St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets

by Annie England Noblin

  “I wanted to become a scientist,” Yulina said. “But my marks were not high enough. When I met Gary, I thought I could come to this country and go to school.”

  “Did you?” I asked. “Go to school?”

  Yulina shook her head. “Gary did not like that idea.”

  I bristled. I didn’t want her to think I was judging her, although it was hard for me to understand how in the twenty-first century, women were still accustomed to being told what they could and could not do by their husbands. “How did you and Gary meet?” I asked instead of saying what I was thinking. What did I know anyway? It wasn’t like I was the authority on healthy relationships—quite the opposite, in fact.

  Yulina smiled. “Now that is an interesting story.”

  “I’ve got time,” I said.

  “My best friend Irina met a man through a matching service,” Yulina replied. “He is a doctor from Los Angeles. I did not like Irina meeting men this way, but I understood it. She came back for a visit two years after meeting her husband and brought their son. She was happy, and I was not happy living in Ukraine. She encouraged me to sign up for the program.”

  “So you decided to give it a try?” I prompted after Yulina became quiet. “And that’s how you met Gary?”

  “I met another man,” Yulina said. “Gary’s friend from Seattle. One of his trips to Ukraine, he brought Gary with him.”

  “And you fell in love with Gary?” I asked.

  “Gary’s friend was married,” Yulina said. “Gary told me on their last night in Ukraine. I was heartbroken, but Gary was kind. I married him six months later and moved here, to Timber Creek.”

  “Do you still speak to Gary’s friend?” I asked. “Is he still married?”

  “He and Gary are no longer friends. I do not know what happened to him.”

  I watched Yulina’s face as she spoke. The pain in her eyes was palpable. She must have really cared for this friend of Gary’s, and I wondered if she’d married Gary by default or if she really loved him. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to move to another country with a man I barely knew and a culture I didn’t understand. It was hard enough being four hours away from everyone I loved. How would I cope on a different continent? On impulse, I reached out and tried again to take her hand. “I’m sorry,” I said. “For the ache that must have caused.”

  Yulina recoiled, and my fingernails snagged the cotton of her long-sleeved shirt instead. Before she managed to pull the fabric back down over her right wrist, I caught the blue-green hue of a healing bruise. It was huge. “Yulina,” I gasped. “What happened?”

  Yulina sat on her hands, casting her eyes down to the floor, where Sherbet was fast asleep at our feet after finishing his second helping of cat food. “It is nothing,” she said, in a voice so tremulous that it was barely audible. “Anichka is in a phase. She likes to bite. The doctor, how do you say . . . pediatrician . . . said it is quite normal.”

  I nodded. “My niece, Rowan, was a biter,” I said. “She bit me so hard on the back of my thigh once that she drew blood. My brother wanted me to bite her back, but I could never bring myself to do it.”

  “Me either,” Yulina said, relaxing a bit. “She’s just a child.”

  “My nephew has never done anything like that,” I continued. “He must take after my brother, and not my sister-in-law, because I’m almost positive that Kate would encourage it if it was suggested in any of her parenting books.”

  Yulina gave me a tight but grateful smile. “I should go,” she said. She reached down into the purse she carried on her shoulder and pulled something out of it. “These are the purpose of my visit. I wanted to bring these to you.”

  I looked at the pair of knitting needles she held in her hands. “What are those for?”

  “Annabelle gave them to me,” she said. “They were my first set. They are bamboo.” She ran one of her long, thin fingers along the needles. “They will be easier to use as a beginner. They catch the yarn. It is easier to keep these from slipping.”

  “I don’t knit,” I said to her. “I’ve never even tried.”

  “I know,” Yulina replied. “Alice told me. I thought you might want to take these to the meeting tonight.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’m going to that,” I replied. I’d forgotten all about it. “I can’t imagine that I’d be any good at knitting. I’m sure they won’t want me to join their group.”

  “You should go,” Yulina said, pressing the knitting needles into my hands. “It will be good for you.”

  I looked down at the knitting needles. They were beautiful. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep them?” I asked.

  “I do not use them anymore,” Yulina said.

  “But Annabelle gave them to you.”

  Yulina smiled. “They are mine to give to you,” she said. “Annabelle, I think, would want it this way.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That’s really kind of you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  I walked Yulina to the door and watched her walk down the steps. “Wait,” I said, calling after her. “Yulina, hang on a second.”

  She turned around. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Can you point me in the direction of the nearest supermarket?” I asked. “Most of the food left in the house was spoiled, and I don’t have anything here to eat. I’m going to gain ten pounds this week if I don’t stop ordering takeout from Three Sheets.”

  Yulina smiled. “I am going to the store myself,” she said. “Would you like to join me?”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Thank you. Can you give me five minutes to change?”

  “Of course,” Yulina replied. “I will wait in the car.”

  Chapter 19

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, YULINA AND I WERE INSIDE A Food Lion on the other side of town. I didn’t usually do a lot of grocery shopping. When I’d lived in Seattle, I’d just bought enough food for a couple of days at a time, because if I didn’t, I ended up deciding halfway through my shopping trip that I wanted to eat healthy. This prompted me to spend half my paycheck at Trader Joe’s on avocados and various other fruits and vegetables that went bad before I could eat them and sat in my fridge until my mother came over and cleaned them out.

