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Your daughter is something else. You should see the creatures she put in the tree for Halloween. The tree you loved. The one you picked, not the other one. The hornbeam. It’s huge and thriving and full of skeletons right now. The golden chain, the one I chose—I don’t think that one’s doing so hot, but we’ll see come next spring. Anyway, back to Lily. She’s so much like you. Tries to save every blessed thing on the planet. Tonight she brought home a cat-and-dog pair she named George and Gracie. Yeah. I knew you’d be proud. I remember how much you liked that show. You and all your classic TV. An old soul, just like your daughter. She’s like you in almost every way. Fearless. Compassionate. Stubborn. And trying to save the world at every turn. The only way I know she’s got some of me in her is the hair color. It’s like God took your black hair and my blond and mixed it up in a bowl before giving it to Lily.
Anyway, another two sets of paws in the house. At least temporarily.
Don’t worry. I’ll keep her safe.
Yours,
Clem
Clementine slid the journal into her nightstand drawer and clicked off the light. Down the hall, she could hear a hissing scuffle, followed by the low murmurs of Lily’s voice. Then came Roscoe’s yippy bark. George and Gracie were settling in for the night and Roscoe was disapproving of their presence. Clementine didn’t blame him. Those two were going to be a challenge. Clementine had taken one look at the energetic puppy and the hairless cat in the pumpkin sweater and knew that even Lily, with all her animal magic, had her work cut out for her. Who wanted to adopt a dog they couldn’t get near because it was being guarded by a hairless pink-and-gray cat with ears the size of Batman?
“I got this, Mom,” Lily had said when she walked in the door tonight and explained the situation. Clementine had only been home half an hour and was tired and worn out from the day and the party. Even though Lily’s voice was determined, Clementine had noted the little tic of worry at the corner of her daughter’s mouth, the way she tucked it in ever so slightly when she doubted herself.
“It’ll be a new dog or cat or both next week, Lil,” Clementine had said. “You know that, right? So we can’t keep them.”
“I know. I got this.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
And she did. From the start of their journey together as a mother-and-daughter solo team, Clementine had stressed to Lily the importance of trust. “It’s just us,” she’d always said. “So we have to be able to trust each other. No matter what.”
“No matter what,” Lily had agreed, only eight years old at the time. They’d hooked pinkies and Lily’s shy smile had that same crook in the corner. Her eyes had been puffy from crying and her hair, less the color of nutmeg and blonder at that age, had stuck to the tears on her cheeks. She’d just been told that her father, aka her hero, aka her best buddy, was never coming home.
Clementine got a lump in her throat. That memory was always fresh. Not so much the memory of the two men in uniform who’d come to the house to inform her that Tyler had been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan—Clementine had figured out how to compartmentalize that one. It was a self-preservation trick. But the memory of her telling Lily had a life of its own, like a wound that wouldn’t scab over. They’d layered three-deep in the bed that night—Clementine, Lily and Digger, Tyler’s old hound, on his last legs but a devoted companion who watched over them when Tyler was away. Digger had passed away a year later, and the only dogs that’d been allowed in the house after that were Lily’s temporary rescues.
Clementine clicked on the TV and felt a wash of safety as the blue artificial light embraced the perimeter of the room. She drew the covers up to her chin and forced herself to think about the night, so that she wouldn’t think about Lily, growing up without her dad. Tabitha filled her head, which did little to calm Clementine’s mothering instinct but did get her mind off Tyler. She hoped her friend had enjoyed her birthday, despite everything she was dealing with. Thirty could be a big deal. Clementine thought back to her own thirtieth birthday, eight years ago, and remembered only grief. Tyler had just died and the last thing she cared about was her age.
But Clementine and Tabitha had vastly different life experiences. Tabitha at thirty was not Clementine at thirty, and thus Clementine found herself rather useless in helping her friend navigate what she might be feeling right now. Tabitha might be feeling old, with not much to show for it. Clementine, at thirty, had been a widow with a daughter and a flourishing business. Neither was like the other, but the common thread was a woman trying to keep her head above water and just what the hell she was going to do next.
Her eyes growing heavy, Clementine flipped through the channel guide, looking for something to fall asleep to. Ever since Tyler had died, and Lily had grown too old to snuggle in next to her, the TV had been her comforting nighttime companion. The titles were random, none drawing her eye until she saw it. Her chest loosened up and she smiled. “No way.” She clicked on the station andThe George Burns and Gracie Allen Showpopped to life in black and white. Clementine couldn’t remember the last time she’d found this show, amid the sea of movies and TV programs competing for attention on all the new streaming services.
But there they were, laughing it up in their apartment, with their closet full of hats, Gracie’s supposedly crazy mind and straight man George trying to tame her. In real life, Gracie Allen, despite being the younger of the couple, would die first. George Burns would go on to outlive the love of his life by thirty-two years.
Thirty-two years.
How lonely was George Burns for thirty-two fucking years?
Clementine felt her eyes drooping, and she didn’t fight it. “Say good night, Gracie,” she whispered to herself.
Good night.
In the year since Hobbs had last seen Victor, he’d grown a light scruff for a beard, but his head full of upswept curls, the color of corn silk and kept on the long side, was exactly the same. He was still tall and big as an ox, longs legs crossed at the ankles on Hobbs’s ottoman, the air around him an easy confidence that came from years of being the elder brother, the stronger man. He wore a pair of brown leather boots beneath a raggedy hem of denim. Next to him, on the coffee table, was a glass of water. He’d broken in, helped himself to some water—in Hobbs’s favorite glass, the green one that reminded him of old Coke bottles—and plopped down in the living room, like he lived here. “I see you’ve been pumping a lot of iron.” Victor offered a humorless smirk.
Hobbs resisted the urge to rub his hands over his cold arms. A natural-born athlete, Victor’s muscles came easily, with a few hours spent lifting weights every week. Nothing like the time and attention Hobbs had to put in to eke out a physique. “What’re you doing here, Victor?” He kept the anger out of his voice. Two could play this cool-as-a-cucumber game.
“You had to have known what would happen if you ignored my calls, Chris. You even made me text. That—” Victor lifted his glass and took a gulp of the water “—was uncalled for.”
“You breaking into my house and hiding in the dark is uncalled for. I didn’t even know you were in town.”
“Guess you should’ve answered your phone.”
“You flew?”
“I rode.”
“Your Triumph?” If he asked enough questions, he’d never quite make it to the only one that mattered.Why are you here?“You rode your Triumph a thousand miles to hide in my living room?” How had he missed a Triumph parked outside? Victor must’ve tucked it around the corner.
Victor pointed at the motorcycle helmet that Hobbs hadn’t seen, tossed on the couch, right where Hobbs liked to sit when he was watching the Huskers on Saturday afternoons. Hobbs resisted the urge to move it, instead went back to the kitchen and got himself that glass of water he’d never poured. He stuck the glass under the faucet, then drank it down in one go. His temples throbbed. Victor didn’t budge.
