Trading Secrets

by Melody Carlson

After talking to Lizzie about my dilemma again—and by now she’s starting to feel some concern too—I begin to wish that Zach had a phone. Despite his disgust at the way most people overuse their phones, it’s crazy for him to go walking all over town, which I assume he’s doing, without one. It’s downright irresponsible. Feeling very much like an aggravated parent, I am pacing back and forth in the condo, trying to decide what I’ll do if the whole day passes without a word from him. What a way to spend the last bit of my spring break. Some break!

  Just when I’m going outside to get in the car to search for him, Zach comes lumbering up the walkway.

  “Where have you been?” I demand, sounding very much like a cranky old fishwife.

  “Looking for work,” he says a bit glumly.

  “Why didn’t you let someone know?” I fiddle with my purse strap as I glare at him—playing the angry parent like I know what I’m doing.

  “No one was up when I went out. It was very early.”

  “You could’ve left a note,” I snap.

  “I’m sorry.” He shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and looks down at his well worn boots. “I didn’t think it would matter.”

  “Of course it matters,” I tell him. “We worry about you.”

  “Your dad is worried too?”

  “No, he doesn’t even know you went missing. But Lizzie is worried. Maybe Erika too.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says again.

  “Did you find one?”

  “One what?”

  “A job.”

  “No.” He shakes his head in a dejected way.

  “Does this mean you want to stay?”

  “I don’t know.” He scowls. “How can I stay if I don’t have work?”

  Suddenly I feel deeply sorry for him. How long has he been out there pounding the pavement? How many miles has he walked? How many places did he make a cold call, genuinely seeking employment, only to be rejected? I’m sure some people weren’t very nice about it either.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask meekly.

  He nods.

  “Well, I have an idea,” I say as I pull out the car keys. “Are you game?”

  “Game?”

  “Want to come? We’ll pick up something to eat on the way.”

  “Takeout?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Sure.” He brightens as we walk to the car together.

  As I drive I remind him of Lizzie’s idea yesterday. “If you had a résumé to leave at businesses, it might increase your chances of finding work.”

  “What would I put on a résumé?”

  “Mostly they want your age, where you went to school, employment history. Think about it—how many years have you worked full time on your family’s farm?”

  “Full time?” He rubs his chin. “About three years.”

  “See, that’s impressive. Of course, they also need a phone number, so if someone does want to have an interview with you, they can find you. You could use ours for now.”

  “Ja, that’s a good idea. What is an interview like? What kind of questions would they ask?”

  “I think it’s mostly a way to get to know you.” I try to remember what I learned in my career management class. “You want to put your best foot forward. To be friendly and competent and personable. You want to make them think you are the best person for the position.”

  I can tell he’s thinking about all this, but I can also tell that I’m probably overwhelming him again. Of course, he’s also hungry.

  “Ever been to McDonald’s?” I ask, trying to remember if Hamrick’s Bridge had a set of golden arches. None that I can recall.

  “McDonald’s? The fast food place that can be found all over the world?” He sounds very interested.

  “Yep. That’s the one. I thought we could get something to take to the beach with us.”

  “The beach?” He looks confused. “The Atlantic is the closest ocean, but it’s a long ways from here. Isn’t it?”

  “We call the shores of Lake Erie the beach too,” I clarify as I turn into the McDonald’s drive-through line. I point him toward the menu, and before long we’ve gotten our order and I’m heading for my favorite spot on the lake. Even though it’s still March, I heard the weatherman saying it might get close to eighty degrees today. I’m thinking we should at least put our toes in the water.

  It’s just past noon by the time we’re seated on a bench, eating our lunch from McDonald’s. Despite Zach’s disappointing morning, he seems genuinely happy now. “It’s beautiful,” he says as he gazes out over the blue water. “It looks bigger down here than it did up in the air.”

  “I know.”

  “I think maybe you’re right, Micah.”

  “Right?” I pop a fry into my mouth. “About what?”

  “That I should go home.”

