Borrowed Time

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  He breathed out slightly as if he’d been holding his breath. “She’s a sweet-looking dog,” he said. “I’m not too surprised people are wanting to adopt her. But no one is the owner?”

  I shook my head. “And I think we’ve done our due diligence, especially in a town this size. Someone would have known if it was their neighbor’s pet or their friend’s. Have you heard anything from the vet?”

  His eyes twinkled. “Apparently, they love her there. They’ve been keeping her with them behind the front desk and she’s been helping to greet the furry patients.”

  “I think you can go ahead and let the vet know she’s welcome to do the vaccinations and to fix her,” I said. I hesitated and asked gently, “Did you have any ideas for a good home for her?”

  He glanced away and then back at me. “Actually, I thought I might consider adopting her myself.”

  I smiled encouragingly at him. “Luna mentioned that you seemed to have a great connection with the dog.”

  He smiled tentatively back. “She reminds me very much of a favorite pet I had when I was ten years old. I loved that dog. After school, I spent all my time with her, running through the woods, playing in the creek. I’d build forts and dam up the creek to make swimming holes. It was great fun.”

  I wondered again about Linus and his seemingly solitary life—it appeared he’d also been something of a loner when he was a child, too. But he’d had such a good relationship with his wife, apparently. Maybe she’d been an introvert, also.

  I said, “That sounds like a great plan. Let me know how she does at the vet. Did you think of a name for her?”

  “Do you think it would be odd to name her after my childhood dog?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I think it would be a wonderful tribute,” I said.

  “Then I’ll call her Ivy,” he said with a smile. He grew solemn for a minute. “Luna told me about the death at the house party. And about her cousin.”

  Luna’s way of feeling better about things was definitely talk therapy. I tended to clam up and keep my worries to myself. I knew Luna’s way was probably a lot healthier. I nodded. “Their deaths were real tragedies.”

  Linus cleared his throat and said softly, “I don’t think it was the first time they’ve encountered tragedy, either.”

  “It’s not? I’m sorry—I didn’t know you knew them.”

  Linus shook his head. “I didn’t. And, of course, I wasn’t living here when it happened. But I overheard Roz speaking with Luna about something that happened when Roz and her friends were teenagers.” He blushed a little. “Roz’s voice carried a bit.”

  This was true. And Luna wasn’t exactly quiet, either.

  “Did Roz say what the tragedy was?” I asked.

  “No, only that someone had died. This was before you and Luna went on the weekend—I guess they were talking about the people who were going. I only remember because Roz got very serious . . . actually, she seemed to choke up.” He paused, and then briskly added, “I should let you get back to work. Hope things start looking up for you, Ann.”

  The library remained quiet the rest of the day, but I was glad because it gave me the opportunity to catch up on a lot of things I hadn’t had a chance to work on. I spent some time looking up how other libraries held volunteer appreciation days and jotted down their tips. Then I constructed a loose agenda for the day . . . a date I still needed to pass by Wilson. I decided to go ahead and see if I could get approval from him for everything I’d put together.

  Wilson looked up and smiled distractedly as I tapped on his office door.

  “How did lunch go, Ann?” He pushed aside a pile of papers on his desk and leaned forward, suddenly regaining focus.

  “It was good,” I said cautiously. I wasn’t sure what Wilson expected me to do during these lunches. I thought it might be good enough to be a good representative of the library, but I was starting to wonder if he thought I should be singing the library’s praises or trying to ask for a recurring gift or something of that nature.

  A moment later, it seemed his thoughts were going in that direction when he said, “Did Grace say anything about the library or how she might want to be involved in it in the future? Do you think she might be interested in a position on the board of trustees?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry Wilson, but it wasn’t that kind of lunch. In fact, I should have mentioned this to you this morning, but I got caught up with a bunch of things in my inbox. Luna’s cousin, a friend of Grace’s, died early this morning. I think Grace wanted to talk about it with us over lunch and that’s why she invited us out.”

