St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets

by Annie England Noblin

  “Something tells me you’re enjoying this,” he said, grinning. “I guess I deserve it after the way I acted earlier.”

  My eyes flicked up to his. I’d nearly forgotten about that. “You weren’t exactly nice,” I replied.

  “I’m sorry,” Abel replied. “I don’t like meeting fans. They generally want to talk about camping and roughing it, and that’s just not something I’ve done for a long time. It’s not who I am anymore.”

  “Who are you?”

  Abel shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “That makes two of us,” I replied, setting the bloodied cotton balls on the table beside the couch. “I think you’ll live. Just try not to pick up any more cats for a few days.”

  “You know Annabelle found Sherbet as a kitten?” Abel asked. “It must’ve been a night a lot like this. I remember she came banging on my door about midnight, asking me if this sickly orange thing belonged to me. She had no idea what time it was.” He chuckled. “That was just Annabelle. I was new to the neighborhood. I’d just lost my wife. I thought she was crazy.”

  “That sounds pretty crazy,” I replied.

  “So when I saw you out there tonight, looking for that damn cat, I had to stop.”

  “Because I reminded you of Annabelle?”

  Abel looked down at me. “In some ways,” he said.

  “And in other ways?”

  Abel brushed a damp strand of hair out of my face and said, “You’re something else entirely.”

  I knew that I should scoot away from him. We’d agreed to be just friends. Still, knowing that, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning over and brushing my lips up against his.

  He didn’t hesitate. He pulled me closer to him until our bodies were touching. I put my hands flush against his bare chest, feeling the heat of his skin. Abel groaned and shifted his weight so that I fell onto my back, and he came crashing down on top of me.

  He kissed my forehead and then my nose and then my mouth. He kissed his way around my collarbone and then stopped, pulling himself away from me.

  “What is it?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest. Had he changed his mind? Had he realized we were probably making a giant mistake? “Do you want to stop?”

  “I’m just admiring you,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse. “It’s been so long. It’s just been so long.”

  My first instinct was to make a stupid joke to stop the flush that I was sure covered my entire body. But I didn’t. I didn’t feel exposed to him. Instead I felt open, comfortable in a way I didn’t know I could ever be with a man, and when his mouth finally found mine, I didn’t hesitate.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as I led him to the bedroom. “I’ve wanted . . . I’ve wanted this. I’ve wanted you.”

  I kissed him again, and he spread me out onto the blankets and hovered over me, his massive frame cloaking me in the darkness, and we didn’t speak again.

  Annabelle

  July 1984

  THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER CALLED IT AN ACCIDENTAL OVERDOSE, but in Annabelle’s darkest moments, she thought that maybe Billy had done it on purpose—died on purpose because she hadn’t gone with him that night. There hadn’t been a funeral, and there wasn’t a grave to visit—Billy’s parents had him cremated—and Annabelle felt sometimes as if she were wading in a vast sea of emptiness with no ties to anything but the small life growing inside of her.

  She was starting to show—a fact Alice had mentioned more than once—and Annabelle thought, sitting in the waiting room at the Catholic Charities office in Seattle, that she’d been lucky nobody paid any attention to her. William, for his part, hadn’t noticed anyone or anything unless he was in a drunken rage, worse now since Billy had died. She thought for a while that maybe she could keep it a secret, hide herself away and save enough to escape, but all of that hope vanished the week after Billy died. William burst into the bedroom she shared with Alice well after midnight, and when Alice had reached out and tripped him with her cane, he’d turned his rage to Annabelle, for the first time striking her across the cheek.

  She knew then, knew it deep in her soul, that she couldn’t keep her baby.

  The woman on the phone had been nice when she’d called, and Alice drove her up one morning and stayed with her the whole time. Alice didn’t ask any questions of her, didn’t ask her if Billy was the father, because she knew just as well as Annabelle did that it didn’t make any difference, not anymore. The only thing that mattered was keeping her baby safe, and that meant keeping it a secret from everyone else, especially Alice’s parents. She knew how it worked; she’d seen it before, grandparents getting custody of a young mother’s child. That was never going to happen while there was still breath in Annabelle’s body.

  The nuns would find a good family, a nice family, for the baby. She could stay in the dorms at the church with the other unwed mothers until it was time, and then she’d go back to Timber Creek as if nothing ever happened, because she had to.

  Because she loved her baby more than she’d ever loved anything in her entire life, and she’d do whatever she had to do to make sure that, above all, her baby was safe in a way that she knew she never would be.

  Chapter 26

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, SUNLIGHT STREAMING through the windows in the bedroom. It took me a few seconds to realize where I was and then another few seconds before I realized that I was alone.

  I sat up and glanced around. Sherbet was at the end of the bed, looking much better, and Happy sat up from her position on the floor, tail thumping. I stood up and wandered around the house, feeling somewhat dazed from the previous evening. The last thing I remembered before drifting off to sleep was Abel draping one of his arms around me and pulling me close.

  Abel wasn’t in the bathroom taking a shower, and he wasn’t anywhere else in the house either. On the table, next to my keys, there was a note scrawled on a piece of napkin from Three Sheets.