  Okay, I want to clarify something here, but at the same time I’m afraid to rock his boat. However, I never told him to go home. Did I? I merely said that if he needs to go home, we will help him get a ticket. But instead of opening my big mouth and saying the wrong thing again, I decide to just wait. Sometimes this is what my dad does to me when he knows I’m trying to make up my mind about something.

  “I never really thought this thing through,” he continues slowly. “As you know, I’d saved up some money—which I was forced to use on Molly—and I had dreamed about coming to visit the English world, but I’d never really made up my mind that I wanted to leave home for good.”

  “Yeah, that’s kinda what I thought.”

  “I’d considered it. And there’s no denying that it does appeal to me. Or it did.”

  “You mean before you actually saw it for yourself?” I feel a tiny bit offended by this. After all, I tried to show him the best of the best yesterday. Is he saying that wasn’t good enough?

  “I mean before I went out looking for a job this morning, Micah. I think what your dad told me is right. Without education, it will be hard.” He wads up the paper from his hamburger and tosses it in the bag. “I don’t mean hard work, because I’m used to that. You know I am.” He looks earnestly at me.

  “Yeah. I know you are. I get what you mean, though. After the way you were raised, with your level of education, for you to make the transition, and to find work, and to make a life”—I grimace—“it would be hard. Very hard.”

  “It might be impossible.”

  I just shrug, not wanting to appear too negative.

  “Even though there are a lot of things I don’t like about being Amish, there are lots of good things about it too.”

  “I can see that . . . I mean, I have seen it.”

  “So I guess you were right.”

  This is one time when I wish I wasn’t right. But what can I say?

  After a couple of hours at the beach, I come up with an idea. “How would you like to meet my uncle?”

  “The uncle who’s a veterinarian? The one who helped me with Molly?”

  “That’s the one. Uncle Brad.” I point toward the west. “His office is about thirty minutes from here.”

  “I would love to meet him.”

  I call my uncle just to be sure he’s around, but since he’s almost always there, I’m not too concerned. “He says to come on out,” I tell Zach. “He doesn’t have any more appointments, but he’ll keep the clinic open long enough to show you around.”

  As I drive to Uncle Brad’s, I tell Zach a little about my dad’s “baby” brother. “Uncle Brad’s about ten years younger than my dad,” I explain. “He’s thirty-five and never been married. But he does have a girlfriend named Claire. He started working with this older veterinarian straight out of college—it was a great opportunity. Except that I think the old vet worked Uncle Brad so hard that he never had time for much of a social life. From what Claire says, he still doesn’t. Anyway, the older vet decided to retire a few years ago, and he invited Uncle Brad to take over his clinic. My grandparents helped him to buy it.”

  “That was generous
of your grandparents.”

  “They’re just like that. They helped my dad start his business too.” I turn to exit the freeway. “Anyway, that’s how my uncle got his own veterinary clinic.”

  “What a great way to live,” Zach says longingly. “To be able to work with animals, have your own business. Your uncle’s very fortunate.”

  “Yeah.” As I turn onto the street of the vet clinic, I compare the way my family works to the way Zach’s does. In some ways they’re similar, but in other ways . . . not so much. I mean, when my grandparents helped their sons start their own businesses, there were no strings attached. My grandparents never insisted that their sons believe exactly as they do. And from what I can see, my grandparents’ love for their sons, as well as for me, is unconditional. Maybe Zach’s parents love their children unconditionally too. However, it seems clear that they do not accept them unconditionally—not if their children choose a different path. That makes me feel very sad for Zach’s sake. And sad for his parents too.

  “Here we are,” I announce as I park in front of Westgate Veterinary Clinic.

  “It looks nice,” Zach observes as we walk past a flower-filled barrel next to the entrance.

  “One of my jobs when I worked for him last summer was to take care of the landscaping.” We go inside, where the muffled sounds of barking and meowing combined with the various animal smells takes me straight back to when I worked here.

