Little Fox Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  Madrigal and O'Keeffe, Robles and Lassiter. Nice in a way to have such a close-knit town. Would they rally around to help now that Helena Lassiter Madrigal was alone and confused?

  Nico was speaking of it to the padre. "…and I think it would help if you talk to the family, so they can help her now that Henry is gone."

  "I'll take care of it," the father said.

  "I've been worried," Bree said. "I don't know how much I can do for Helena. She's senile, according to Wade."

  "Last I knew, Wade hadn't gone to medical school," Nico pointed out.

  "Okay. But there's something wrong with her. At least, I think there is." She paused. "It sure seems like something more than grief had her upset and confused. I don't know if Henry knew about it, or what he planned to do for her."

  Nico said, "Henry had an appointment with me for next week."

  "About Helena?"

  He said, very carefully, "it wasn't an appointment for himself."

  "So she's your patient?"

  He paused, then spoke again in that tone that seemed overly formal to answer such a simple question. "I can say that Henry had made an appointment and was bringing Helena in to see me to discuss a concern he had."

  "So you knew him?"

  He shook his head. "I'd never met him. But Fiona O'Keeffe, the office secretary, told me about the appointment he'd made when she called with the news from Wade."

  Father Anselm smiled at her confused expression. "It's a very small town. Word gets around quickly."

  "I've noticed that," she said. "A strange guy at the garage stopped me to say he was sorry about Henry."

  They both smiled.

  "Hector," Nico explained. "He's… unique."

  "That's a good word for it," she said.

  "He has a pure soul," the padre said.

  "Hector's bonkers," Nico said.

  "Is that your medical opinion, my son?"

  "Yup. He's not all there. But in a totally harmless and friendly way."

  "About that medical opinion…," she said, and then paused. "I mean, I suppose it's not really my business, but…."

  He didn't say so, but his silence seemed to agree that it wasn't her business.

  She looked down. Maisy was lying on the grass at her feet, still quiet and reserved, still so unlike herself. Maisy and Helena, her only connections to her mentor, and both suffering in silence. "Okay, fine," she said. "It is none of my business. But what can you tell me about her condition?"

  He shook his head. "Absolutely nothing."

  "Isn't she your patient? I mean, how many doctors are there in Pajaro Bay?"

  "Two. Dr. Lil, who's been here forever, and me. But that's not what I meant. Have you heard of hippa?"

  "I've heard of daikon, romanesco, and kohlabri."

  He looked blank, then got it. "Um, vegetables, right?"

  "Right." She grinned at him, and he grinned back. That smile of his was terrific.

  The padre knocked over his flower bucket and they both turned toward him. "Sorry," he said. He bent to pick up the few stems that had spilled.

  "So what's a hippa?" she asked Nico. "A female hippie?"

  "H-I-P-A-A. It's the privacy in health care act. I'm not allowed to discuss patient information with anyone unless the patient gives permission."

  "Oh. Got it. That explains the weird answers."

  He smiled. "Sorry. I had to take a refresher class in HIPAA last year, since it's not something I'd used much before."

  "Oh. Weren't you a doctor before last year?" He seemed about in his mid-thirties.

  The smile widened. "Not the kind of doctor who spends much time with patient paperwork. Long story." He looked like he wanted to say more, but Father Anselm cleared his throat.

  "Well," Bree said, "I guess it's not really my concern anyway. Someone will do something for her."

  "They were unable to have children," Father Anselm offered. "She almost died after an ectopic pregnancy many years ago. What?" he said, looking at Nico. "I'm not covered by your HIPAA."

  "So she doesn't have any kids to look after her," Bree said.

  "And her husband died in January." He nodded toward the Madrigal crypt. "He was Bill Madrigal—Guillermo Bartolomé Madrigal. He had a heart attack. I remember he was only 61 years old, since I'm the same age. It struck me as way too young."

  "Henry was only 58," Bree said.

  "Ah, yes. I'm sorry, my child."

  "So he was retired?"

  "An active retirement. I'm sure they planned to continue their traveling."