  Wilson’s face reflected momentary disappointment before he said, “Of course. I’m sorry to hear about Luna’s cousin.” He frowned. “I’m surprised she came in today.”

  “I was too, but she said it would make for a good distraction for her. She and her mother were very upset this morning.”

  Wilson’s frown deepened. “Her mother, yes. Mona. She was kind to make us all Rice Krispy treats the other day.”

  I said with a slightly pointed edge in my voice, “I believe she got the idea because you’d mentioned you liked them. She made them mostly for you.”

  Wilson suddenly seemed flustered, pulling the piles of paperwork closer to him as if needing to run interference between himself and my words. “Yes, well. That was especially nice, then.” He hesitated and then asked, “Did she do that for any specific reason? That you know of, anyway? I haven’t been sure about how to behave around her. After all, she’s the mother of an employee of mine.”

  I said simply, “She made them because she likes you. She hoped you’d enjoy them.”

  Wilson nodded slowly. “I should do something in return, then. Especially since she’s going through this rough time with the death of her niece.” He considered this. “Perhaps a card.”

  I was able not to wince. I was hoping he’d say he should ask her out for coffee sometime. But I reminded myself that this was Wilson. He was nothing if not cautious. Maybe a card was a good starting place.

  “Maybe so,” I said. I frowned. “Actually, I just realized that Luna left her mom at home today. Sometimes it’s better for Mona if she spends time at the library instead.”

  Wilson folded his arms together. “Why would she have left her at home? Especially on a bad day like this?”

  “Well, I was over there very early this morning when everything happened. Mona was upset and wasn’t ready to go anywhere at the time. But it’s after lunch. Maybe she’d like to come over here now.”

  Wilson pulled up the library schedule on his computer. “But Luna has a storytime this afternoon.”

  I quickly added, “And I’m the only person covering the circulation desk. We have a couple of folks absent today or not scheduled.”

  Wilson looked uncomfortable, a slight ruddy color rising from his shirt collar. “I suppose I could offer to run over and pick Mona up.”

  I hid a smile at his discomfort. “It isn’t a very long drive. I don’t think it would be too awkward. And I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

  He gave a brisk nod as if it were decided and before he could talk himself out of it, he picked up the phone. “The number?”

  I gave it to him and he punched it in, clearing his throat. “Ms. Macon? This is . . . yes, hello. We were all very sorry to hear about your niece today. Such a terrible thing.” He paused, listening. “I know you frequently like spending time at the library and aren’t able to drive. Luna and Ann are tied up this afternoon, but I wondered if I might pick you up and bring you here, myself.” He quickly added, “Only if that would provide a good distraction for you, of course.”

  Apparently, Mona accepted with alacrity because Wilson was now saying, “Good. Yes. I can be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  He put the receiver down, small beads of perspiration dotting his forehead. “Well. I suppose I should go ahead and head over there then.”

  Wilson had knocked me off-track by talking about the lun
ch with Grace and I hadn’t even had a chance to speak with him about the volunteer luncheon arrangements. I hastily said, “It won’t take you fifteen minutes to get there. Could I go over something with you really quick and see what you think?”

  He suddenly turned his full attention back to me. “Ah, yes. Very good. I was going to ask you about that.”

  “I think I have a fairly good plan of how we should approach it.”

  Wilson frowned. “The Fitz Picks?”

  I stared at him blankly. “Sorry?”

  “You know—the pictures of Fitz and book displays. Fitz’s Faves. Something catchy like that. But it’s not the kind of thing you need to get approval on, you know.” Wilson was now stacking his papers and getting his car keys out of his desk drawer.

  “We’re speaking at cross purposes, Wilson. I meant the volunteer appreciation luncheon.”

  He blinked at me. “Oh. That.”

  “Yes, that. I’d somehow gotten the impression the luncheon was something of a priority for the library.”