  Had to go pick up Maxine. Didn’t want to wake you. Thanks for last night. –A

  I read the note a few more times before putting it back where I’d found it. Part of me was relieved that he was already gone. At least now we wouldn’t have to have an awkward “morning after” conversation. We were, however, going to have to have it eventually, and the other part of me was irritated he’d clearly wanted to avoid it.

  From the living room, Happy began to whine.

  “Okay,” I said to her. “Let’s go out.”

  I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, stuffed my feet into a pair of shoes. Then I grabbed Happy’s sweater and put it on before the harness. The house was warm by the time I woke up, but I knew it must be cold outside. I didn’t want Happy to be cold in the yard. As weird as I’d thought it was for a bunch of women to be knitting sweaters for animals, I was thankful right now. I wondered how many other pets were trotting around their yards wearing St. Francis–style sweaters this morning.

  I shivered in the front yard while Happy sniffed at the soggy ground. There were several small limbs down in the front yard, and my car, which I now considered to be a useless pile of metal, was also covered in limbs. Now that it was completely light outside, I could see that most of the houses on the street hadn’t sustained much damage. In Beryl’s front yard there were some bigger limbs down. She was out there throwing what she could pick up into the back of a truck. I watched her struggle with a few of the bigger branches before rolling my eyes. I had to go over there and help her, now that I’d seen her struggle. I led Happy inside, gave her a treat, and hurried back out and across the street.

  “Can I help you?” I asked to Beryl’s broad back. Today she wasn’t wearing a muumuu at all, instead opting for a psychedelic pair of leggings.

  “Huh?” Beryl dropped the limb she was pulling at and turned around. “You’re trespassin’,” she said.

  I took a step back and onto the sidewalk. “Do you want my help or not? It’s cold out here, and I could be inside drinking a cup of coffee and watching you from my
window.”

  “Fine,” Beryl replied, waving me over. “Grab that other end.

  “I was not pleased at all with Annabelle when she hired some old boy to come in and cut down a few of the trees in her yard a few years back,” Beryl said, huffing with her end of the limb. “She said she didn’t want no trees fallin’ onto her roof. Now I’m wishin’ I’d done the same thing.”

  Together, we threw the limb into the back of the truck and moved on to the next one. “There aren’t any limbs of this size in my yard,” I replied. “That’s for sure.”

  “She was a practical one, that Annabelle,” Beryl said. “For the most part.”

  I smiled. “It’s okay if you liked her,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “She was a good neighbor,” Beryl replied. “Except for that cat, we never had much trouble with each other.”

  “Well, I doubt Sherbet will be coming outside anytime soon,” I said. “The storms last night scared him pretty bad.”

  “Maybe he’ll stay out of my garden for a while, then,” Beryl replied as we threw another limb up into the truck.

  “I doubt it,” I muttered.

  Beryl laughed. “You’re right. I don’t think anything could keep that devil out of my yard.”

  Together, we loaded up about three more limbs. Beryl wiped her hands on her yoga pants, while I searched the yard for more limbs. “I think we’ve about got them all,” I said. “I don’t see any more big ones.”

  “There are a couple in the backyard,” Beryl said. “But it’s gonna take someone bigger’n me and you to pick them up.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  Beryl shook her head. “I’ll call Abel,” she replied. “Maybe in a couple of days once everything’s settled down.”

  “Good plan,” I said.

  Beryl looked at me, squinting her eyes in the sunlight that peeked through one of the clouds in the sky. “I saw him leaving your house this morning, early,” she said. “I didn’t say nothin’ to him, but I saw him.”

  I worked hard to keep my cheeks from reddening, although I’m not sure I was successful.

  “He’s a good man,” Beryl replied, surprising me. “He’s been more’n a little sad since Claire died. This mornin’, he looked, well, he looked happy.”

  This time I couldn’t stop the flush. I gave Beryl a wave and hurried back across the street to the house. I brewed a pot of coffee and sat on the couch with Happy, scanning the room for Sherbet. I knew he had to be hiding in the house somewhere. I found myself wishing I could explain to him that it was just a storm and that everything was fine now. Happy, for her part, no longer seemed to be fazed. I marveled at her ability to take the bad with the good and not hold a grudge. Less than a week ago, she’d been tied outside my house. She’d been hungry and thirsty, and she’d clearly never been treated like a beloved family pet.

  Still, she didn’t seem to hold any of that against people the way I probably would have. There were clearly some things that scared her—like car rides and storms—but after the offending event was over, she was back to her old self, and I thought that humans could probably learn a lot from dogs. I hoped Abel and I would be able to move past the things in our lives that made us afraid of each other. Last night, if anything, was a good start. I stroked one of Happy’s ears, and she nuzzled into me, giving a little satisfied sigh.

  After a few minutes, we were both snoring, completely exhausted from everything that had happened the night before, until there was a crash from the master bedroom that woke us. I stood up and Happy followed me to the bedroom, where Sherbet was crouched on top of one of the dressers, gazing down at a basket full of yarn.

  “Really?” I asked him.

  Happy jumped up onto the bed and the mattress shot forward, nearly sliding off the bed, taking Happy with it. I laughed and was moving to push the mattress back into place when I realized that there was a collection of papers nestled between the mattress and box springs. I grabbed the papers and righted the mattress.

