A New Leash on Life (9 page)

Chapter Six

Chloe

I listened to Olivia deliver a plea that wrapped around my heart and twisted it up into a knot. The anxiety in her tone, the desperate panic in her eyes, the twist of her mouth, all blended together, sweeping me up in a windstorm of emotions and blowing me off balance. My heart pounded as she submitted to the financial distress of her shelter.
Her
shelter. Pride swelled in me. She rose up to a grand and selfless pathway. Her eyes flickered whenever she addressed the reporter. I recognized the unease in the slight stretch to her upper lip. The reporter led her, taunted her to admit vulnerability. Olivia Clark did not beg.

She angled her eyes at the camera and spoke cautious words. Her lips, still pouty and bright, drew me in. Her cheeks still chiseled, shined under the camera’s light. Her hair still highlighted blonde and stretched back into a low ponytail, gleamed. A veil of worry shadowing her face marked the only difference since the last time I’d set eyes on her. She resisted the reporter’s aggressive questions, and turned them in her favor by remarking on the plights of others during such distressing times, on how others competed for basic necessities.

Olivia circled around her own troubles, disguising a loss of control with strength and a determined spirit.

After the report, they cut to a video montage of the staff adoring dogs, cats and even a pretty bird. Their hearts reached out through the camera and attached to mine. Olivia showed off a bulldog, lifting him in the air and kissing the tip of his nose. A young guy, with blonde spikey hair, traipsed alongside a fence with a Saint Bernard, stopping to pet the top of his head. A pretty, heavy-set black girl with a pile of curls on top of her head, admired a beautiful yellow and green bird as it perched on her finger. The soft piano music combined with the emotional plea mesmerized me. Even after several days, I found myself sneaking into the living room to watch the news clip over and over again.

“You’re going to wear that segment right out,” Aunt Marie said, walking past me with a basket of laundry. She scooped down to pick up a sock that had fallen out.

“I want to help her,” I said.

She placed the basket down on the couch next to me and plopped down, too. “You really think she’ll let you?”

I looked back at the television, to Olivia’s blushed cheeks. I paused the recording on a shot of her sweeping a piece of her hair behind her ear and narrowing her eyes at the reporter. “Maybe enough time has passed.”

She stole the remote from my hand and pointed it at the television. “I’m going to erase it.”

“No,” I screamed knocking the remote from her hand.

We stared at the remote on the tiled floor. The battery popped out and landed a few inches away from it. The television screen, still paused on Olivia’s narrowed eyes, casted a crude reminder that Olivia had moved on with her life and forgotten all about me.

I plopped down on the couch, tossed my head in my hands and screamed. “I just wish things were different.”

Aunt Marie sat down and hugged me. I pulled away. She pulled me back and squeezed me to her. I wrestled. She wrestled. Finally I conceded and cried into the crocheted flower resting on the lapel of her cardigan sweater. “I still can’t get her out of my mind after all of this time.”

“You’re driving yourself crazy,” she said rocking me back and forth. “You really should erase the segment.”

“She needs help.”

“And people will come to her aid.”

They would come to her aid just like they did when I left her, when her childhood dog Floppy died, when her parents died, whenever some dramatic piece of life caught up to her. “I want to come to her aid.”

Aunt Marie patted my back. “What’s your plan? Go into town bearing envelopes stuffed with hundred bills and maybe a friendly dinner?”

“Something like that, yes.” I pulled back, kicked up my feet and reclined back against the leather. “If I don’t help her, I’ll be wasting my last chance to wipe the slate clean.”

Aunt Marie kicked up her feet, too, and lounged back. “What about Scott?”

I stared up at the chandelier. Dust grazed its brass and cobwebs formed a bridge between the arms. “We’re just dating.”

“He has a drawer in your bedroom.”

“I’m a liberated woman, Auntie.”

“I don’t get your generation.”

“This is my chance to do something good and balance things out.”

“I don’t think she’s going to be open to receiving your help, sweetheart.”

I rested my head on her shoulder and sighed. “You’re probably right.”