  He made a face. “Yes, I suppose so. Yes, of course it is. In my head, though, I wanted to move forward fairly quickly with the Fitz project. I think pictures of the cat with his favorite children’s books, favorite new releases, favorite thrillers, etc. would make excellent posts on social media. They might even spark discussion and engagement. We could ask our audience who’s read all the books in the photo. Or ask what books Fitz needs to read next.”

  I gave him a tight smile. “I’ll get right on that.”

  “Good. And I do want to speak with you about the volunteer luncheon, naturally. Maybe sometime next week?” He was already walking toward the door, then frowned at seeing his reflection in his office window. He smoothed down his already well-behaved hair.

  “Perfect.”

  He said as he opened his office door. “At least you have a quiet afternoon to get cracking on it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  This, of course, was the kiss of death for the quiet afternoon. As soon as Wilson left to get Mona, the library became the busiest place in the town of Whitby. What’s more, everyone needed to ask me a question.

  When it was my break time, I hurried off to the lounge just as Luna was finishing up her own break and about to come out.

  When Luna saw me, her eyes twinkled for the first real time that day. “Did you work some sort of magic, Ann?”

  “Me?” I asked blankly.

  “Yes, you! You’re being far too modest. All I know is, you had a meeting with Wilson and the next thing I knew my mother was here at the library and Wilson himself was her driver.”

  Oh, of course. That’s how busy the afternoon had been—it had eradicated any thought of Mona and Wilson. “To be honest, I went in his office to get the volunteer luncheon signed off on, but I did mention what happened to Roz. And I might have mentioned it would be good for your mom to come over to the library for a while today and get out of the house.”

  Luna rolled her eyes. “You never do take any credit. And then you somehow got him to pick her up. She was delighted. You’d have thought Price Charming himself was at her door with a carriage.”

  “I simply explained to Wilson that you had storytime and that I was the sole librarian at the circulation desk.” My eyes opened wide. “You don’t mean they’re actually hitting it off, do you? I had the feeling he was going to be all stiff and formal the whole way to the library.”

  Luna shrugged. “Maybe he started out that way, but when they came into the building, he was chuckling at something Mom said and she was beaming up at him. I mean, her eyes were still super red from crying this morning, but I couldn’t have dreamed up a better way of distracting her. Plus, with Wilson on his way over, she somehow got herself made-up and out of her pjs and robe and into a cute outfit in record time.”

  I smiled as I opened the fridge and pulled out the red grapes I’d brought in as a snack. “I’m so glad, Luna. I just hope he’s nice to her. You know sometimes he’s not even nice to us.”

  Luna waved her hand dismissively. “You’re just saying that because sometimes he doesn’t listen to us.”

  “Sometimes?” I asked.

  “And he can be a little brusque.”

  I snorted again at ‘a little.’

  “But he has a heart of gold, you know. He’d do anything for you,” said Luna.

  I had to reluctantly agree with this. He was also an excellent manager, despite the not-listening thing. And he always had the library’s best interests at heart.

  “Besides,” added Luna sweetly, “if he does anything to upset my mama, he’s toast.” She winked at me as she sailed out of the breakroom and back to her post in the children’s section.

  Things finally slowed down a bit and I was able to get started on Wilson’s Fitz Picks or whatever he was going to call it.

  Luna had pulled out some old picture book favorites (like Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Corduroy, and The Story of Ferdinand) and also came up with a stack of recent children’s favorites (like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!) for me to use.

  Then it was just up to me to see what sort of a mood Fitz was in. Not that he was ever in a bad mood, but sometimes it was easier to get a fetching photo of him than others, even though he was practically a pro at looking fetching. Sometimes, hard as it is to imagine, Fitz would rather just nap.

  First, I had to locate Fitz, who’d disappeared while I’d been speaking with Luna in the breakroom earlier. He wasn’t in any sunbeams. I strolled through the periodical section and looked in patrons’ laps. No Fitz. Then I tiptoed through the quiet section trying not to distract the folks focusing on their studying, spreadsheets, taxes, or whatever else they might have been working on.

