Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  Reva called Mack on his cell, and though he was at the office, he answered.

  “Hey.” Mack always had been a man of few words.

  “That cat’s eye isn’t getting any better. I’m worried. Either that ointment isn’t working, or—”

  “Bring him in.”

  Reva threw the towel over the cat for the second time that day, dragged him out of the big crate, and deposited him in a smaller one she could carry by herself. She sent Abby a text to let her know she was heading to the vet and offered to swing by the grocery store on the way home if Abby wanted to text a list. She left Georgia and Jack piled up on the couch watching Dog TV, then drove into town to Mack’s vet clinic with the cat carrier on the passenger seat.

  Bypassing the waiting room for the people who hadn’t spent enough money at the vet to pay for Mack’s truck, Reva went through the back door, Mack’s private entrance. “Hey, Mack,” she called. “I’m here.”

  Mack’s latest vet tech, the pretty girl with a purple braid, came around the corner, drying her hands on a paper towel. “Hey, Reva. Mack said for you to wait for him in exam room two. He’s with another client right now, but he’ll be with you soon.”

  “Thanks.” Reva took Winky to the exam room, then sat in a chair and checked her messages. One from Abby with a grocery list and another from Quinn, though she didn’t have time to open it because Mack walked in.

  “Hey,” he said, the lines beside his whiskey-brown eyes crinkling with his smile. “How’s Adrian?” Mack stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “Have you heard anything?”

  “He’ll live.”

  Mack turned and peered out into the hallway, then turned back to Reva. “I’m sorry. I thought my friend Reva was in here. You might have seen her? Earth-mother type, all sweet and understanding and ‘Kumbaya’?”

  Reva pursed her lips and gave him the stink eye.

  “She’s probably somewhere around here,” he kept on, hanging on to the doorframe with a big grin pasted on his face, “talking about how we’re all interconnected fragments of divine source energy expressing itself in physical form and all that shit.”

  “It’s too bad you’re not as funny as you think you are. I really hate it for you.”

  He stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind him. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

  “I’m just mad,” Reva confessed. “I’m mad at Heather for dumping Adrian, and I’m mad at Adrian for dumping this cat. Winky was just learning to trust people, and now we’ll have to start all over again trying to tame him.”

  “Awww, come here.” Mack wrapped his brawny arms around Reva and gave her a big, friendly, bearlike hug. She laid her head on his wide, hard chest, wrapped her arms around his thick, muscular waist, and allowed herself to absorb the comfort he offered. He patted her back. “I’m sorry we lowly humans are often such a disappointment to you.”

  She swatted his butt and stepped away. “Thanks, Mack.” He was such an adorable jerk. “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.”

  He grinned and ran a hand over his short dark hair that he’d probably cut with dog grooming clippers. The man was unashamed—and maybe even proud—of his rough edges. “Let’s take a look at that cat.”

  Together, they managed to get the resistant feline out of the crate and wrapped in the towel, kitty taco–style.

  While Reva held Winky securely, Mack’s long, blunt fingers gently pried open the cat’s irritated eyelid. “Yeah, I’m sorry to say, it looks like he’s gonna lose this eye. You see how the eyeball looks like it’s getting smaller? It’s gonna keep bothering him unless we do something about it.”

  “By do something, I assume you mean remove the eyeball and sew the eyelid shut?”

  “Yep, sorry. I think it’s the best thing. Especially since he’s still half-wild and giving him that medicine is such an ordeal. You need to be working to build trust, not holding him down and torturing him twice a day. He prob’ly can’t see much out of that eye anyway. And it’s bound to get worse, not better.”

  “Okay.” Mack wasn’t the sort to suggest a pricey procedure if it wasn’t necessary. “Can you do it today?”

  Mack reached out with one finger to stroke the cat’s head. “Have you fed him anything today?”

  “I gave him food, but he hasn’t touched it.” Reva rocked the cat gently, soothing it the same way she would a swaddled infant.