  “What is it that you are looking for?” Yulina asked. “I created a list, but now I do not know where it is.”

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I said. “You should try making a list on your phone, though. That’s what I always do.”

  Yulina laughed and pulled an old Nokia flip phone from her purse. “With this?”

  I stared at her phone. It looked like the exact phone I’d had when I was a junior in high school. “That’s your phone?”

  “I have had it since I moved here,” Yulina replied.

  “Why don’t you get a new one?” I asked. “I’m not trying to be rude, but Gary is a lawyer. Surely you two can afford it.”

  “Gary does not want me to have a phone,” Yulina said, shoving the phone back into her purse.

  I stopped pushing my cart. “What?”

  Yulina shook her head. “He is afraid I will not pay attention to Ani if I have one.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I replied.

  “I am used to it.”

  “You shouldn’t have to be,” I said.

  “It is what it is,” Yulina said. “Besides, he does not know about this phone. I keep my own secrets.”

  “What does he expect you to do when you have an emergency?” I asked. “I know that people survived before cell phones, but honestly, I don’t know how.”

  “He knows where I am all the time,” Yulina replied. “I am expected at home at a certain time. If I am not at home, he will come looking.”

  “Does he know where you are now?” I asked.

  “He knows I have gone to the market, and I will pick Ani up from his mother’s house at four p.m. I will be home by four thirty p.m.”

  I pushed my cart ahead and turned down the aisle with all the frozen foo
d. I wanted to tell Yulina that what she’d just described didn’t sound at all like a healthy relationship. In fact, it sounded downright unhealthy. But I didn’t want to make her upset with me. I liked Yulina, and I hoped we could be friends. Besides, I didn’t have a single clue what a healthy relationship looked like. To my knowledge, I’d never been in one, and it wasn’t like I was about to start anytime soon—not so long as I kept on kissing men I’d just met in parking lots.

  “Yulina?” I reached into one of the freezers to grab a box of cherry Toaster Strudel. “Did Annabelle think you had a good relationship with Gary?”

  “No,” Yulina said simply. “She did not.”

  “Is that why you left St. Francis?”

  “It was time for me to concentrate on my family,” Yulina said. “Annabelle understood.”

  “I don’t even understand why Annabelle would keep him as her lawyer if she felt that way,” I said. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maeve,” Yulina began. She reached out and grabbed the metal of the cart. “I should not have said anything to you. Think nothing of this conversation. I’m very tired today. I did not mean to speak that way about Gary.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I am sure,” she said. “He is a good father. He takes care of Ani and me. I would not want you to think bad things about him.”

  I sighed. “Okay,” I said. “It’s forgotten.”

  Yulina’s face brightened. “Thank you.”

  My own phone began to ring, and I fished it out of my pocket. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but it had a Timber Creek area code. I answered it, remembering that I’d given Alice my number the day before.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Maeve?” Alice asked. She sounded far away. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” I said, holding up a finger to Yulina, who nodded and wandered off to another aisle. “Is everything all right?”

  “Oh, everything is fine,” Alice said. “I was on the phone with Ruthie Wiles, and she said that she saw you just now over at the Food Lion.”

  I looked around the aisle where I was standing. I was completely alone. “What?” I asked.

  “My friend Ruthie says you’re at the Food Lion. I guess you were coming in as she was going out,” Alice explained.

  “I don’t know anybody named Ruthie,” I said.

  “She saw you with Yulina,” Alice said, sounding slightly frustrated. “Anyway, I have a dilemma, and I was wondering if you could help me with it.”

  “Uh, sure,” I said, still confused.

  “Well, I’m caught up at my house having some boards replaced in the front porch. I am completely out of Diet Coke, and if I don’t get some caffeine soon, I may beat someone to death with my cane. I called Ruthie to see if she could stop by, and she said she was just leaving, and she was in a hurry to get on over to the hospital to see her new baby granddaughter, but that she’d just seen you going into the Food Lion with Yulina.”

  By this time, Yulina had returned and was staring at me curiously, no doubt because of the look on my face. “Okay,” I said to Alice. “You might want to have your issues checked out by a therapist, though. That can’t be healthy.”

  “Diet Coke is better than a shrink,” Alice replied, her tone sardonic. “Diet Coke doesn’t talk back.”

  I laughed. “Do you want me to bring them to you?”

  “If you could run them over to my house, that would be great,” Alice replied.

  “Okay,” I said. “Sure, I can do that.”

  “You are a lifesaver,” Alice replied. “Thank you so much.”

  I hung up the phone and looked over at Yulina. “That was the strangest conversation I’ve ever had in my life,” I said.

  “Is everything all right?” Yulina asked.

  “Alice called me. Some woman saw me here and told Alice about it, and now Alice wants me to get her some Diet Coke,” I replied.

  Yulina grinned. “Ruthie Wiles, that old busybody.”

  “You know her?”

  “I know everyone,” Yulina replied. “Timber Creek is a very small village. It is strange at first, I know, but you will get used to it.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said.

