The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society (31 page)

“Thank you.” The thought of having to get Serena back into the car and to another vet is overwhelming.

“We used to have goats when I was growing up, LaManchas and a few Pygmies. Always wanted a Nubian, though.” He checks Serena’s eyes and ears.

“I figured that’s what she was,” Connie says. “But I wasn’t sure.”

“They’re great goats,” Eli says. “But they can be a handful. I’m surprised she’s not kicking up a fuss.” He checks her hooves. He runs his hands over Serena’s coat, her throat, her underbelly, her legs. “Hmm. She eating well?”

Connie nods.

“I’d like to draw some blood. I should get a fecal sample, too. I’ll have one of my lab assistants come in and help. I’ll also check her
mouth for any ulcers and do a physical to see if there are any lumps or sore spots.”

Connie swallows, hard. If there’s anything wrong with Serena, she doesn’t know what she’ll do.

Eli notices her unease and pats her arm, his touch warm and comforting. “Don’t worry. She seems healthy but I’d like to get her checked out. Sound good to you?”

Connie finally finds her voice. “Yes.”

Eli turns back to Serena. “She’s a nice-looking animal. What’s her name?”

“Serena.”

“Serena. It’s Latin, right?”

For the first time in her life, Connie wishes she’d gone to college. “I don’t know.”

“It means serene, but you probably knew that. Connie is Latin, too, short for Constance. Means steadfast.” Eli puts on his stethoscope and listens to Serena’s heart and lungs.

“You speak Latin?” Connie asks, impressed and a little intimidated. She only knows a handful of words in Spanish that she’s picked up from television or the movies.

Eli drapes the stethoscope around his neck and rubs Serena’s back. “Not really. I studied it for four years but it’s not like there are a lot of people who speak Latin in Avalon. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

There it is again, that grin. Connie figures he’s a few years older than her, mid- or late twenties, but she likes that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He seems like the kind of person who would be a good friend, someone nice to hang out with. When he looks up at her and catches her eye, Connie feels herself flush.

She can’t believe how unnerved she is. It takes all of her willpower to bring her back to the situation at hand. “So I was worried about her,” she says, feeling heat rush to her cheeks. “She doesn’t seem like herself.”

Eli nods. “Well, it could be several things, but I won’t know until I get the bloodwork back. If you’d like, we can keep her over the
weekend for observation. It’ll give me a chance to see how she does, if there’s any change in her behavior. She seems to be pretty agreeable, though.”

“But that’s why I brought her in,” Connie says. “She’s not usually so agreeable. She tends to get into things. Like my neighbor’s garden.”

Eli chuckles. “That sounds like a goat to me,” he says. He glances at the clock. “I’m afraid I have to get on to my next appointment. Why don’t you let her stay until Monday morning? You can pick her up first thing. If anything comes up before then, I’ll call you. Sound good?”

Connie feels a twinge of discomfort as she glances at Serena. “I don’t know,” she says. “I mean, will she be all right?”

“She’ll be fine. I have dogs in here that are bigger than Serena. It’s quiet now, so we’ll be able to give her some attention.” He looks at a clipboard on the table. “Is this the number to reach you at? Madeline’s Tea Salon?”

Connie nods, still feeling a bit numb. “Maybe I should bring her back with me,” she ventures, feeling lost at the thought of Serena not coming home with her. “I mean, in case she gets freaked out or …”

“It’s up to you, Connie,” Eli says. “Whatever you want to do is fine.” The compassionate look on his face is all she needs to make up her mind.

“Okay,” Connie says, because she knows that Serena will be in good hands. She takes a deep breath. “You’ll call me if she needs anything?”

“I’ve already committed your number to memory,” Eli tells her, and then he flashes her one more boyish grin before leading Serena out of the room.

It’s early Sunday morning and someone is pounding on Isabel’s front door, pressing the doorbell one too many times. She gropes for her alarm clock but it falls to the floor and bounces under the bed.

Isabel groans but manages to get up and stumble down the hall, half awake, half asleep. She takes a look through her peephole. There’s a man, a cup of steaming coffee in hand, whistling as he looks up and down her porch. Perplexed but curious, Isabel opens the door.

“Good morning!” he says, turning to look at her. A tool belt is fastened around his waist and he gives her a broad grin.

“I hope that coffee’s for me,” Isabel mumbles. She rubs her eyes and sees a white truck parked on the curb.
Braemer Patios and Hardscapes
, she reads. “What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock, on the dot,” the man says. “Just like you said. You had me worried there for a sec—I thought nobody was home.”

Isabel shoots him an annoyed look. “That’s because I was sleeping, Mr. Braemer. I said eight o’clock on the dot,
Monday
.”

