“He’s a basset hound. Maybe sixty pounds?”
“We only allow small pets, and only in the apartments,” Diane told her. “Cats and small dogs. And of course fish and birds are fine.”
As far as Grace was concerned, this was the deal breaker. Her father might want to move, but he would never abandon Iago. “Well, that’s it, then,” she said.
Diane looked alarmed. “Don’t get me wrong. We love animals here, and we all understand the therapeutic effect they can have on people. Every few weeks we sponsor a Pets for Wellness visit.”
“Like a petting zoo?” Grace couldn’t help asking with a little sneer.
“It’s a therapy dog group.”
“Iago isn’t a therapy dog. He’s a member of the family.”
She went through the motions of the rest of the tour, which was quick anyway.
When she returned home, her father, who had been out to lunch with Steven, asked her how she’d liked Live Oak Villa.
“I can’t see you being happy there, Dad. They won’t let you keep Iago.”
“I know.”
She gaped at him. “
You know?
And you’re still considering it?”
“I can find Iago a good home,” he said. “A better home, where he’ll be taken care of.”
“But you’re his person!”
“I am, but I’m seventy-seven, and he’s eight. Iago could live another ten years, and as he gets older, he’ll need more care. I was going to ask Dominic if he would take him.”
He had already thought this through? “When did you plan on moving?”
“This fall, I hope. As soon as I can get everything settled. I’ll have to sell the house, of course. Steven says our neighbor Muriel is a real estate agent.”
Swallowing took effort. Of course he would sell the house, and most of the things in it, too. He couldn’t take it all with him.
He couldn’t even take his dog with him.
“I’m going to need your help, Grace,” he said. “I won’t be able to manage it all, Steven says.”
So she would be coerced into doing the very thing she found most odious. Being a party to his carting himself away to a home. It made her sick.
“You really intend to do this,” she said. “You’ve probably been thinking about it for a while, too.”
“I just didn’t have the courage to tell you,” he said. “I was afraid you’d be angry with me. You’re not angry, are you?”
He sounded so frightened, her anger melted away in her need to reassure him. “No, Dad. I’m not angry.”
For the next few days, Grace tried to be stoic. For the most part, she avoided thinking about Live Oak Villa. Even when Muriel came through the house in real estate agent mode, critiquing their paint colors and their old kitchen Formica countertops, she held her tongue. Occasionally she would catch herself clinging to the hope that her father would forget all about this and they would just continue to muddle along as they were.
It became harder to keep her head in the sand when the For Sale sign was planted at the end of the walkway.
The afternoon it appeared, she was up in her room when the front door opened and a brouhaha exploded downstairs. Her father and Dominic’s raised voices penetrated her closed door, punctuated by a few barks from Iago. Then, to her surprise, heavy footsteps clomped quickly up the stairs and Dominic burst in.
“You didn’t tell me you were moving!” he shouted. “Professor Oliver says he’s going to live in a place way over on the other side of town! Why?”
“Because it’s a place for . . . seniors.”
“But that’s
crazy!
Why would you let him do it? Why would you let him give up Iago?”
“He told you about that?” she asked.
“He wants me to take him,” Dominic said. “But Iago’s not my dog, and he’s going to feel totally abandoned. Professor Oliver said I could bring Iago out to visit him, but I don’t even have a car or anything, so how am I ever going to visit him way out there?”
She gulped. For some reason, she hadn’t anticipated Dominic being this upset. Now she wondered why. “I don’t know. But you’ll see him again.”
“But it won’t be the same, will it? We won’t be neighbors. He’ll be gone, and you’ll be gone too, won’t you?”
“I’m not sure where I’ll be.”
“And what about Heathcliff and Earnshaw?”
The sad fact was, Earnshaw was looking shakier every day. Grace was trying not to think about that, either. “I’m sorry, Dominic. I know it’s awful to lose a friend like this . . .”
“No, you don’t! I always lose everybody. I hate it!”
Tears ran down his face. She got up to give him a hug or even just a touch on the shoulder, but he ducked away from her just in time to maintain his adolescent dignity. “I’m not even sure my dad’ll let me have Iago,” he said.
“Do you want me to talk to him?” she asked.
His face registered surprise. “I doubt he’ll listen to
you
.”
She might have laughed, but his words smarted. Apparently, her stock was still not high at the West house.
“I’ll talk to my dad,” Dominic said. “Maybe if I sound pathetic enough, he’ll give in.”
She trailed after him downstairs, but Dominic left without another word. She went out and checked the mail. Nothing had arrived except an electric bill, junk mail, and down at the bottom of the box, a small package addressed to her.