  “The first week I was here, a woman I had never seen before came up to me and invited me to a barbecue while I was standing in line for medicine at the pharmacy. I went home and told Gary about it. I thought the woman must have been crazy or mistaken me for someone else. Gary laughed at me for half an hour. He said to me, ‘Welcome to small-town life.’”

  “That sounds less like a welcome and more like a hostage situation,” I muttered.

  “Like I said,” Yulina replied. “You will get used to it, but you might want to avoid kissing Abel Abbott in front of the wide-open door at Three Sheets. Lillie the bartender saw it all, and she is telling everyone.”

  * * *

  Yulina dropped me off at the house, and I carried my groceries inside, put them away, and then headed back out again to Alice’s. I took at least two wrong turns, but I finally found the right street. Timber Creek was a cute little town, and I found that I enjoyed driving around and looking at the neighborhoods. I felt safe no matter which street I took, no matter which way I turned, which was quite different than it was in Seattle. I’d never lived anywhere before where it didn’t really matter which route I took home from work at night.

  I pulled into the driveway and grabbed the twelve-pack of Diet Coke from the front seat. When I knocked on the door, nobody answered, so I knocked again and waited for a minute more before Alice finally answered.

  “Sorry,” she said, her voice thick. “I lay down for a few minutes, and I guess I dozed off.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, handing her the drinks. “Here you go.”

  “Come in,” Alice insisted. “Let me get some cash for you.”

  “Oh, it’s okay,” I said, but Alice wasn’t listening.

  Alice led me into the kitchen, hunting for her purse. When she realized it wasn’t in the kitchen, she told me to hang on while she went to look for it in the bedroom.

  I stood in the kitchen for a minute, listening, and then wandered out into the living room. Mitzi, the dog, was in the recliner. I hadn’t even noticed her when I walked inside, and I was glad she hadn’t woken up. I had no interest in being attacked by a two-pound ankle biter.

  There were a few pictures hanging on the wood-paneled wall behind the recliner, and I stepped in closer to get a better look. The first photo was a wedding picture of a man and a woman who I assumed had to be Alice’s parents. The picture was in black and white, and they were both smiling for the camera, their dark eyes happy. Hanging next to that one were two baby pictures, head shots, of a boy and a girl—Alice and her brother, Billy. There were a couple of other grainy family pictures, but they were hard to make out. I resisted the urge to take one off the wall to see it better. Billy, I could tell, looked quite a lot like his father—dark hair and dark eyes. In his baby photo, he had full lips and a dimple in the side of his left cheek. Alice was fairer, with dark blond hair and blue eyes. She looked like their mother.

  “Those are my favorite pictures,” Alice said from behind me, causing me to jump. “The basement flooded several years ago when my mother was still alive and they were in storage, but I managed to save them. I know they don’t look great, but I like knowing they’re here, on the wall.”

  “Why did your mom put them in storage?” I asked.

  Alice shrugged. “I think they made her sad to look at, with both my dad and Billy being dead.”

  I nodded. I thought I could understand that, but it broke my heart for Alice, knowing she didn’t have any family left and now she’d lost her best friend. Pictures seemed like a pretty hollow substitute.

  I got into my car and let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. All I wanted to do was go back to the house on Maple Street, get something to eat, and take a nap. And that, I decided, was exactly
what I was going to do.

  Chapter 20

  ABOUT AN HOUR BEFORE IT GOT DARK, I SAT OUTSIDE ON the front porch with Sherbet, drinking a cup of coffee. On the porch, there was a small folding table and two brightly colored chairs on either side. I’d settled myself in the pink chair, and the fat orange cat lounged idly in the green one.

  Beryl, the woman in the two-story gable-front house across the street, was outside. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties, and her graying mullet told me that she’d stopped paying attention to fashion trends somewhere around 1985. She was tall and broad, and she was wearing a long muumuu the color of my chair with purple flowers around the hem.

  I knew all of this, because she’d been standing on the sidewalk in front of her house scowling at me for the last five minutes. I’d tried smiling and waving, but that was apparently not the response she’d been looking for.

  I drained my coffee cup and stood to go back inside. My hand was on the door handle when I heard the woman yell, “That cat is messin’ up my flower beds.”

  I turned to face her. “I’m sorry, what?”

  She took a step off the sidewalk and into the street. “I said that cat is messin’ up my flower beds. That big orange one.”

  I looked over at Sherbet, but he’d somehow managed to disappear. “Traitor,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “I apologize,” I replied, amplifying my voice. “He’s, um, he’s not really my cat.”

  The woman shoved her hands into the pockets of the muumuu. “You been feedin’ him, ain’t ya?” she asked.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “But I—”

  “That makes him yours,” she replied, cutting me off. “You feed him, and then he comes over to my flower beds to take a shit.”

  I wasn’t sure how to counter that. It hadn’t occurred to me where the cat might relieve himself. I thought for the first time that perhaps I should invest in a litter box. For lack of a better response, I said, “I’m sorry.”

  Her scowl deepened. “I musta called the city a hundred times when that Annabelle turned up dead,” she said. “They told me ain’t a damn thing they can do about it. Said I had to catch him in the act.”