  Mack nodded. “I’ll do it today. You can pick him up around 4:30.”

  He touched her shoulder and gave her a small, compassionate smile. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s the best thing.”

  “I know. Can I sit with him for a few minutes before you take him?”

  “Sure.” Mack put a hand on the doorknob. “I’ll send Sandy back here to get him in a bit.”

  After Mack left, Reva sat in a chair by the window, closed her eyes, and took a couple of breaths to clear her mind. Even though she held Winky in her arms, she tried to connect in by imagining that he was sitting in front of her and giving her his attention. After forty forevers, she still couldn’t imagine him doing anything other than ignoring her.

  But finally, she looked down to see him twitch one ear in her direction. Listening, at least. She explained the medical situation at hand, but when she asked whether Winky understood, all she got was “Don’t care.” Then, after another long moment, “Why did Adrian abandon me?”

  “Adrian was planning to take you home with him, but a lot of things happened that kept him from doing it.”

  Winky opened up to Reva about his effort to connect with Adrian when he didn’t come back to get him from the shelter. “I kept asking where he was, and all I could see was a dark fog. He was hiding from me.”

  “No, he wasn’t hiding. He was at the hospital, zonked out on painkillers.” Reva reminded Winky of how he’d felt when he’d been given anesthesia for the neuter surgery.

  Determined to feel sorry for himself, Winky hid his head in the crook of Reva’s elbow. “He threw me away. He doesn’t care about me.”

  Reva explained that because Adrian’s feelings were hurt over being discarded by Heather, he had, unfortunately, discarded Winky. A delicate thing to explain to someone who’d just been ditched by their beloved. But being a multispecies family therapist had its challenges. “Humans and their messed-up love lives can be hard on the animals who love them.”

  Reva had expected Winky to react badly to the news, but instead, Winky lifted his head and stared out the exam-room window with an intense expression on his face. It was clear that he was percolating on a solution.

  “What do you think we should do?” she asked.

  “I need to be with Heather,” Winky replied. “If she will take me home with her, I can convince her to take Adrian back. Then he will take me back.”

  “But how will you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Winky answered. “But I’ll figure that out when I get there.”

  ***

  A call came through from Quinn when Adrian had just finished saddling Charlie. “Hey, Ade,” Quinn said. “Just checking up on you. Abby told me what happened yesterday. That’s raw, man.”

  Raw described it pretty well, Adrian thought. “Yeah, well.” There wasn’t much to be said about the fact that Heather was done with him. “That which doesn’t kill us and all that bullshit.” Adrian left Charlie tied to the stall’s window bars, then sat on a hay bale to talk to Quinn. “How’d the event go yesterday?”

  “All good,” Quinn said. “Made a bunch of money, enough to pay for those generators y’all picked up for the shelter plus a little left over.”

  The reminder of Adrian’s night with Heather stung. He’d thought it had meant something to her, but he guessed he was wrong. “Well, I’d better go. I’ve got this horse saddled up, and—”

  “O
h, you’re at Heather’s house now?”

  “Out in the barn, yeah.”

  “I’ll swing by and visit for a sec. I’ve got a trailer load of hay; stocking up in case we’re not able to go out for a while after the storm.”

  “What storm?”

  Quinn laughed. “The tropical storm that’s supposed to make landfall in the next few hours. You haven’t heard about it?”

  “I haven’t been paying that much attention, what with having my face bashed in and getting dumped and all.” Adrian looked down at the bales he was sitting on, then glanced around the barn. These two bales appeared to be all Charlie had. “Did Heather tell you to pick up any extra for Charlie?”

  “No. I should have asked, but the girls have been busy, cleaning up and nailing down anything that might fly off in the wind. I can give Charlie some of this hay, no problem. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Adrian put his phone on a nearby shelf and tightened Charlie’s cinch strap, then led him out of the barn and into the field. A gusty wind blew leaves off the trees and carried them tumbling sideways along invisible currents of turbulent air. The sky was filled with fast-moving clouds that were more white than gray. They weren’t likely to drop any rain yet, but the cool mist in the air promised rain later in the day, well in advance of the expected storm.

