The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel - By Katrina Kittle Page 0,20
pushed off my lap with pinpricks of claws. Max scrambled from under my desk and tore for the door, barking ferociously. I sat up, stiff from all the abuse my body had taken yesterday. Yesterday. I’d done it. I’d survived that awful day. My arm throbbed. When my haggard face ambushed me in the hallway mirror, I tried to comb my tousled hair with my fingers.
“Maybe it’s Dad!” Gabriella shrieked. She bolted down the stairs so fast I cringed, expecting her to fall. The hope in her voice bruised me. Why would Bobby ring the bell? Oh, God. Don’t let my poor daughter feel abandoned. If she was disappointed, though, she didn’t let it show. She called out “Mr. Henrici!” Why would Nick, Olive’s boyfriend, be here? Did he know our news?
As soon as Nick spoke, Max stopped barking and twirled in lopsided circles. Gabby laughed and said, “I did my Latin homework! I swear!”
Nick taught at the same school where Davy did. Davy, in fact, had introduced Nick to Olive. Gabriella had reported that Nick was the second most popular teacher at school—next to her Uncle Davy, of course. She got points for having an “in” with both of them.
“I need you guys to help me,” Nick said.
He obviously hadn’t heard our news: there was something too exuberant on his face. Gabby and I exchanged a look that was an unspoken agreement to let it slide for now.
“Look!” He held out an open ring box. The diamond on the delicate gold band glittered even in the dim entryway. “I’m proposing today, but you guys have to help me.”
Gabby clapped her hands, but then shot me a worried glance.
Although I smiled, the back of my throat ached at the irony of the timing.
Nick laid out his creative, thoughtful plan. He’d told Olive they were going to a beer garden in Cincinnati with some of his friends. Really, he’d rented a room in a historic bed-and-breakfast. They’d go to dinner—alone—and he’d give her the ring.
He needed us to pack Olive’s overnight bag. “She’ll need a nice dress, makeup, shampoo, stuff like that. I’m picking her up around noon. I’ll tell her I want to get a cup of coffee first. I want you guys”—he made a gesture up the stairs that I knew included the Bobby he believed was there—“to go into her apartment when you see us walk down to the corner.”
So Bobby hadn’t told Olive. I figured he hadn’t, or Olive would’ve been here. Had he told anyone? If he came back, no one else would ever have to know about that horrific day.
“I’ll try to convince her to sit and have our coffee at the café,” Nick went on, “but she might not. I’ll leave the car unlocked. Just pop the trunk and put the bag inside.”
He never asked about Bobby, so we never volunteered.
DAVY, GABRIELLA, AND I PARKED DOWN THE BLOCK FROM Olive’s apartment. Davy had shown up to check on us shortly after Nick had left, bearing a box of pastries from David’s Hot Buns. He’d begged to be allowed to accompany us on our packing mission.
I was glad we had this project to keep our minds off Bobby. My heart pounded as if we were part of a covert operation. As we waited for Nick to arrive, Gabby asked, “How did Dad propose to you?” She hunched her shoulders, realizing how this question might pain me. “Sorry.”
“Not like this,” I said, hoping to make a joke of it. I patted her knee where she sat sandwiched between Davy and me in my truck cab.
I could practically feel all three of us scrambling for something to say after that.
“Any adoption news?” Gabby asked in too chipper a voice.
“Nope,” Davy said.
I looked at my brother’s freckled profile—he’d look youthful even when he was eighty, I bet. Helen—wonderful Helen, my fellow Humane volunteer—was an attorney for the county’s Family Services, currently trying to help the Davids adopt.
Although they might have had better odds applying as single dads, they’d gone the honest route, and pregnant girl after pregnant woman had rejected them as the parents of her unwanted child. Helen assured us all couples could expect to be turned down a dozen or more times before they were chosen, but each time made me feel they’d been spat on.
“I wish you weren’t doing an open adoption,” Gabby said. “Are you sure you can’t get a baby from a foreign country?”