A Chance of a Lifetime, page 9
Unsettled, she fingered the necklace she always wore, a gold heart on a chain, a gift from J’Myel. With a shrug, she pushed on with the conversation. “His mom moved to Edmond. Too much sadness here for her.”
Calvin didn’t say anything like I heard that. She was sure he had. Once the falling-out had occurred, Mama and Miss Emmeline had kept each other filled in on the grandkids’ lives. Bennie was sure at least some of it had been passed on.
The young kid behind the counter flashed the lights once, and a chorus of groans came from around the room. Bennie glanced at her watch, surprised by the lateness of the hour. “It’s closing time.”
She threw her cup and napkins in the trash, then, with Calvin behind her, wended her way to the door. The temperature was in the fifties, and the weather folks were predicting typical November weather for the weekend with highs in the seventies. “I’m parked over here.” She gestured toward her vehicle. “Where’s your car?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
His cryptic answer earned him an unwavering look. He lifted one shoulder. “It got stolen before I left Washington.”
“Then how did you get here?” She gestured to Java Dave’s. She knew the Army had provided transportation to Fort Murphy.
“A friend with a car was going out to Bronco’s and invited me, but cowboy bars aren’t my thing, and I’ve had only one decent cup of coffee since I got here, so I asked him to drop me off. I’m going to meet him there.”
“You want a ride?”
“No, thanks.” He walked with her to her car and stood there on the sidewalk, hands stuffed inside the hoodie’s pockets. She unlocked the driver’s door, swung her purse to the opposite seat, then straightened, her hands gripping the door frame. She felt the need to say something at least halfway conciliatory, but since she couldn’t think what, she smiled stiffly, got inside her car, and slowly backed out of the parking space. He didn’t wait for her to drive away before he began walking again.
She watched, gaze flitting between her driving and him, as he took the shortcut behind the courthouse, his lanky legs climbing the gazebo steps, crossing the warped boards, climbing down again on the other side. A few more strides, and he was in the shadows of a giant oak, and she was ticking off the teenagers kicked out of Java Dave’s. She accelerated to a normal speed, traveled the block to the red light at the intersection of Main and First, and glanced to her right.
The bar Calvin was headed for was three blocks away on the right side of the street. If she hadn’t been looking for him, she wouldn’t have spotted him, already halfway there, sticking close to the buildings, walking in the dim light under the awnings of the shops.
As a kid honked a horn behind her, she noticed the light had changed and she pulled away from the intersection. Within a few minutes, she was home, letting herself into Mama’s, warm and sweet-smelling and safe. After chatting with Mama a few minutes, she carried a glass of warm milk and her backpack into her bedroom. She intended to complete the studying Calvin had interrupted at Java Dave’s, but concentrating on microbiology was hard when her heart was all fluttery and unsettled.
Calvin had seen some awful things in Iraq and Afghanistan, things no naïve kid from Oklahoma should have to see. That had to be the reason he’d changed so much, the reason he and J’Myel had fallen apart, why he hadn’t been able to send even a damn note of sympathy for the funeral. Maybe she shouldn’t be angry with him. Maybe he was the one deserving of sympathy.
Probably he was. But it wasn’t about just them. It was about J’Myel, too, and the disrespect Calvin had shown him. And it was about, heavens, every emotion that simmered through her at the thought of him, that could so easily boil over at the sight of him. It was about who they’d once been and what they’d since lost.
Bennie had experience with loss—her mother, her father, J’Myel, Calvin—but the others were gone: Lilly disappeared God knows where, Daddy and J’Myel in the grave. Calvin was the only one still here. The only one she could at least find out why.
* * *
“Do you like dogs, Captain?”
Calvin dried sweat from his forehead, then tossed the towel over the treadmill controls before focusing his attention on Captain Kim, one of the psychologists with the unit. “My grandmother used to send her Labrador retriever swimming at the lake with us. He never let me get in water deeper than my waist. Other than that, I guess I liked him fine.”
“Did you have a pet of your own?”