  I frowned and walked over to the children’s section again, although I hadn’t noticed Fitz over there when I’d been over to see the books Luna had pulled out for me. She’d just finished giving book recommendations to a mom who wanted to encourage her son to read.

  “Have you seen Fitz?” I asked.

  She grinned and nodded. “Sure have. He’s in the back corner with one of our young patrons.”

  I looked over at the back corner and sure enough, Fitz was fast asleep on the lap of an elementary-aged boy—a boy who was also asleep.

  I winced. “I sort of hate to disturb them. Wilson wanted me to get moving on the Fitz’s Picks thing, though. Has he been asleep long?”

  “I don’t think so. But he probably won’t mind. Maybe he can even give you a hand with setting everything up. He looks to be about ten or eleven years old. You know you get the best photos when someone is playing with Fitz and you snap the photo.”

  This was true. Until I recruited people to help me snap playful pictures of Fitz, I had an excessive number of pictures of Fitz lying sleepily on his back.

  I started walking toward the corner and called out softly, “Hey, there. May I take Fitz back?”

  The boy woke up with a jolt, which wasn’t what I’d intended. He hastily put the cat on the floor and took off.

  I stopped, frowning and looked back toward Luna, who’d seen the whole thing.

  “Maybe he realized there was something he needed to do,” she said with a shrug. “Here, I can give you a hand with Fitz.”

  But as soon as she said it, a father came up with his son, needing help finding books to help with a report his child was doing for school. Luna gave me a helpless look and I collected Fitz to take the photos myself.

  It didn’t work out that way, though. Suddenly, the library became busy again. A patron asked for my help completing a job application on one of the shared computers. While I was helping her, another patron’s shared computer froze and I had to help get it working again. Then a patron came in asking for a particular book, but couldn’t remember the book’s title or author, only that it had an orange cover. Fitz gave up on me and ended up taking a luxurious nap in a sunbeam in the periodical section.

  A
fter that—it was time for me to leave for the day since I was only on the schedule until four and it was already past that. Before I did, though, I wanted to ask Luna about what Linus had told me and I hadn’t really had a chance earlier since Luna was focused on Wilson and her mother.

  Luna was just re-shelving some picture books when I caught up with her. I mentioned what Linus had said about a long-ago tragedy and asked Luna if she knew anything about it.

  She shook her head. “Not really—like I said, I was a good deal older, so I was already out of town. I’m sure my mom knows more about it, but I think she’s playing cards with a couple of her friends near the periodicals.”

  I said quickly, “No worry, I’ll check in with her later about it.”

  Luna glanced at the clock. “You should be getting out of here anyway or else you might find yourself stuck again.”

  A young mom came up to ask Luna something, so I headed back out of the children’s section. I asked Fitz if he wanted to go home with me and he gave a chirping meow and padded toward the breakroom where I kept his carrier. He trotted happily into the cat carrier and I headed for the exit as quickly as possible, thinking patrons with problems might continue to ambush me on the way out.

  Once I got back home, I fed Fitz, gave him some fresh water, and then rooted in my fridge to see what might be available for supper. I made a face at the unappealing offerings I saw. Maybe I’d gotten spoiled by going out with Grace. I didn’t usually have a problem with my leftovers and they certainly needed to be eaten. But then, I didn’t have that much of an appetite yet, either. The lunch, like most healthy food, had been very filling.

  I walked to my bedroom and changed into athletic clothes. I hadn’t gone jogging in years. It was one of those things I said I’d do at the start of the year but somehow never managed to follow through with. There was a moment of relief when I saw my athletic clothes still actually fit. I put on my running shoes, gave Fitz a quick rub, and headed back out to the car. I figured I’d run in the park instead of the neighborhood. Sometimes a change of scenery was a good thing.