  "I noticed the collections in their cottage. Did they travel a lot?"

  "Oh, yes, they loved to travel. Bill had been a professor, an expert on early California history, I believe, and he took early retirement so they could come back to Pajaro Bay and settle in the Lassiter family home after her parents died. That was just a couple of years ago. Helena really began to go downhill after he passed. That's not unusual, but still, I am so sorry that she's doing so poorly. I should have visited more and kept up with what was happening with her."

  "Does she have any family left in town?"

  "Of course," Nico said, nodding toward the crypt.

  "The closest relatives would be the Madrigals," Father Anselm explained. "Since she's a Madrigal by marriage. Kyle himself is her nephew."

  She must have looked blank.

  "Kyle Madrigal is the mayor who got the streets paved," Nico explained.

  She looked up at the Madrigal crypt. They were obviously a big family in town. They could handle it. "What will happen to her?"

  "People with dementia generally end up in some kind of assisted living," Nico said.

  "A nursing home?" She thought of the little cottage that held all the Lassiter family memories. "Couldn't she stay in her own home?"

  "That's not always possible."

  "Yeah. It's not really my problem, I suppose. But it was Henry's problem. and that makes it mine, somehow."

  This wasn't her problem. She was just here to drop off the dog, and now that it was likely Helena couldn't take Maisy, she really had no reason to get involved. She had her own problems—no job, nowhere to keep the dog, and a life that had fallen apart overnight.

  But she couldn't help remembering feeding molé chicken to the confused woman at the kitchen table in the little cottage. It wasn't her problem. Would the people at the nursing home know she didn't like garlic? Would her life be an endless repetition of pale chicken breasts, gray gravy, and green jello? Would anyone know that she had once caught a sea bass twice the size of the one Henry had caught, but then had gotten so excited she dropped it, and it had slipped off the wharf and back into the water? Would anyone remember the stories Henry had told her, now that Henry was gone, and Helena was senile?

  "It isn't my problem," she repeated. "Right?"

  Nico and the padre both nodded.

  "You've done all you can, Ms. Taylor," Father Anselm said.

  She sighed. "Yeah."

  "So what are you doing now?" Nico asked. "I mean, today?"

  "Well, the funeral is scheduled for Monday—" she looked at Father Anselm and he nodded. "And Helena had invited me to stay with her until then. So I guess I'll do that."

  "Yeah," Nico said. "I guess," he hesitated. "I meant, what are you doing right now? Would you like to go to lunch?"

  "Oh." She pulled herself out of the problem-solving mindset and looked up at this handsome man who was asking her to lunch. "Oh." She felt herself blush. She hadn't blushed in years. "Sure. I'd love to go to lunch."

  Father Anselm said, "You'll need to bring Helena by to sign some forms." He sounded curt.

  "Okay," she said.

  "Couldn't you stop by Vixen & Kits and help Helena with that?" Nico asked.

  Father Anselm shrugged. "I suppose so."

  "I hope she'll recognize you," Bree said. She turned back to Nico. "You can't tell me anything at all about how to help her?"

  "We'll talk over lunch at Mel's," he said. "I can tell
you about a theoretical person with senile dementia, and what kind of care would help, and what the prognosis is."

  Father Anselm sucked in a big breath. She looked over at him.

  "Pricked myself on a thorn," he said, but she noticed he was glaring at Nico.

  Nico ignored the disapproval, if that's what it was. Maisy pulled on the leash.

  "Oh, wait!" Bree said. "I forgot about the dog."

  "Mel's Fish Shack has an outdoor deck. I've seen dogs there many times."

  "Perfect. Is it far from here?"

  Nico laughed. "Nothing's very far in Pajaro Bay. Come on."

  They said goodbye to the padre and walked away, leaving the priest looking after them with that same disapproving look until they were out of sight.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MAISY TRAILED after them at the end of the leash as they started down the hill.

  "You know," Bree said to Nico. "If you feel it would be wrong to talk to me like this, I understand."

