The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel - By Katrina Kittle Page 0,116
a fire and opened some wine. I felt terrified at what I’d almost done, but also reckless, looking for another opportunity. I knew I was just switching the Dubey fantasy for the Vijay fantasy. It didn’t mean that either man was right for me.
“Where’s Gabriella?” he asked. “With her dad?”
I told him the story. “Olive and Nick took her to Columbus today.”
“They’re engaged, right?” he asked.
“Yep. The wedding’s in May.”
He sighed. “Ah, well. Everyone makes mistakes.”
I’d been raising my glass to my lips but stopped. “You think your marriage was a mistake?”
“Hell, yes. Wasn’t yours?”
“No.” That surprised me. “It ended badly, but I’ll never say I wished it hadn’t happened.”
I thought about that later, after Dubey and I had gone to Helen and Hank’s and eaten ourselves sick on rack of lamb. After we’d laughed and laughed and eaten good fruitcake. (“Yes, there really is such a thing,” Hank had said.). After Dubey hadn’t kissed me again at my door.
Before Gabriella came home I thought again, I will never say I wish I’d never married Bobby. Our marriage had been reckless, perhaps. Not well thought out. Certainly not maintained. But not a mistake. His leaving me had been the catalyst for the greatest life change I’d ever known.
He’d given me a gift the day he walked out. Okay, so he’d delivered the gift wrapped in a poopy diaper, but once I’d picked through all that shit, I’d found diamonds. I felt more love for him right at that moment than perhaps I’d ever felt.
Maybe someday I’d even be able to thank him.
That someday seemed very far away when we got the word that Bobby was remarried.
To a woman we’d never heard of.
In Vegas.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THE CALL CAME ON DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH, AFTER A hellacious day at the clinic. A routine spay had uncovered a poor collie’s abdomen full of tumors. A husky was not responding to treatment for lymphoma. A spayed cat had ripped out her stitches. I struggled to remain present with the client in the room rather than all those sullen, waiting faces in the lobby each time I opened the door.
Aurora and I stayed two hours past closing. I was alone and exhausted when Olive called. She got right to the point. “Bobby got married.”
Sometimes news is so foreign you have no idea how to wrap your brain around it. In my head I said, I know that. You were there, you ditz. Eighteen years ago.
It took a full thirty seconds for my brain to absorb her statement.
Oh. Bobby got married again.
“That goddamn son of a bitch,” Olive said. “He married some whore in Vegas.”
With Olive, I couldn’t tell if that whore was literal or just an opinion. Had Bobby been drunk?
She told me what she knew: the woman’s name was Lydia. She was a real-estate agent from Dayton, divorced also. They married on Christmas Day.
“He called my mom first,” Olive said. “She is freaking out.”
“Oh, Gabby,” left my lips. Hadn’t she had enough upheaval for one year?
Olive stopped ranting. I heard the anger now for the pain it truly was. “I’d take a bullet for her. You know that. I told Bobby I’d put the bullet in his head if he kept hurting my niece.”
I moaned. “How do I tell her this?”
“Maybe he’ll grow a sack and tell her himself.”
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, HE DID. THE DAVIDS HAD BROUGHT her back from a movie and we were sitting in my kitchen eating dinner when she got the call. Her face lit up with unmistakable joy at recognizing his ring tone, although she tried to mask it.
“Take it,” I said, breaking my own rule that we didn’t answer calls at the table.
When she left the room, I told the Davids. It’s hard to describe the expression that crossed their faces in unison.
Gabriella returned, looking small and shaken. I hugged her. “I found out today, too.”
The somber mood was broken when Zuzu snatched a biscuit from the table and ran away.
NEW YEAR’S EVE CAN BE A MISERABLE, FRAUGHT HOLIDAY for a single person. New Year’s Eve is more of a couples’ holiday than even Valentine’s Day. That level of anxiety only increases when you learn your ex has remarried within a year of leaving you.
Gabriella would be spending the night at Amy’s. The Davids