  Before I could look down at what was in my hands, my phone rang. I set the papers on the end table and fished my phone out of the pocket of my sweatpants and answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, Maeve, thank God.”

  “Florence?” I asked. “Florence, is that you? Is everything okay?”

  “It’s me,” Florence said. “I’m sorry, I’m calling you from the shop’s number. I just realized you don’t have it.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got some wind damage at the shop. Part of the roof’s blown off.”

  “Oh my gosh, are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” Florence replied. “But today is our annual sale of the summer knitting supplies, and I can’t reschedule. It’s been planned for months. I need some help keeping the shop open while I deal with the damage. Eva is coming too, but she can’t do it alone.”

  “Uh . . . sure,” I said. “Just give me a few minutes, okay? I need to shower.”

  “Of course,” Florence replied. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

  I showered, fed Sherbet, took Happy out one more time, and on a whim, placed the picture of Annabelle and the mystery man in my purse before I hurried out the door. I’d just pulled out of the driveway in the Volkswagen when I realized that the gas tank was on empty. In my old junker of a car, I could’ve gone at least twenty miles on empty before running out of gas. I knew, because I’d once tried to go twenty-one miles a couple of years ago, and my father had to bring me a can of gas. But in this vehicle, especially given its age, I wasn’t sure.

  Instead of taking a left at the end of the street, I coasted straight, just past Three Sheets, and to the little gas station right before the bypass. It was an older gas station, the kind with pumps I hadn’t seen since the 1990s, where the gallons and price tick up with a rollover dial.

  I got out and pulled at the pump. There was a sign that read, “Cash Only,” and I hoped five dollars would at least get me to the shop and back, once I realized I’d left my wallet at home. All I had was five dollars in my pocket, and I wondered idly how it got there. On the other side of the pump was another car, a shiny black Lexus, and I recognized it as Gary’s car. I poked my head around the side to see Yulina standing at the pump. I wasn’t sure if I should speak to her, not after what I’d seen happening between her and Gary. Then I saw her peer around the pump at me.

  “Yulina?” I asked. When she looked up and over at me, I continued, “Hey! It’s good to see you.”

  At first I wasn’t sure if she was going to speak. After a few halting seconds she said, “Hello, Maeve.”

  “How are you?” I asked. “Are you headed downtown to the sale?”

  Yulina nodded. “Yes. It is nice today,” she said. “We are taking Ani for a walk around.”

  “That sounds fun,” I said.

  “I believe it will be.”

  I put $4.96 in my tank and replaced the nozzle. I turned to pay and saw that Gary was inside at the register, and I hesitated. I turned back to Yulina and stepped over to her side of the pump.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  Yulina looked at me, and something flashed in her eyes before she said, “Yes. I am fine.”

  I took her hand. “You don’t seem okay,” I said to her.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She pulled her hand away from mine as Gary sauntered out of the station. He saw me and gave me a small wave. His mouth was smiling, but it didn’t reach the rest of his face.

  “Maeve,” he said when he neared us. “How are you?”

  “I’m great,” I said, trying to sound chipper. “How are you?”

  “Getting there,” Gary replied. He turned his attention to Yulina. “Get on in the car, honey,” he said. “We really shouldn’t leave Ani alone in there.”

  Yulina did as she was told, and Gary and I were
left alone. I moved to go back to my side of the pump when Gary’s hand caught my shoulder.

  I tried to keep smiling, but I just felt so angry. He was so fake. I wondered if anybody else knew what I knew, and the scene from the night before came rushing back to me. I felt sick.

  “Is there something on your mind?” he asked.

  I shrugged his hand off me. “I should get going.”

  “You know,” Gary continued on as if he hadn’t heard me, “I can tell you like Yulina, and I’m sure you’re thinking she needs a friend. But trust me, she’s got all the friends she needs.”

  “I saw you last night,” I said. “I saw what you did to her.”

  Gary’s smile vanished, and something behind his eyes flashed for a split second before he found his composure. “I noticed that those plates are expired,” he said to me, pointing to the license plates on the Volkswagen. “You really should have that taken care of.”

  I glared at him.

  “Just be careful,” Gary said, his smile stretching across his face like a mask over a skeleton. “I’m sure the last thing you want while you’re still new in town is to draw any kind of negative attention to yourself.”

  Gary tipped an imaginary hat to me and disappeared inside the sleek Lexus. He revved the engine twice and then peeled out of the parking lot. I watched him go, a sick feeling settling in the pit of my stomach.

  There were dozens of people milling around when I finally got downtown, and the shop was full to the brim.

  “Thank you,” Florence said, breathless, when I got inside. “It’s the Saturday walk around the square. We just have two of these a year, and most of the shops downtown make in one day what they make in three months. We can’t cancel.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, trying to smile.

  “You’re an absolute doll,” Florence said, giving me a quick hug. “You’ve saved my life today, kiddo. I mean it.”

  She hurried off, and I made my way over to Eva, who seemed to be sprouting yarn from every part of her body, and she didn’t look happy about it—not one single bit.