At the cottage, Dr. Cole parked at the curb. The cat was purring, seemingly undisturbed by the ride this time. Perhaps it was the box that she hated, the confinement. Lily turned to Dr. Cole and smiled. His face appeared angular in the orange half-light from the street lamp.
“Thank you so much,” she said, her voice rough with emotion. “She means so much to me now. I love this little cat. Sounds crazy, I know—”
“No, it doesn’t. Sounds reasonable to me.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what happened, but if you hadn’t been around…If you hadn’t rushed her to the clinic, she could’ve died.”
“Believe me, I didn’t do anything. She saved herself.”
The cat purred louder, as if concurring. Outside, the rain had stopped, and the evening was calm.
“Whatever you say,” Lily said, “but I get to thank you anyway.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He didn’t move away.
“You’re welcome,” he said. He turned toward her, his face close to hers, and for a crazy instant she thought he might kiss her. She slid back across the seat and fumbled with the door handle, her other arm still around the cat.
“I’ll get that,” he said. “You hold on to the kitty. Don’t let her go. We should have brought the carrier—”
“We were in a rush.”
A moment later, he was opening her door, and she climbed out and hurried to the porch. She thought of how, only a few weeks earlier, she had tried to shoo the cat out of the shop, and now she held on to the little cat for fear of losing her.
Dr. Cole opened the front door, and inside the shop, she let the cat down on the floor. The fluffy thing shook herself and trotted off, tail in the air, as if nothing unusual had occurred.
Dr. Cole stood just inside the door. “She seem okay?”
“Fine,” Lily said. “Amazing. Thanks again.”
“Call me anytime, day or night,” he said.
“I’ll try not to wake you.”
He looked at his shoes. “Thanks for the suit. I know it was special to you, to your husband.”
The words “your husband” sent her heart plummeting. “I couldn’t hold on to it forever,” she said.
He nodded, lingering. Outside, the gray sky had taken on a turquoise, twilight glow. What was he waiting for? “About the estate sale,” he said.
“Oh, the one I circled in The Monthly—”
“I know you aren’t planning to go, but Bish is looking forward to it. Her mother and I split up a while back.”
“I know. Vanya told me. I’m sorry.”
He hesitated, nodded again. “The whole thing has been hard on Bish. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind taking her.”
So, the hesitation had been leading up to this request. “All right, I’ll go, but she should get here by seven, which is early, but I need to get back to open the shop by ten.”
“She’ll be thrilled. Thank you.” He tipped an imaginary hat and headed off to the truck.
Lily stood in the doorway, watching him leave, and she felt oddly inert, stuck in time, like a specimen suspended in a jar.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Lily
Early Saturday morning, Bish stood on the porch in the cold drizzle, bundled in a blue parka, jeans, and zebra-striped boots. Her breath rose in puffs of steam. She was certainly unafraid to stand out in a crowd. Lily admired her individuality, her openness—so different from her father’s aloof broodiness. Maybe her mother did the same, dressed in bold colors and had a bold personality, too. If so, then Lily could see what Dr. Cole missed about his ex-wife.
“I’m moving to Hawaii,” Bish announced, stamping her boots on the mat. “I’m so sick of this yucky weather. Coming with me?”
“Hawaii? Today? The cat would get lonely.” Lily pulled her robe tightly around her waist and looked up at the shifting shades of pewter sky.
“I heard what happened,” Bish said. “Is she—?”
“She’s better now.”
“Oh, good. You could name her Miracle.”
“I’ll put that on the list of possibilities.”
Bish tapped her Mickey Mouse watch. “So why aren’t you ready? All the good stuff will be gone. You wanted me to get here early!”
“I’m sorry. I overslept.” Lily had gone a bit crazy, heading out on a long, fast walk the previous afternoon, and now her muscles ached. Maybe she’d needed to burn off the extra adrenaline.
She’d dreamed of Josh. He’d felt real, alive. They were in bed together, and then she had noticed a shadow in the corner, advancing toward her, and she had jolted awake, disoriented and mildly aroused. She had run her hand down her body, her nerve endings raw and sensitive. She could still feel Josh—his presence so strong, she could almost touch him, smell him. Then the room closed in around her, and she was wide awake and utterly alone. Even the cat had gone off to chase shadows.