  "Wrong? No. We're just speaking theoretically. I wouldn't tell you anything inappropriate. Honestly. I've taken my HIPAA class, Scout's honor." He raised his hand in a salute.

  "But Father Anselm…?"

  "Oh. You noticed. Um, that has nothing to do with Helena Madrigal—or you. That's something between us. Don't worry about it."

  So she decided not to. It was easy not to worry as a handsome doctor walked her down the hill through the sea of flowers, with the sea glittering in the distance and the scent of pine trees in the air.

  Again he pointed out the flowers by their Latin names, this time explaining that his father had been a jardinero, a gardener, in L.A. before being injured in a work accident, and that Nico had spent after school and weekends working with him when he was a kid.

  She found herself laughing as he told of his father planting perfectly straight rows of tulips for a customer, only to turn around to find that the lady's Chihuahua had followed behind him, digging the bulbs up one by one and helpfully laying them in a row for him.

  She felt lighter. Maybe it was finally knowing she wasn't alone in this—that everyone in town was now aware of Henry's death. The townspeople would rally around now: they'd come to the funeral, and would help Helena, and just would basically take over from her. It wasn't her problem any more. She would stay in Pajaro Bay for a couple more days, and then she could get on with her own life.

  If she could figure out how to do that. But no, she wasn't going to worry about that, not until later. "So tell me something else about yourself," she said to Nico.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Do you miss your family in L.A.?"

  "Sure. I miss my dad."

  "And your brothers and sisters?"

  "I…," he paused, then continued, "I don't have any brothers or sisters."

  "Neither do I," she said. "And no parents now, either. My father died two years ago."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  She wasn't sorry. Awful to think that, but she wasn't. But she didn't want to get into that. So she asked another question: "So how long does it take to become a doctor? To get to this point, I mean?"

  "To be a doctor in a little village medical clinic?" The grin he gave her wasn't as bright as before.

  "Don't you like being that? Is this what you'd always dreamed of doing?"

  He laughed. Again, it felt like not so much amusement as irony. "Not exactly," he said.

  "Sounds like a pretty nice job."

  "Oh, it is. Very cushy. Low stress. I can't complain."

  They arrived back at Calle Principal and turned left toward the bay.

  "So if this isn't what you originally planned to do, how'd you end up here?"

  He took the question literally: "Let's see…. four years college, four years medical school, internship and residency for three years, four years paying it back, one year in the ED." He stopped. Silence for a minute. "Then here."

  There was more to that silence, more to the story that she wasn't getting. "You realize I have no idea what any of that stuff means."

  At that his laugh was genuine. "What part?"

  "What's an ED? And what did you pay back?"

  "Emergency Department. I am, I mean I was, an emergency physician. That was my specialty."

  "Wow," she said. "So you must deal with the scary stuff as emergency doctor. Not just sand rashes from kayaking."

  "I used to. I don't see a lot of GSW in Pajaro Bay."

  They passed Santos' Market. Sure enough, there were three old men sitting on the bench in front. "Afternoon shift," he muttered, and she grinned.

  He smiled at the men, and they waved back.

  After they passed, she went back to grilling him. "What's GSW mean?"

  "Gunshot wounds."

  "Really? I mean you saw that kind of stuff a lot?"

  "I paid off medical school by serving in the Army Medical Corps for four years. Then I worked in the ED of a hospital in a part of L.A. that's like a war zone in its own way. So yeah, I've seen a few bullet wounds."

  Wow. She couldn't imagine how someone spent years in war zones and then chose to work in an emergency room after that.

  Nico pointed out the Surfing Puggle, the fancy pet store she'd driven past earlier. There was a plastic mannequin in the window: a mournful-looking St. Bernard wore a lavender sun hat, shades, and red ladybug rain boots. ALL SHOES ON SALE said the sign over the dog's head. "What do you think, Maisy?" he asked the dog.

  Maisy just looked sadly at him and trudged on.

  He patted the dog gently on her side. "It's all right, sweetheart."

  They continued on their way.