  Adrian accepted the fact that he might be driving home in a downpour.

  He and Charlie had a good ride, walking to warm up and build rapport, then racing to blow off steam and get a good workout. Charlie kept veering toward the woodland trail behind Heather’s house, and though Adrian had promised Heather that he wouldn’t ride off the property without her consent, he was dealing with a hefty dose of fuck-it energy right now, so with a muttered “What the hell,” he rode up to the gate that led to the woods then leaned down and opened it to let Charlie walk through.

  Heather had elicited that promise from Adrian because she’d been worried about him. It wasn’t as if she cared all that much what happened to him now. And anyway, nothing bad was likely to happen if he and Charlie took a nice quiet ride through the woods.

  Then Adrian remembered that Quinn was planning to stop by.

  If Adrian was off riding Charlie in the woods—especially given that Adrian had left his phone in the barn—he and Quinn might miss each other. And even though Heather had said she’d make arrangements for Quinn to ride Charlie, Adrian didn’t want to leave it completely up to her. No reason he shouldn’t at least give Quinn a heads-up.

  Rather than going back through the gate he’d just closed, Adrian rode Charlie around the perimeter of the field and along the road to Heather’s house. Quinn came into the barn, just as Adrian had unsaddled Charlie and was about to brush him down.

  “Hey.” Adrian looked out the open barn door at Quinn’s truck and the trailer it pulled. “What’s with the horse trailer? When you said you had a trailer load of hay, I was imagining the flatbed.”

  “Didn’t want to take the chance of the hay getting rained on.”

  Quinn came closer to inspect Adrian’s injuries and whistled. “Jeez-o-Pete.” Adrian had dispensed with the bandages this morning, so his bruises and the long line of stitches across his forehead plus the glued-together cut across the bridge of his nose were on full display. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

  “Bad enough,” Adrian agreed. “So give me the scoop on the storm.”

  “The wind isn’t supposed to be too bad, but it’s moving slow, so it’ll be dumping a lot of rain.”

  Adrian looked out the window of Charlie’s stall toward the river that flowed not far behind Heather’s house. Her house was built up several feet above the ground. The barn, which was closer to the river, was not. “Has this place ever flooded?”

  “No idea,” Quinn said. “But the slope from the barn to the river is pretty flat. I’d say it’s an extreme possibility. Especially if the storm parks on top of us for any length of time. It’s predicted to go right over Magnolia Bay.”

  What would Heather do if this place flooded? Had she ever gotten new tires for Charlie’s old dilapidated trailer so she could evacuate him? Could she even load him in the trailer if that became necessary? And what if the storm winds were worse than predicted?

  Adrian observed the construction of Charlie’s barn with a critical eye and decided that even a small wind could tear this simply built structure apart. The eight-inch-thick poles that held up the metal roof could snap off in a high wind. And though they were probably sunk in concrete, if the ground around them became saturated, the posts could shift, causing the roof to collapse.

  Bayside Barn’s thick steel support beams were bolted into a two-foot-thick concrete slab.

  The roof of this barn consisted of corrugated roofing metal screwed into flimsy, hollow metal supports that could twist or be ripped off in a bad thunderstorm, let alone a hurricane.

  Bayside Barn’s roof was constructed with corrugated roofing metal over tar-paper-covered OSB over two-by-eight wood beams spanning solid steel I-beams.

  In any sort of imminent weather event, Charlie should be somewhere safer than this. “Do you think Reva could make room for Charlie at Bayside Barn?”

  “Yeah, sure. We built all new enclosures for the smaller grazing critters at the farm so the barn would have a few extra stalls for the shelter’s use.”

  Adrian rested a hand on Charlie’s broad back. “You got room in that trailer to load him up?”