The small box seemed odd. She shook it, but it didn’t make any noise. She took it inside to the kitchen, where she could cut through the packing tape with a knife. When she lifted the lid she saw a little toy, a push puppet, lying on a bed of cotton.
At first, Grace couldn’t believe what she was staring at. Instead of a cow or a pig or a figure in kitsch folk-wear, this toy represented a little old man with gray hair. He had a cane attached to one of his carved hands, and one of his legs was covered in a large white cast. But it was the face that shocked her, because it was so little yet so finely carved. The long nose, the set of his eyes, even the clothes that had been painted on him . . . it couldn’t have been anyone else. It was her dad.
Carefully, she depressed the plunger inside his little pedestal, and the little old man with the cast collapsed. Then, when she let up again, he sprang back. She smiled.
Who had done this?
She looked on the packaging for a return address, but there wasn’t one. The package bore an Austin postmark.
“Who sent you?” she asked, before it occurred to her that she was talking to a puppet.
Clearly, it had been a long day.
38
M
AKING A
M
OUNTAIN
O
UT OF
M
URIEL
A
car pulled up alongside Lily one day as she was walking home from school. She flicked a sidewise glance toward the street as Crawford was lowering the red Honda Fit’s passenger side window. “Want a ride?”
Her pulse jumped, and it was only with enormous effort that she forced herself to shake her head. Coming back to Austin, she’d made two resolutions: One, she wouldn’t fight with Jordan. Two, she was not going to pine after Crawford. The second had proved a little easier than the first because she hadn’t really spoken to Crawford since school had started. Now that he had his car, he was a lot more popular.
“No, thanks.” She forced a pleasant smile and kept going. “I don’t mind walking.”
“C’mon, Lily,” he said. “You’ve never even ridden in my new car.”
“I know.”
He puttered alongside her. “I’m going home too, and it would be pretty stupid for me to keep inching along this way for fifteen blocks. . . .”
She stopped. How could she say no again without sounding like a pill? Besides, pining was an emotional thing, while riding in a car was just a physical act. She could handle it. Without an actual verbal assent, she turned, pulled open the car door, and slid into the passenger seat.
The car, only a month old, still smelled new. “People must be paying you a lot to mow their yards,” she said.
Crawford ducked his head and accelerated. She’d almost forgotten how his shorn-off curls looked this close up, and how green his eyes were. “My dad paid for most of it,” he admitted, glancing at her. “Think I’m spoiled?”
She shrugged.
“I’m getting a weekend job to pay for gas and insurance and stuff, though.”
“It’s none of my business,” she said.
“I know—but for some reason I can’t stand the idea that you would think I didn’t deserve something that I got.”
“Why?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I always get this feeling you’re judging me.”
“Well, I’m not. Why would I? I hardly have had time to think about you at all, I’ve been so busy. In fact, you can just drop me off here. I’m going to take a bus to the library downtown.”
“I could drive you there,” he suggested.
She lifted her chin. “Thanks anyway. I’d rather walk.”
He looked almost hurt as he stopped. “Well, okay. See you around.”
After she got out, he faced forward and sped off without another word. Lily felt a knot in her chest as he turned at the intersection and disappeared. Riding in cars might just be physical, but it could jump-start pining faster than anything.
“Where’s Dad?” Lily asked Dominic later that evening, at home.
“I think he’s next door.”
“At the professor’s house?” Lily asked, surprised. He never went over there.
“No, I think he’s over at Muriel Blainey’s.”
She dropped into a chair in exasperation. “I need him to sign my permission slip for our band trip.”
“I’ve got to talk to him, too,” Dominic said.
“About what?”
“Professor Oliver wants to know if I can take Iago. For good.”
“What?”
“He’s going to move to an old folks’ home. He’s selling the house and everything. Didn’t you see the sign in their yard?”
No, she hadn’t. That’s what came of being distracted by love. “Why would he move? He’s got Grace.”
“I don’t get it, either. But he’s going, and he can’t take Iago with him, so he wants to know if I’ll adopt him.”
“Dad’ll let you—don’t worry.”
“But doesn’t it seem weird, taking Professor Oliver’s dog away from him?”
“He’s giving him to you.”
“I still feel weird.”
Jordan banged through the front door. “There’s a For Sale sign in the yard next door!”
Lily, still stinging from not having noticed that sign herself, brought Jordan up to speed.
“This is screwed up,” Jordan said. “Grace moved all the way down here to take care of her dad, didn’t she? What’s she supposed to do now?”
