A New Leash on Life Read online

  We scrutinized adoption applicants as if they were adopting a child. We visited their homes. We talked with their neighbors. We performed background checks. We followed up with visits to ensure the safety and well-being of our adopted pets. We refused anyone unfit.

  I certainly hadn’t entered veterinary school considering money as a catalyst to my actions. I enrolled purely out of my love and respect for animal welfare. Once a full-fledged doctor, the vast amount of purebred dogs that would come in for treatments for illnesses triggered by their unfortunate births to mothers in puppy mills sickened me. Unknowing parents would purchase their adorable puppies from puppy mill supporting pet stores. These puppy mills over-bred dogs in unhealthy, overcrowded kennels. This often resulted in purebred dogs suffering from diseases often too expensive to treat. So, talk of the needle would erupt, and I would cry myself to sleep and curse the day when I decided to become a veterinarian.

  After my parents’ early deaths, I cashed in my inheritance and bought the town’s only animal shelter, a decrepit institution where dogs usually went to die alone.

  I’d risk my own life for them, as would my trusty assistants and handlers.

  ~ ~

  An angry storm churned up the Atlantic and headed straight for us. I piled five cases of water bottles onto my cart and steamrolled down the aisles of BJ’s. I loaded up on canned kidney beans, chicken noodle soup, and canned peaches. I zoomed down the candy aisle. To weather this storm, we’d at least need some Charleston Chews and Snickers. A few moments later, food staples in hand and enough water to irrigate a small drought-ridden farm, I headed towards the empty registers.

  Millie smiled at my endless parade of canned fruit and vegetables. “You’re crazy for staying.”

  I heaved the cases of water bottles onto the sliding shelf. “I won’t leave them. You know that. Besides, when have you ever known me to back down from a threat like this, huh? I weathered Hurricane Harriet a couple of years ago, remember?”

  “The weatherman didn’t forecast that one to wipe out the town.” She peered up at me, her eyes furrowed towards the bridge of her nose. “You should rent a box truck, pile all of those dogs, cats, and whatever other animals you’ve got there at the shelter, and get the hell out of town. You still have time.”

  “If only that option existed.” I flipped through my wallet and handed her my credit card.

  “You’re going to be all alone.”

  “Trevor, Natalie, and Melanie are hanging back with me.”

  “You guys are all crazy, then. When they say mandatory evacuation, I listen.”

  “Well, none of us at the shelter takes orders easily. So, we’ll just have to take our chances.”

  Millie scanned my items and within a few minutes gripped the sales slip with two arthritic fingers, and I signed it. “Please take care, okay?” Her wrinkles dug deep into her forehead and the corners of her eyes.

  I patted her hand. “I promise I won’t do anything crazy like peek outside for a view.” I smiled and pushed off, steadying my galloping heart for a crazy few days ahead. I sure hoped my roof wouldn’t collapse.

  God help us.

  ~ ~

  I drove down Elmwood Drive towards the shelter. Cape Cod-style houses lined both sides of the two-lane road, all of them boarded up and braced for the storm. Weathermen forecasted this one to hit us straight on as a category three or four. The flooding would be the real issue for many of these homes in the low-lying valley of Elkwood. Thankfully, the shelter sat on a hill.

  I arrived back at the shelter and Natalie, Trevor, and Melanie had dismantled the front showcase of literature, removing the pamphlets with loving, precious faces of dogs and cats looking for good homes.

  “I’ve got a ton of supplies in my truck,” I said to them. They dropped everything from their arms and rushed to my aid. We piled pounds and pounds of kibble and treats in the front waiting area. “If things get bad enough, these can serve as sandbags.”

  No one laughed.

  “I’m kidding,” I said.

  “We’re going to need a lot of sage to get through this storm,” Melanie, my best friend and reiki master, said. “When things aren’t so pressing, I’m going to help you come up with a plan B for these types of events.” She dropped a case of water on the counter and looked up at me with panic in her eyes. Melanie, the queen of bliss and tranquility, never panicked. That’s what I loved most about her. She leveled my moods with her reiki, candles, sage, and balanced emotions.