  The Owl was next. A woman in a flowered dress was locking the door. "Hello, Dr. Nico," she said. "Thanks for the migraine meds. Worked like a charm. I wish I'd known about them years ago."

  He nodded. "Glad to help." He turned to Bree. "Bree, this is Kim Kelly. Kim, this is Bree Taylor. She's visiting Helena Madrigal."

  "I've heard," Kim said. "Let me know if you need any help. I'm across from you, in Bluebird Cottage."

  "She's heard?" Bree said after Kim walked away.

  "Of course. It's Pajaro Bay. People are very friendly—and very nosy."

  They came to the end of the road where she'd had to make a U-turn earlier. This time they went to the right, and followed the signs toward the wharf. The road curved along the hillside as they walked, passing between some twisted Monterey pines clinging to the cliff on either side of them. The air under the trees was cool, but the glimpses of bright water between the tree trunks beckoned them on.

  "Pajaro Bay must feel like heaven after what you've seen."

  He looked around him, as if startled. "I never thought of it like that. But yeah." He turned back toward her, and his expression was warm. Very warm. "Yeah, there are some heavenly things here."

  It was hard to ignore a man like this, even if he didn't fit into her plans to start over again back in Sacramento. But this guy was really intriguing. And the lean, muscular physique that must be a relic of his military training didn't hurt. She wondered how old he was. Older than her, definitely. But not ancient. She'd never dated an older man….

  He noticed her watching him. "I'm 36, by the way. Was that what you were trying to figure out?"

  "Are you reading my mind again?"

  He laughed. "Maybe. So am I too old and decrepit?"

  "For what?" she said, though she knew what.

  It sounded like he'd been all over the place, while she'd spent all her life on the farm, except for the last two years, when her father's death had set her free. She really had nothing in common with an ex-Army, ex-big-city emergency room doctor. Even if he had eyes rich as chocolate and muscles that went on for days.

  "I'm 26," she blurted out. Those ten years between them felt like a lifetime. He was too old for her. Or she was too young, probably. "I've never been anywhere," she admitted. "You've been all over the world."

  "Not really. Mostly all over the Middle East. And I wasn'
t sightseeing much."

  "But I've never been anywhere. This is the farthest I've ever been from where I was born." And then, for some reason, she found herself telling him about it. "My father was very isolated. He kept to our farm outside Lodi, in the Central Valley. And so I stayed there, too, to take care of him. He was a survivalist, a guy who felt the world was going to end any day now, and so he wanted to be ready for it."

  Nico reached out to take her hand in his. There it was again, that feeling of comfort he exuded. "How did you get away from it?" he asked. Again, no judgment in the question.

  "He died." She said it flatly, then confessed the thing she'd never told anyone but Henry Lassiter: "It was a relief. It meant I could leave, and start my own life. There was no money, no inheritance, but I was able to get into a culinary school and studied to be a chef."

  "You're a chef?" He looked at her admiringly, then stopped walking.

  She stopped next to him.

  He let go of her hand and ran his palm through his hair, brushing it back. "Here I was planning to impress you with lunch at Mel's Fish Shack, and you're a chef."

  She laughed. "That's worrying you? You mean you don't think I'm awful for saying that about my father?"

  "I think you're being honest. It's difficult to care for someone with a mental illness."

  "Yeah," she said. "That's what Henry said."

  "Come on," he said. "Let's have lunch, and you can tell me about yourself, and Henry, and about being a chef."

  They started walking again, and when they came around the turn, the whole bayfront came into view. To the left was an old-fashioned amusement park, all bright colors and rides reaching for the sky. The other direction led to the wharf. A whole bunch of colorful little cottages clustered along the shore.

  It was the fantasy place that Henry had described all those times, brought to life before her eyes. Funny that Dr. Nico didn't seem to see it that way. What was it to him? A purgatory of some kind?

  They followed Wharf Road as it skirted the modest fishermen's cottages, finally bringing them right up to a parking lot at the base of the wharf. There stood a junky-looking building that appeared to be about ready to topple off the pilings and into the water. Nico opened the rickety gate that enclosed the outdoor dining area and they went in.