Lily crossed her arms. “Since when have you ever cared about the professor or Grace?”
Jordan dropped into a chair and dangled her boot-clad legs over the arm. “Since never. It just seems screwed up, that’s all.” She looked toward their dad’s study door, which was open. “Where’s Dad?”
“He went next door,” Lily said.
“Oh—then he’ll probably be able to give us all the poop on what’s going on.”
“The
other
next door,” Dominic clarified. “Muriel Blainey’s. I’m waiting to talk to him about adopting the professor’s dog.”
“And I’m waiting for him to come back so he’ll sign a permission slip,” Lily added.
Jordan gaped at Lily as if she were nuts. “Why don’t you just forge his signature?”
“It’s for a band trip to San Antonio. He’s got to sign it. Otherwise he’ll wonder what happened to me when I disappear one day.”
“You think?” Jordan asked.
Dominic laughed. “What if we all disappeared? Do you think he’d notice that?”
“What’s he
doing
over there?” Lily wondered.
“Muriel came over and said she was having computer problems,” Dominic explained. “She wanted him to come take a look.”
“Poor Dad.”
“She really needs to get a new computer,” Dominic said. “She was always having trouble with it this summer too.”
Lily found her gaze seeking Jordan’s, which reflected the same jolt of foreboding that she felt.
“And did Dad go over and help her?” Jordan asked casually.
“Sometimes.”
Dominic noticed Lily and Jordan exchanging glances again. “What?”
“Nothing,” Jordan said quickly. “Mountains out of molehills, probably.”
This made their brother all the more worried. “You could at least tell me what the molehill is.”
“Muriel Blainey,” Lily told him. “And Dad.”
Dominic rolled his eyes. “She just needs Dad’s help with her computer because he knows all about that stuff and Muriel’s husband’s not around anymore. I think they’re divorced now.”
Jordan groaned just as the front door opened and their dad came in, humming. “Oh—here you all are!” He balanced a cellophane-wrapped plate in his hand, waiter-style, which he then put down in the center of the coffee table. “Muriel sent these over for you all. Wasn’t that nice of her?”
The three of them stared at the cookies as if they were radioactive.
“They’re chocolate chip,” he said, his smile fading at their reaction. “She made them especially for you guys. She was thinking we could all get together sometime, for dinner or . . .” As he noticed their decided lack of interest, his voice petered out. “. . . or a movie?”
“It’s a really busy time right now,” Jordan said.
“What movie?” Dominic asked, before Lily kicked him. He let out a sharp
ow
in surprise, then piped up, “Not that I have time to watch movies. There’s
so
much homework in seventh grade.”
Ray frowned, puzzled. “Even on weekends?”
“Seventh grade is that make-or-break year, Dad,” Lily said.
His eyes widened. “Well . . . it was just a suggestion. Muriel’s all alone now, you know.”
Jordan sent him a flat gaze. “Yeah, we know.”
“I feel sort of sorry for her.” Their father continued into his office and shut the door.
Lily forgot all about getting him to sign her permission slip, and Jordan looked lost in thought, too. Although not so lost that she didn’t spot Dominic’s hand reaching for the cookie plate.
“Nickel, if you eat even a bite of those cookies, we’ll never speak to you again.”
It took a moment for Lily to absorb the idea that she was the other part of Jordan’s
we.
It took another moment of shock for her to agree.
“They’re chocolate chip,” Dominic argued.
“They’re poison,” Lily told him.
“Y’all are crazy!”
“Are we?” Lily asked him. “When was the last time you heard Dad hum?”
Dominic thought for a moment, moaning as the truth finally sank in. He collapsed against his chair back. “Muriel Blainey? This can’t be happening.”
Jordan drummed her fingers on the armrest. “It might not be. Yet.”
“If he had to like a neighbor,” Dominic said, “why couldn’t he like
Grace?
”
Gloom settled over the room.
Jordan swung her feet back to the floor and sat up straight. “We have to do something, guys.”
“What can we do?” Lily asked. “They’re all adults. We can’t tell them not to . . .” Lily couldn’t even bring herself to think the words
fall in love,
much less say them. Not when she was thinking of Muriel Blainey.
What a disaster.
“This is the deal, guys,” Jordan said. “Muriel Blainey as a stepmom? We have to think positive. We
will
find a way to stop this from happening.”
Lily scrunched her lips. She never thought she’d see the day when she’d be accepting words of wisdom from Jordan.
Frighteningly, that day had come.