~ ~

People assumed because I earned a lot of money, my life was one big happy hoorah. I enjoyed money for the freedom it offered me, but it didn’t protect me from lonely nights. My happiness bloomed the most before the money, before my life tangled up into a big messy wad of lies and people tossing their flirty eyes and accolades at me like I had actually deserved them.

Before Ayla arrived in my life, I viewed myself as a decent human being with a shot at a good life if I had played my cards correctly. I never set out to hurt anyone. I never wanted to be that girl who blocked out everyone else but herself. I wanted to be far different than my mother, and in a different solar system altogether from my stepfather.

I had promised myself a long time ago, that I, Chloe Homestead, would always do my part in paying back those who served me in my time of need. I would one day go off to college, earn a degree, get a well-paying job, and pay back Olivia for all those times she raised me up to the level of a queen.

Broken promises looked an awful lot like litter. They repulsed, antagonized, and left a trail of ugliness too real to deny. To clean up the mess required getting down on the ground and plucking up one shattered piece at a time. Controlling damage this way would take forever, though. Thankfully, money offered me a shortcut. Because I invested in a shitload of mobile parks, I could pay to clean up the mess a whole lot quicker and without getting my hands and knees all scuffed and dirty.

I watched as my daughter shoveled Honey Bunches of Oats into her mouth. She sensed no clue of the sacrifices I’d endured to get her to this point in her life – a beautiful teenager with lots of cool friends, trendy clothes, and a stable, loving family that only a fool would run from. No messed up mother who would rather smoke cigarettes and walk in circles talking to herself on the terrace of a mental institution; no stepfather who would sneak into her room at night and try to fondle her; no excuses to fabricate so friends wouldn’t be annoyed at her for not reciprocating an invite to sleepover. No searching for love in the eyes of a stranger who only served to please him or herself by getting her to spread her legs and remedy a serious case of horniness.

No, Ayla would never go through any of this because Aunt Marie and I loved her, respected her, and molded her into a young lady who knew she deserved exactly what she put out into the world. Thankfully, Ayla wielded more sense than I did when it came to measuring choices. She analyzed the world through lenses more magnified than I ever did at her age. When she didn’t want something, she walked. When she did want something, she focused on it until it became hers. Thankfully, she also understood the concept of cause and effect. What she contributed, she received back a million times over. She offered to rake leaves for our neighbors for free and in return they set her up with beautiful saddles and delicious homemade cherry pies. She baked her friends cookies for no reason, and in return they never overlooked her in the school cafeteria or on carnation day. She served others and received blessings back in the way of friendship and goodwill. People naturally gravitated towards her because she brought out the best in them. She never faked. She’d never live a lonely day. I wished I’d have understood that at her early age.

I had no doubt that if genuine love presented itself to her, she would never disregard for the sake of conformity or weakness. Nope, my daughter would extend her delicate hands, take that love in and honor it. She’d never shit all over it like I did. She would’ve thanked the guy who risked his life for her with a dinner instead of a fuck.

“I’m taking a trip to my old hometown this weekend.”

“You’re not coming camping with us?” she asked.

“No.” I shook my head, and then sipped my coffee. Camping with Scott, his friends, and a bunch of teenagers didn’t sit at the top of my ideal list of things to do.

“Was that her on the news report?”

I placed my mug down. “Her?”

“The girl you loved,” she said without any judgment.

“That’s her, yes.” I didn’t keep my bisexuality a secret. I told her all about Olivia and my love for her. I only lied about how I left her. Instead of messing her up with the ugly truth, I buried my dark secret and told Ayla that we both just needed to go our separate ways.

“You’re going to see her, aren’t you?”

I exhaled. “Yeah.”

“Do you think you’ll get to kiss her?”

“I’m not going there to try and kiss her, Ayla. I’m going there to help her out with her shelter.”

“And what about my father?”

My skin fizzled in a moment of ridiculous panic over the impossible. “What about him?”

“Will you try to find him?”

“Not this time around.”

“When will it be time?”

“I’m not sure, sweetheart.”

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t feel like camping anymore.”

“Your friends are counting on you.”