Nobody but Josh could satisfy this acute yearning, and the knowledge that he was truly gone, that no other man would ever be Josh had filled her with desolation. She’d had a difficult time getting back to sleep. But eventually she had fallen into a restless slumber, waking only when she heard the banging on the door.
Now Bish was scowling, looking a little like her father. “Earth to Lily! What is going on with you?”
“Sorry—I’ll get ready.” Lily looked across the street, her heart sinking. What had Flo done with The Newest Thing? Looked as though a construction crew had arrived to plan an addition in the empty lot next door. There were orange markers and stakes in the gravel.
Bish followed Lily’s gaze, and her frown deepened. “What are you looking at?”
“‘Expansion coming soon.’ I’m reading that sign in the window. She’s expanding? She doesn’t already have enough space? What’s she planning to do, sell her consignment pieces in a separate building?”
Bish stuck out her bottom lip, narrowing her eyes at Lily. “Stop. Looking. Over there.”
“Excuse me?”
“Either go over and duke it out, or stop looking over there.”
“Excuse me, young lady. I can look at whatever I want.”
“But it upsets you. Are you going to make your shop work or give up or what?”
“I’m not closing yet.” Lily’s shop wasn’t failing, exactly. She was beginning to gain momentum, but now she suddenly felt like a swimmer trying to stay afloat in an icy sea.
“Then do what you do,” Bish said.
“What do you mean, do what I do?”
Bish lifted her boot and waggled it toward Lily. “Be yourself. Like me.”
“You’re too wise for your britches.” Lily smiled. The vague shape of the sun was beginning to peel away the gray veil of sky. “Keep an eye on the cat while I get dressed. And can you feed her? Cans are in the cabinet next to the sink.”
“Whatever, boss.”
Twenty minutes later, Lily was driving Bish north in the Toyota toward the forested community of West Harbor. Bish chattered the whole way, about school tests, her best friend’s boyfriend, about how her dad wouldn’t let her wear a normal dress to the Homecoming dance or let her learn to drive before she turned seventeen. Lily murmured in sympathy, distracted. What had the dark shape been in her dream? It had seemed human—and male in character.
Was someone else lingering in her subconscious mind? Dr. Cole? When she look
ed over at Bish, she saw only the likeness of her beautiful mother, the woman in the photo on his desk. The woman he loved. She had to stop thinking this way.
They found the estate sale at the end of a wooded cul-de-sac. It was not yet eight o’clock, and already people were filing inside. Lily parked the car, and Bish peered out at the stately wooden farmhouse with a wraparound porch—a vision of serenity in a rolling meadow surrounded by outbuildings, gardens, and tall Douglas firs. A For Sale sign was planted in the lawn. Everything looked hazy and grayish through a sprinkling of rain. “So everyone who lived there is dead now?”
“Something like that.” Lily touched the ring on her necklace.
A flicker of melancholy crossed Bish’s face. “It’s like all their memories are going to disappear.”
As Lily dropped her keys into her purse, she realized that this was one of the most difficult things about losing Josh—knowing that she was the sole keeper of their shared memories. She was the only one who would remember the time he’d dropped the pizza upside down on the sidewalk, or the time he’d left home with shaving cream on his nose.
“I’m sure the family will keep the most important mementos,” she said, forcing a smile.
Bish pulled up her left jacket sleeve to reveal a thin jade bangle on her wrist. “My mom gave this to me. She wears one, too.”
“It’s beautiful.” Lily wanted to hug Bish, but the girl gave off a don’t touch me vibe.
“Yeah, right, special.” Bish made a face, then let down her sleeve.
“If you ever want to talk about it—”
“Thanks, I don’t. Let’s go in.”
Inside the farmhouse, the scents of cedar and spicy potpourri drifted toward them. In each room they found big pieces of furniture, dishes, and lamps for sale. The clothes were few, and they were either falling apart or musty and stained.
Here and there, old family photographs hinted at the past—a slight, curly-haired young woman and her burly husband in uniform, perhaps about to head off to war. Two small daughters, the daughters growing up, the daughters with their own children. The woman and her husband growing older, laughing, the Eiffel Tower in the background, an ocean, a waterfall. Their memorabilia made Lily’s heart heavy with lost possibilities.
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