  I fiddled with the Snickers and canned peaches, lining them up on the front desk like a well-executed team of soldiers preparing for battle. “You’re more than welcome to leave before the storm hits. No one is forcing you to be here.”

  She balanced her hands on her hips and inhaled, then released it with ease, never taking her kind eyes off of me. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Thank you,” I said, rounding the front desk. “How about if we walk the dogs before we can’t anymore?” I walked past my dear friend, the same friend who swore she’d only succumb to yelling and freaking out if I ever dangled her out of ten-story building. Miss Master of Healing and everything yin and yang didn’t fall under the pressures that would crush the average person. But even though she relaxed into her breaths and draped her hands on her waist as if ready to lunge into a peaceful walk on the beach, I sensed her fear. “I’ll take Trooper, Tucker, and Snowball,” I said to Trevor and Natalie as I rushed past them towards the kennels. They trailed behind me, keeping up with my pace. Melanie stayed in the front.

  “Olivia, I think we might need to board up the front windows,” Trevor said. “My dad called me and said the storm had slammed through his bay window. The storm is only a category two for them.”

  “No need to panic,” I said to him.

  “Right,” he said. His face turned white and he looked about ready to throw up.

  Trevor, eager with a boyish, gingery grin, always looked out for me. Once he even passed up a spring break trip to Cozumel because three of the volunteers stopped coming suddenly. He loved the dogs and couldn’t bear to think of them cooped up without proper exercise and socialization. So, he canceled his trip and waited to go until I had secured and trained more volunteers. He actually made out in that deal, because on that very trip he met his boyfriend, Michael. They had signed up for the same booze cruise and hit it off so instantly that Michael moved up from Florida the very next month.

  “Let’s try to get in all the walks first, and then we’ll secure the windows.”

  “Right, boss,” he said. “I’ll take the big guy here.” He referred to Max, our resident Rottweiler who would rather cuddle up to one of us than eat. Anyone who wanted a hundred-pound laptop would be thrilled to be his companion. Unfortunately, no one had come through the shelter seeking such love in the two months that Max had been abandoned at the shelter’s front door. Typical cowardly drop-off method. Of course Natalie often argued that this method trumped ditching the poor, defenseless animals on the side of the interstate. Natalie, my exuberant and upbeat assistant, always pointed out the bright side of any dirty coin. She could make trash look good by citing the value in composting. She could bring out the beauty in a dishrag by remarking on the brainpower it required to build a machine brilliant enough to manufacture it. Natalie, different in a theatrical way, could drive a person crazy after a small fraction of time. Her voice climbed just as high as any gifted soprano when greeting visitors to the shelter or perking up a depressed pet. Her bouncy spirit could get under my skin, but she livened up the shelter to a level more akin to a newborn nursery than to the place families came to dump off their pets.

  “Olivia,” Natalie said. “I don’t think Snowball is going to make it out for a walk today.” She looped a leash around her shoulders and headed over to Snowball’s kennel. “She’s been throwing up all morning and is looking like she lost her best friend.”

  “She didn’t eat today,” Trevor added. “She wouldn’t even look at the treats, e
ither.”

  Snowball had arrived at the shelter in a wire crate a few days ago. Someone had dropped her off outside the door with a note saying she had grown too large. Indicated by her matted white fur, earfuls of mites, and half-inch too long nails, the poor girl had been neglected for far too long. I named her Snowball because I couldn’t bear to call her by the ill-conceived name referenced on the note. What sane person would ever imagine that a purebred Siberian husky would ever remain small enough to be called Tiny?

  “Maybe the pig’s ear I fed her isn’t agreeing with her,” Natalie said.

  “You brought in pig’s ears again?” I asked.

  “They love them.” Natalie’s voice morphed into its unnatural, animated tone.

  I stopped in front of Snowball’s kennel, and she didn’t jump to her feet to greet me. Instead, her eyes crawled up to meet mine, and then lowered again. Tears stained the fur beneath her eyes a dark brown. The three of us stood in silence watching her. “Maybe she senses the storm,” Trevor said.