  Uncle Brad greets us in the reception area, and I introduce him to Zach. “He’s been really eager to meet you,” I tell my uncle. “Thanks again for helping with Molly that night.”

  “Ja.” Zach nods vigorously. “Thank you very much.”

  “How’s she doing?” he asks Zach.

  “She was doing good before we left on Wednesday. The local vet checked her the morning after she foaled. He prescribed antibiotics.”

  “She needs to finish those up until they’re all gone.”

  “I know. I left a note to remind my father.”

  “Good.” Uncle Brad waves his arm behind him. “Now for the two-bit tour. As you can see, this is the reception area. My assistant, Marie, who also acts as a receptionist, has already gone home. It’s been a slow day. But trust me, that’s welcome sometimes.” He explains how the pets are checked in here and how their records are all kept on the computer. “I also keep hard files.” He makes a sheepish grin. “Doc Tyson never completely trusted electronics after his system crashed once. He trained me well.”

  He leads us back to the exam rooms, explaining how he or Marie will weigh the pets and take their vitals. “Most of my patients are here for their checkups and vaccinations or some other simple procedure which I can perform in here. For anything more serious, we go to the surgery.” Now he takes us to the surgery. Zach is very impressed by the equipment.

  “Doc Tyson might’ve been up there in years, but he believed in state-of-the-art equipment,” Uncle Brad says. “That was just one reason I was really glad to take over his practice.” He leads us down the hallway to the kennel area, and the animal sounds get louder. I know that some of them are uncomfortable due to health issues and some are just homesick. One of my favorite jobs had been to tend to and comfort the animals. My uncle gives us kitty and doggy treats, explaining which animals can have them.

  I pause next to a cage containing a large Siamese cat. “Hello there,” I say soothingly as I slip in a kitty treat. “How are you doing?”

  “That’s Seymour,” my uncle tells me. “He had bladder stone surgery this morning.”

  “Poor Seymour,” I tell him. “I’m sure you’ll be feeling better soon, big boy.”

  Zach is kneeling down, talking to a terrier mix that’s licking his hand. “Hello there, pup. What seems to be your trouble?”

  “That’s Tisha. She had a malignant skin mass removed yesterday. I think she’ll get to go home tomorrow.” Uncle Brad gives a shaggy midsized dog a treat, then stands up. “Well, that’s the end of my two-bit tour.”

  “You forgot the exercise yard,” I point to a glass door that goes out to a narrow strip of grass in back. “That’s where I’d take some of the patients out to stretch their legs if they were well enough.”

  My uncle pats me on the back. “You sure you don’t want to work for me again this summer, Micah? The animals really loved having you around. So did I.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, unless I was helping you with a medical procedure.” I turn to Zach. “I was pretty useless when it came to anything involving blood.”

  He chuckles. “Ja. I noticed you got queasy around Molly that night.”

  “You noticed that?”

  He grins. “Your face looked a little green.”

  I roll my eyes at him as Uncle Brad turns off the bright overhead light, leaving only the soft side lights glowing. “Good night, critters. Sleep tight.”

  “What if they have a problem in the middle of the night?” Zach asks.

  I point out the cameras. “Uncle Brad keeps an eye on them from up there.”

  “Up there?” Zach looks at the ceiling.

  My uncle laughs. “I have an apartment upstairs.”

  “Oh.” Zach nods. “That’s convenient.”

  As we’re walking back toward the reception area, I hear the phone ringing. “Want me to get that?” I ask my uncle.

  He gives me a grateful look. “You know what to do.”

  Feeling important, I run out and pick it up. “Westgate Vet Clinic,” I say in a business tone.

  “Thank God you’re there!” a woman says through sobs. “Gretchen—my dog—she’s been hit by a car. She’s bleeding and not moving and needs help.”

  “Where are you?” I ask, trying to remain calm the way my uncle taught me.

  “On my way to the clinic.”

  “What is your name so I can pull your file?”

  “Hamilton. The doctor’s still there?”

  “Yes,” I tell her. “Do you need to talk to him?”