  “We’ll have to shift the hay to one side, but yeah.” Quinn narrowed his gaze at Adrian. “You gonna run this past Heather first?”

  “She’d probably take it better coming from you,” he suggested.

  “I’m not walking into that buzz saw.” Quinn looked up at the barn’s roof, and his gaze traveled from point to point, clearly assessing the building’s structural integrity. “She’s likely to resist either of us interfering in what she sees as her business.”

  Adrian knew what Quinn was thinking, but he asked the question anyway. “Do you think this place is safe for Charlie to be in right now, given the current weather predictions?”

  “Nope.” Quinn put his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t keep my horse here. If I had one, that is.”

  Adrian walked over to the shelf where he’d left his phone. “I’m gonna call Heather.” He tried, but she didn’t answer. Nobody answered the shelter’s landline either. They were probably all outside preparing for the storm. “Either she’s ignoring my call, or she’s too busy to answer.”

  “They’re busy, for sure. But if we are gonna move Charlie, we should do it now,” Quinn suggested, “since I’m already here with the trailer and it’s not yet pouring rain.”

  Adrian felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Quinn looked resigned. “Better to apologize later than to ask permission now?”

  “You’ll still have to work with her,” Adrian felt obliged to point out. “Whereas my walking papers have already been issued.”

  “Au contraire, mon frère. I have fulfilled my obligations to the animal shelter as of yesterday’s grand opening.”

  “So…” Adrian felt a spark of excitement, which he had to admit felt a whole lot better than the sadness and anger he’d been carrying since yesterday at about this time. “You up for adding horse thievery to your rap sheet? I am if you are.”

  “Well, technically, it’s not thievery if we’re just temporarily relocating the horse for a good reason, is it?”

  Adrian shrugged. “I don’t know. I think we’d have to consult a lawyer to determine that for sure.”

  “And anyway, those drunk and disorderly charges were dismissed, if you’ll remember.”

  “Noted.” Adrian looked at his watch. “If we’re gonna do this, we’d better get busy.”

  “You need to at least inform her of what we’ve done and
why so she doesn’t come out here to feed Charlie and have a cow when she finds him gone.”

  “Agreed.” Adrian tried to call Heather once more, but again the call went to voicemail. He left a message, knowing she might not listen to it. She was ignoring him, and he wasn’t surprised. “I’ll send her a text as soon as we hit the road.”

  ***

  Heather waved to Quinn when she met his truck on the road, pulling the horse trailer he had taken to fill with hay in advance of the storm. Adrian’s car was following right behind. On their way to the shelter, she guessed.

  She hoped Adrian wasn’t going there to get Winky (whose name would be an even better fit for him now that he only had one eye) because Heather had just signed the adoption papers and was on her way to the vet’s office to get him.

  She truly hoped Adrian hadn’t decided that he wanted to keep Winky because she didn’t want him to think she was taking the cat away from him out of spite. Unfortunately, right now, anything she said or did was likely to be taken the wrong way. Adrian was angry, and she understood now that he had taken her request for friendship the wrong way. She’d talked to Sara, who’d commiserated with Heather but also helped her see his point of view. His ego was bruised, and Heather hoped that once he’d had some time to think it over, he’d realize that backing up wasn’t the same as backing out.

  But for now, he thought he’d been dumped. That was his reality. Thinking she’d dumped him was bad enough. Thinking she’d dumped him and taken his cat would be worse.

  But Winky was going home with her now, not Adrian, no matter what either of them preferred. She had already told her kids, and they were all excited, so that was that.

  Reva had laid it on pretty thick about how Heather’s dumping of Adrian had led to his dumping of Winky and why Heather owed it to Winky to give the cat a loving forever home. Heather had tried to explain that from her point of view, Adrian had been the one to walk away, but Reva had flapped her hands and said, “Not my circus, not my monkeys. Are you gonna take the cat or not?”