  I’d seen too many cases like Snowball’s in my time working at Shubert’s Animal Hospital to understand that the poor little girl sensed little at the moment. “We need to get her into the isolation kennel.”

  Natalie looked about ready to burst into tears. Trevor sighed, wiping his strained eyes with the back of his hands. “I’ll get her kennel ready,” Natalie said before heading off to the lonely kennel reserved for those doggies with a possible communicable disease. No doubt, Natalie would be placing the flowery blanket on top of the sick bed for her.

  “What do you think it is?” Trevor asked.

  “Parvo.” I spun around to get my medical bag. “I’ll need to start an IV on her and pump her with some antibiotics, vitamins, sugar, and potassium. Can you start the walks while I get her settled?”

  He nodded and headed back to Max’s kennel.

  ~ ~

  The lights zapped off. Natalie screamed and Trevor jumped off the stool.

  “The worst hasn’t even begun and you’re already falling apart?” I turned on the flashlight. Fright hung on their faces.

  The wind whipped and howled, pitching higher than the dogs’ whimpers and howls. I reached out for Melanie’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed mine back and steadied her trembling body against mine. “You’re not supposed to panic,” I said to her.

  “I’m a human being.” She wrapped a sheath of her salt and pepper hair in front of her eyes. “I’m allowed to panic.”

  I shuddered. I should’ve planned this better. I should’ve rented a box truck like Millie said and trekked out of this vulnerable matchstick building and into a stronger shelter. Melanie never caved. Not even the time when a couple of ski-masked thugs mugged us one night. She didn’t even blink when she surrendered her purse to the bulkier of the two and told them to have a nice life. When I rear-ended a police car one snowy night, instead of mirroring my panic, she sat submerged in a sea of tranquility, patting my hand.

  This night, though, sitting in the dark recesses of the pharmacy room, huddled up against the unforgiving cabinets, she moaned with every creak as if the world threatened to cave in on all of us.

  I couldn’t have her break down.

  “You think it’s going to hold up?” she asked with a touch of timidity clinging to her voice.

  “The roof?” I asked

  “The building.”

  I lost my breath on that one.

  Chapter Three

  Chloe

  Since leaving Elkwood thirteen years ago, I’d learned some things. One, never trust my gut instincts. Two, consequences sucked. Three, perfect moments didn’t exist. Before I learned these things, my life had spiraled out of control. I was eighteen-years-old, pregnant, and alone.

  The one and only time I ever considered tossing my sorry self over the St. Mary’s River bridge was right after I walked out of the Sisterhood Clinic. I sunk into misery, stepping out of their double glass doors and into the cloudy, fall day, ambivalent over the news. How could an eighteen-year-old have a baby and survive in the world? I had barely crossed the stage of my high school auditorium, had barely placed the tassel from left to right, had barely a chance to embrace the new freedom of the open road to a hopeful, fruitful future before my boobs had started aching and morning sickness took a front row seat to life.

  The baby’s father stammered, “I’m not ready to be a dad. I’m going to college. I’ve got plans for my life. I don’t want a kid.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? Get an abortion?”

  “Well, yeah. You’re eighteen. That’s what I say you do.”

  I walked away numb, harboring our secret, assuring him I wouldn’t bother him again with this.

  Thankfully, my Aunt Marie, my only blood relative still sane and competent, answered my cry for help. My age number still ended in the word teen, my belly swelled, the girl I loved hated me, and my maturity didn’t add up to absorb any of this mess. Aunt Marie, who lived only thirty minutes from town, drove up to get me on a rainy, freezing Saturday morning. I had returned Olivia’s winter jacket to her already, and so, I huddled under four sweatshirts waiting for my aunt to arrive at the bench on Mulberry Avenue. She pulled up honking her Buick LeSabre’s horn, waving as if hyped up on too many candy bars and skidding her tires into the curb. I climbed into her car, frozen and scared, foaming over in tears from the mess I’d stirred into my already screwed up life. As she hugged her steering wheel with crochet-mittened hands and drove down Mulberry Street, past the small chapel that Olivia and I would go into from time to time, no option compared. I had to ditch my mess and leave town.