“It was hard enough with my mother expecting me to be clean and shiny and well behaved all the time. Would’ve been impossible for me and a dog.” The treadmill beeped and slowed to a stop, signaling that he’d reached his five-mile goal. “Why the questions? You have a dog you’re trying to get rid of?”
She smiled. “Nope. My pilot program is starting today, and you’re one of the lucky guys taking part.”
He’d heard of programs involving patients with various animals, especially horses. If they could help troubled kids and physically disabled patients, he wasn’t surprised they’d be doing some version of it with soldiers.
Both the physically disabled and the troubled.
“What does this program involve?”
The captain, with black hair, dark eyes that sparkled, and an impossibly white smile, made a note on her tablet, then shook her head. “You’ll find out as soon as I gather the others. Meet us at the front door in fifteen minutes.”
“Can I shower first?” His skin was sticky, and his PT clothes were soaked, smelling more than a little ripe.
“If you can do it in fifteen minutes. But it’s really not necessary. You’ll probably need a shower when we come back anyway.”
Giving her a cynical look as he stepped off the treadmill, he dryly said, “I’ll make it quick.”
He kept his word. With one minute to spare, he arrived back at the entrance, where the captain was waiting with six other patients. All of them, Calvin had learned by now, diagnosed with PTSD.
A van drove them to the middle of town before turning north. Just before the railroad tracks, the driver turned back east again, and a moment later deposited them in the gravel parking lot of the Tallgrass Animal Shelter.
Three women were waiting outside for them: two tall, cool blondes and one short little redhead. Calvin’s gaze skimmed across them before going to the dogs lined up along the fence, some barking, some watching in suspicious silence. A few were so greedy for attention that it seemed they might piss themselves if they didn’t get it right away, while a few others looked as if they’d rather starve than take food from a friendly hand.
He understood the theory behind animal therapy. Caring for someone or something more helpless, more dependent on others, was supposed to help rebuild trust—both theirs and the dogs’. It was supposed to get them out of the dark places in their minds, to remind them that there was innocence and good in the world, that they could make a difference in someone else’s life, that they had value.
It was a hell of a burden to put on a bunch of unwanted, malnourished, mistreated, and rehabilitating animals.
One of the blondes started the conversation. “Hi, guys, I’m Meredith. I’m the part-time vet here and full-time owner with my partner, Angela, and this is Jessy, who helps us keep things relatively under control. Rae”—she gestured toward Captain Kim—“offered us some warm bodies to help out here, and believe me, we’re always grateful for warm bodies. There’s never any shortage of unwanted dogs, and we’re perpetually understaffed, underfunded, and overworked, so we’re incredibly grateful for you.”
The other blonde took over. “We work on a first-name basis around here. The three of us are easy enough to remember—Meredith, Jessy, Angela—and fortunately, the rest of you, dogs included, all wear name tags. We do have some cats who are also tagged, but you’ll probably never get close enough to have any interaction with them. They prefer to be worshipped from afar.”
Along with the Lab, Gran had had a cat. It had had three legs and was blind in one eye, and it gave the Lab so many vicious swipes with its paw that he’d whimpered and hidden when he saw it coming. Calvin had had to hide from it a few times, too. He hadn’t worshipped it—hadn’t even liked it—but he’d had a very healthy respect for it.
They divided into groups, Calvin finding himself alone with the redhead. She was close to a foot shorter than him, but she moved fast and talked slow, the sharp edges of her words softened by a lazy Southern accent that reminded him of basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. She wore shorts and a top that exposed her legs and arms, thick-soled sandals, and a platinum-set diamond on her left hand.
He followed her inside the shelter and through to the backyard, where she took two pairs of gloves and two rakes from a storage shed built against the outside wall. “It’s your lucky day, Calvin—lucky that it’s not cold, raining, or snowing, that is, because we’re cleaning the yard.”