  “No, just tell him we’ll be there in a few minutes and Gretchen needs to be seen immediately. Can he meet us in front?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll be ready.”

  As I hang up, Zach and my uncle come into the reception area. “There’s an emergency.” I explain about the phone call as I go to the file cabinet, searching for a file for Gretchen Hamilton. “The owner’s on her way and wants you to meet her in front.”

  “Yes, I’m sure she does. Gretchen’s a German Shepherd and a big one.”

  “Need any help?” Zach offers.

  “Sure,” my uncle says. “You go wait in front, and I’ll run for the gurney.”

  “Want this?” I hold up the file.

  “Just look to see the blood type and if the dog has any allergies,” Uncle Brad calls as he races to the storage room. “Turn on the lights and equipment in the surgery. And lay out some scrubs for me. You know the drill, Micah.”

  It’s not long until my uncle and Zach are wheeling in what looks like a lifeless dog, followed by a petite blonde woman whose T-shirt is covered with blood. She’s sobbing uncontrollably. “Don’t let her die,” she cries out. “I don’t care how long it takes or what it costs. Please, save her.”

  “Help her.” My uncle tips his head toward the pet owner as he pushes the gurney through the swinging door. “We’ll be in surgery for a while. Zach is going to assist.”

  Taking in a deep breath, I go over to the woman and introduce myself, learning her name is Jennifer. “Gretchen is in good hands,” I calmly tell her. “My uncle—I mean, Dr. Knight is a great vet.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that’s true.” She bites her lip. “I don’t know how Gretchen got out. She was right there in the house with me, and then she was gone. I heard the horn honking and screeching brakes. I immediately knew what had happened.” Jennifer’s mascara, which has run, makes her look like a scared raccoon. “Do you think she’ll survive?”

  “I think if anyone can save her, it’s Dr. Knight.” I point to her bloody T-shirt. “But it’s
going to be a while. Do you think you can drive home to clean yourself up? Or should I call someone for you?”

  “I can’t leave Gretchen without knowing she’s okay.” She holds out bloodstained hands that are still shaking. “And I don’t think I can drive home like this. There’s no one to get me. Since my divorce, it’s just Gretchen and me. Can I just wash up here?”

  “You can use Dr. Knight’s private restroom,” I say decisively. “It has a shower. And we’ll loan you some scrubs to put on afterward.”

  Jennifer looks down at her bloodied shirt and lets out a horrified gasp. “I picked Gretchen up and put her in the back of my SUV. I can’t believe I lifted her. She weighs almost as much as I do.”

  “I’ve heard some amazing stories of what people can do when a life’s at stake.” With my hand on the woman’s shoulder, one of the few places not soaked in blood, I guide her toward the restroom, telling her about the old woman who lifted up a grand piano to rescue her toy poodle. Okay, I’m not sure if it’s an urban legend or not, but I think it helps to calm her. I open the door to my uncle’s restroom, and although it’s marked private, I doubt that he’ll mind under these circumstances. Plus I’ll make sure to sanitize everything after she’s finished. I open a metal cupboard and pull out a towel as well as a set of green scrubs. “Here you go,” I tell her.

  “Do you think Gretchen’s really going to be okay?” Jennifer asks before I can leave.

  “She’s in good hands,” I say again. “And I’m going to be praying for her.”

  “Thank you!” She’s starting to cry again. “Gretchen is my best friend. She’s really all I have left. I can’t stand to lose her too.”

  “Just get yourself cleaned up,” I say in a maternal tone, although I’m sure Jennifer is twice my age. “Maybe by the time you’re done, we’ll have news for you.” As I close the door, I know this is unlikely. Based on what I saw—or tried not to see—that dog is going to be in surgery for a while. As I walk through the reception area, I see that there’s blood smeared and splattered here and there, and as much as I detest this kind of work, I know it must be done. I get the mop and bucket, make a bleach solution, and attack the room. To distract me from feeling queasy, I pray for Gretchen.