  I’d leave for a while, have the baby, and when I could secure an adoption, I’d return and piece my life back together again. My gut instinct cheered me towards this brilliant plan that surely would not result in consequences, and would land me back in the pocket of perfect moments.

  My aunt set me up in her spare bedroom. I entered the cheerful room, blossoming with a canopy bed complete with a pink and white flower bedspread, and adorned with fancy round and oblong pillows. A gray cat with eyes as black as coal spread across the bed like a king. His name was Oony Gato, and according to my aunt, he coveted the supreme role as keeper of the house. She and I just borrowed some of his space.

  My aunt and I shared Earl Grey tea and biscuits by the fire in her den that first afternoon. Amidst the crackling of wood and the smell of a cold winter’s night, she asked about my mother, first. I reported what I could recall. Guards, locks, nauseating green metal doors scrambled in my memory. Compassion dripped off the cheeks of mental health staff ushering me in to the community area where people talked out loud to no one, yelling and screaming at them as if being attacked, chastised. It pained me too much to drum up the details of walking up to a lady knotting her stringy black hair and realizing that lady was my mom. I didn’t want to remember the stale smell of cafeteria food, or the squeak of the orange cushion as I sat on the couch next to her. I didn’t want to remember the hollow fright in her eyes as I called her mom and reached out for her hand. I didn’t want to remember the kicking, crying, screaming as the guard shuffled her back to the safety of her room, away from me.

  Instead I told Aunt Marie my mother thrived in her new home, a place that served her scrumptious cucumber and avocado sandwiches for lunch, punch in the afternoon under a maple tree, and long walks at dinner to ease her into the sweet lullaby of a long night’s sleep. I added how she enjoyed watching reruns of Happy Days on the flat screen TV in the pretty community area that had tables filled with daisies that smiled at us as we sat hand-in-hand laughing as Fonzie stuck his two thumbs up in the air at the end of a good scene before a commercial break. My aunt smiled and patted my hand, happy to hear the nice report. I knew Aunt Marie didn’t buy an ounce of that story.

  Then, she asked about my stepfather. I lied and told her he encouraged me to leave town to deal with the baby situation. I couldn’t bear to go into detail about how he tried to kill Josh with a b
aseball bat that night we returned the ring. I certainly didn’t want to let on that I spent two years sneaking into my girlfriend’s bedroom for a safe place to sleep. She would’ve been hurt that I hadn’t turned to her first.

  I didn’t want to spend my high school years with my aunt a whole thirty minutes away. I wanted Olivia.

  So, coming as no surprise, sitting there in her living room drinking tea like an old lady, I sunk into a mellow funk. “I’m not cut out to be a mother,” I said to her.

  “Of course you’re not, sweetheart. That’s why we’ll do the right thing and find the right parents for your baby.”

  I didn’t want to be pregnant. I didn’t want to push out a baby. I didn’t want to live for the next seven months with a constant reminder of all that I’d just destroyed. What an idiot I had been, all pumped-up and emotional, falling into that stupid guy’s arms and allowing him a quick, sufficient release. A clumsy act performed and swept away in a riptide of a cruel miracle.

  I placed my hand on my belly and imagined cells bursting into life, forming organs and fingers and toes, a face, eyes, ears, and a cute little nose. “You’ll help me?” I asked my aunt.

  She looked up from her teacup with the kind of gentle smile I had prayed to see since my mother first went crazy. “I’ll keep you safe.” She patted my knee. “Now, drink your tea before it gets cold and yucky.”

  Aunt Marie never judged me, even when I told her the truth finally that night about my being in love with Olivia, and my falling victim to happenstance. She simply urged me take good care of my nutrition and fed me smoothies with blueberries, bananas, wheat grass, and fennel seeds. I hated it, and pinched my nose every time just to get it past my lips.

  I grew enormous fairly quickly. Around the middle of my second trimester, I stopped digging my friends back in town for info on Olivia. Dread crawled up my back whenever I’d hear about how they’d seen her out sharing coffee with new college friends or how she’d just won a community award for her work with shelter animals. She grabbed onto life and ran with it, without me.