“I wish my father would want to know me like Scott likes to know Alexia.”

I wanted to hug her, protect her. She rarely allowed me to console her on this subject. I searched my mind for the proper words that would comfort her and make her feel less like an unwanted old dog and more like an irresistible puppy. I had nothing. I just gripped her wrist and squeezed, offering her a knowing smile. “I love you, sweetie.”

“I know.” She spooned in another mouthful of cereal. “I’ll go camping.”

“You’ll have fun. Just don’t let any anyone talk you into sneaking off on a walk in the dark. That never ends well. I always got bitten by a million mosquitoes and had nightmares for weeks that someone would grab my leg from under a bush and pull me into it.”

She placed the bowl up to her face and drank the remaining milk. She emptied the bowl and sighed. “You are so weird, mom.”

I pinched her side. “It’s true.” She trusted people too much, and I worried that one day that nightmare would become a reality.

“I’ll bring a boy along if I decide to go for a walk.” She peered up at me with a smirk.

“You love me too much to put me through this kind of worry already.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” She hopped off the stool and swung around the counter to the sink. Her long, golden curls flitted around her, reminding me of her little girl days when she enjoyed spinning around in circles with arms outstretched, chasing the elusive wind. “I’m going to tag along with you someday up there, and I’ll be old enough where you won’t be able to say no.”

“All in good time,” I said.

“Yep, all in good time,” she echoed our usual phrase, ending on a wink.

Chapter Seven

Olivia

When Tucker, a handsome Golden Retriever mix, had first arrived at the shelter a few weeks before the storm had hit, he had collapsed in a seizure right there on the waiting room floor. The owner had already cleared the parking lot. A little girl and her father stood in horror as I knelt beside the big guy and pressed against him until his body stopped twitching and the fear vanished from his big brown eyes.

“Daddy,” the little girl trembled, “I don’t want that one.”

The daddy cradled his little girl, smoothing her hair and asked me, “Is he going to be alright?”

I smoothed Tucker’s fur with a reassuring hand. He raised his head up to my lap and laid it down, peeking up at me with his beautiful soft eyes. “I’m going to take good care of him. He’ll be alright.”

And that’s what I did. I took in pets that owners didn’t want anymore and cared for them, rehabilitated them and prayed someone kind would come in and adopt them instead of going to shop at one of the many puppy mill supporting pet stores. “Go on back to the kennels,” I had urged the father. “There are lots of beautiful dogs in all different sizes and shapes that would love to meet you both.”

“This has been traumatic enough for her,” he said motioning to his daughter. “Maybe we’ll come back another day.”

I nodded. “Please do.”

They left, surely never to return again, with the same faulty notion many regarded about shelter animals, that all of them had something wrong with them. Why else would no one want them?

Despite my terrible public speaking skills, I stood in front of classrooms, mall crowds, and auditoriums and did my best to dispel the myth that shelter pets were leftovers, discarded because they were aggressive, ugly, or unloving. I educated crowds on the love, health, and care of shelter pets, and how they ended up there not because of who they were, but because of who their owners were – people who didn’t contemplate their adoption or purchase well-enough. I lectured to these crowds that pets should never be on trial. “Pets are family members,” I would repeat, my voice reverberating against walls. “They aren’t beings to discard because they soiled carpeting or refused to stop barking. They need training and love just as children do.” Then, I’d get carried away and start jumping into stats that I hoped would wake up potential pet owners to a sad reality. “In America, only about twenty percent of pets are adopted. The rest come into a family through breeders and other sources. If we can push that twenty percent up just a few points, experts say the large number of adoptable pets being euthanized could drop significantly.”

I had hated that this father and daughter had to witness Tucker’s seizure, and as a result would most likely run directly to the nearest puppy mill supporter to purchase a supposedly healthy puppy.

Soon after I had examined Tucker, ensuring no obvious medical conditions, I had called Melanie. Over the course of his first two weeks, he had collapsed into several seizures. Melanie had worked with him daily. Since then, he’d been seizure-free and a happy-go-lucky tail wagging golden mound of fur who wanted to walk and play catch every second of the day.