“Cleaning?” He accepted a rake, then looked past her. “Oh. ‘Cleaning.’” There were a lot of dogs at the shelter, some inside at the moment, the rest outside, yapping at them or keeping their distance. A lot of dogs equaled a lot of dog sh—
“We call it poo, but feel free to use whatever word fits best for you. I’ll tell you, if they could clean up after themselves, they’d be the perfect creature.”
“More perfect than the guy who gave you that ring?”
She eyed it a moment, then shrugged. “Well, he does clean up after himself. Mostly. How long have you been in Tallgrass?”
“A couple weeks. How long have you been working here?”
“About six months. These guys saved my life, so I try to return the favor.”
He didn’t ask, didn’t want to know, didn’t care, except somewhere inside, maybe where his mom and dad had ingrained in him to care. As they began raking dog shit, er, poo into piles to shovel into the nearby wheelbarrow, he asked, “How?”
Jessy looked at him, her eyes the clearest, cleanest green he’d ever seen. “I’m an alcoholic,” she said evenly, without self-consciousness or embarrassment. “Getting a job here helped me stop drinking.”
Would he ever be able to state his problem as easily as she did? To set aside the shame at how weak he’d become, to admit that life had overwhelmed him so deeply that he hadn’t wanted to live? He wanted to get to that point. If he was going to be in this world, then he wanted to be in it. To accomplish things. Love people. Laugh. Be happy.
Right now he’d settle for not hurting.
“Congratulations,” he said shortly.
“It’s an ongoing battle, but I’ve got support. From my fiancé”—she waggled her fingers, drawing attention to the ring—“his family, my friends, and my babies.” At that, she bent to scratch a young beagle under its chin. “You guys are sweet babies, aren’t you?”
A half-dozen more dogs crowded in for their scratches, and she accommodated them all before returning to the raking.
Calvin had family and friends. Not close friends, like he, J’Myel, and Bennie had been, but friends who’d been where he’d been and seen what he’d seen. Friends who’d found some weakness in themselves and dealt with it better than he had.
Friends who were scattered everywhere around the world but here. And the guys with PTSD in the WTU company—they’d been there, done that, gotten damaged in the process—but they weren’t friends. Maybe someday they would be, maybe not. But they hadn’t coped any better than he had to wind up in the WTU.
He and Jessy started raking in the back corner of the fenced yard. By the time they’d cleaned a nice-sized section, one of the standoffish dogs, a tall muscular mix of breeds, circled in the middle of it and added a new pile.
Jessy grinned as she pushed her hair from her face. “It’s like every kind of cleaning I’ve ever done. You get about ten seconds to enjoy it, then the crap starts piling up again.”
Calvin had heard similar comments from his mom. I just finished the laundry, and there you are in dirty clothes. I just washed the last dish, and now I have to dirty new ones to fix dinner.
“The solution would be to not waste time in futile tasks that you’ll just have to do again.”
“Oh, this is not futile. Setting aside the obvious downside of a yard full of poo, there’s the secondary and more offensive scourge: flies. You know in Oklahoma, they’re classified as instruments of torture. If we don’t keep the yard clean, they’ll carry off animals and small workers, and since I’m the smallest one here…”
Calvin’s laugh was rusty. The poo did smell something awful, but there weren’t any flies to do battle with today, and it was a nice, cool, sunny day to be out. It was a good change from his last job of dealing with troops to his most recent assignment as a professional patient. Things could be worse.
By the time they’d cleared the back third of the yard, other teams were finishing the job in the side yards. While explaining that a kind rancher who had more land than he used would haul the poo away for them, Jessy returned their tools to the shed, then led him inside. As they passed through the storage room, he caught a glimpse of a cat black as midnight except for a white spot on his forehead. The animal moved silently, elegantly stalking along an upper shelf, tail lazily above him. He reminded him of Gran’s old cat, not in looks but in the stealthy way he moved that suggested confidence, brashness, pride, and trouble.
About half the space of the shelter was filled with kennels. Just the number of dogs outside was disheartening, but adding in those who remained in their kennels was depressing. “Where do they all come from?”
“Some are pets who’ve been surrendered by people who were moving or because their owners have died. We’re a no-kill shelter, so we take some in from shelters where they’re scheduled to be euthanized. Some are strays who aren’t tagged or chipped, but most of them are dumped. Your dog has puppies you don’t want, so you take them for a drive, toss them out somewhere far from home, and problem solved.”
She pointed out the kennel dogs recovering from spaying, neutering, or injuries they’d had upon arriving. A few were large animals, a couple of German shepherds and mixes, who reminded him of the working military dogs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Beautiful animals, smarter than the average soldier. And sad. These guys were sad, too.
“You don’t put any of them down,” he repeated, wanting confirmation as he looked at them.
“Only when their condition is so far gone that Meredith can’t help. We don’t let them suffer.”
Physically maybe, but what about mentally?
One of the shepherds became aware of his attention, stood, and moved to the front of its cage. Almost silently, it drew back its lips to show a deadly set of teeth, then exploded into cringe-inducing barks.
“Heidi,” Jessy chastened. “She considers it her job to shake things up around here every few hours. She’s not ready yet to put up for adoption. We’re still working on her manners.”
“Too vicious?”
“Oh, no. If she didn’t know she was safe in her kennel, she’d be huddling in the back corner, whimpering and shaking like a leaf. She’s so afraid of people that Meredith had to sedate her to bring her here. Meredith’s been working with her, but progress is slow. I told her, first thing, she needs to give that baby a name to be proud of. Heidi’s fine for a little girl with blond braids, but not for a hundred-ten-pound authority figure of a shepherd.”
“Yeah, maybe something like Bear, Killer, or Fang would fit better,” he agreed. “Or maybe Jessy.”
She flashed a grin at him. “I like you, Calvin Sweet. We’re gonna have fun here.”
Chapter 7
Do you suppose I could learn to knit and make a gift in time for Christmas?” Bennie wondered aloud as she picked up a booklet of patterns for knitting scarves with various embellishments. Though she’d been speaking to Marti, on the next aisle looking at jewelry-making material, it was a shop clerk who answered.
“One of those scarves would be pretty simple. Once you get started, it’s really just a matter of keeping it going until you’ve got it long enough. Is that what you were thinking of?”
“Actually, I was thinking about a blanket for our friend’s baby.”
Marti glanced over the top shelf that separated them. “Then why were you looking at patterns for scarves?”
“Marti, please don’t expect me to be rational and logical on my day off. It’s been a long week. Work, class, and—” Bennie practically bit her tongue before Calvin’s name could get out. She’d never told anyone in the margarita club about Calvin and had never thought she would. Had never thought the Army would send him back here. What were the odds of that?
Hard to calculate, especially since she didn’t even know what Calvin’s field was. He and J’Myel had gone into Infantry together, but after Calvin had earned his bachelor’s degree, she assumed the Army had put him someplace where they could take advantage of his specific education. By then, the great divide had appeared, and none of them had tried to cross it.
“You’re off Sunday, too,” Marti reminded her, shaking Bennie’s thoughts back to now.
“Breakfast, Sunday school, church, after-church dinner, studying, evening church, bed. Show me a spare minute.”
“Hmm. Well, Sunday’s a day of rest for me,” Marti said, “which means my Saturdays are pretty calm, too.”
Calm probably came pretty easily when Marti didn’t go to church or school, wasn’t living with anyone, and didn’t have to worry about meals. Everything she put down was exactly where she left it when she wanted it again, and if she wanted ice cream for breakfast, popcorn for lunch, and cotton candy for dinner, she got exactly that, without any lectures on balanced diets.
Bennie wouldn’t trade places with her for the world.
The shop clerk was still waiting to explain the intricacies of knitting, but Bennie made a face. “You know, I think I’d rather try a quilt. Cut out pieces of material, sew them together, quilt them…I’m pretty sure I can do that while ‘knit one, purl two’ is a foreign language. Besides, Mama used to quilt. She’ll help me.” Mama would help make little John Gomez’s first Christmas quilt something really special.