The man knits his brows. “I could have sworn you said Sunday.”

Isabel gives a yawn. It’s not like she’s going to go back to sleep now. “I didn’t, but never mind,” she says.

Ian Braemer straddles the porch framing as he gives it a quick once-over. “Looks like we’re talking a few tongue-and-groove porch planks,” he says.

Isabel nods, watching him sip his coffee. Maybe she’s still half asleep, but she can’t remember the last time she noticed someone, much less someone of the opposite sex, sipping coffee. It’s oddly mesmerizing.

“Mrs. Kidd?”

“What? Oh. Porch planks, right. I haven’t had a chance to figure out if I want to use wood or try those composite boards …”

“Wood,” Ian says firmly. “Definitely wood. The composite decking is more trouble than it’s worth, and it’ll look shoddy after a while. I’ve installed them for a few clients and no one’s happy with them. That’s just my opinion, of course, but I wouldn’t use composite anything on my house. They’re a complete rip-off.” He actually looks worked up.

Isabel grins, awake now. “Gee, tell me what you think, Mr. Braemer. And really, don’t hold back.”

He gives her a sheepish look. “Sorry. I don’t want people wasting their money, that’s all. I can give you some composite quotes if you want.”

“Are you kidding? We’ll go with wood. How long do you think it would take?”

“I need to take some measurements, figure out supplies. You want me to prime and paint as well?”

Isabel nods. “Sure, why not?”

“What color?”

She’s about to say white when she remembers this will no longer be her home. “Whatever will match with the house,” she says.

“Okay, no problem.” He flicks out a business card and hands it to her. “Oh, and I can pick you up a coffee while I’m out, too. Black?”

Isabel looks at him. Ian Braemer looks about her age, his face tan and leathery from being in the sun. He’s wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt and jeans, work boots, a faded black baseball cap with the unmistakable White Sox logo. Tufts of brown hair peek out from underneath his cap. His eyes are a bright blue.

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” she says. “I mean, I can make my own coffee. I just didn’t know you were coming by today, that’s all.”

“No problem,” he says good-naturedly. “So I’ll measure and see you in a bit, Mrs. Kidd.”

“Just call me Isabel,” she tells him. “I’m not married anymore.”

Another grin. “Okay, Isabel. And you can just call me Ian.”

When Ian Braemer returns an hour later, he has a young man in his teens with him. “My son,” he says proudly. “Jeremy. He’ll be helping me get your porch sorted out.”

The boy raises one hand in mute greeting then shoves both hands into his jeans pockets. Isabel likes him immediately.

“So how long do you think it will take?” she asks. She wishes she had something to offer them. Bagels or pastries. Lemonade, maybe.

“Getting the planks in place shouldn’t take too long,” Ian says. “An hour or two, tops. But the priming and painting will take a while. I have to prep the boards, prime them, let them dry, then finish with a coat of paint, hopefully today. I picked up a nice shade that
matches your trim. I’ll come back the day after tomorrow to put on a second coat. And then, if you want, I can come back again to do a third coat to make sure that …”

“Three coats,” Isabel hears herself saying quickly. “Definitely three coats. I mean, you know, just to make sure it’s done well for the new owners.”

“Okay. Three coats it is.” Ian smiles at her and turns to head back to his truck. Isabel’s eyes drop to the back of his jeans. Then she reddens and turns back into her house.

For the next couple of hours, she hears Ian and Jeremy talking and laughing, the sound of planks being dropped, a nail gun. There’s an odd comfort in hearing someone working on her house, and she’s suddenly struck by a memory, a feeling, a flash of remembrance.

Bill
.

She’s thought of him countless times over the years, whether she’s wanted to or not, but today is different. There’s no anger, there’s not even sadness. It’s more of a longing. Isabel feels a tug on her heart as her emotions tumble forward, no longer hiding behind the filmy veil that she’s used to filter all her memories of Bill. This time, she lets them come, doesn’t try to push them away, doesn’t try to distract herself. She doesn’t try to forget.

She misses how it would take him forever to mow the yard and even longer to edge the lawn. Bill would wash the cars then wax them with care. He’d trim the hedges, check the gutters and downspouts, rake the leaves into neat piles. Isabel used to complain that he was a perfectionist, until he told her that he just liked doing it. He liked being outside, so opposite from Isabel who considers herself a homebody. He said that it was the perfect complement to being indoors with patients all day.

She misses the smell of his body, his sweat, the way his hand felt in hers. Isabel misses having a body around, yes, but the truth is she also misses Bill. His goofy sense of humor, his easy companionship, his kindness. He was steadfast and patient, and she never appreciated that until he was gone.

Things might have been different if they’d been able to start a
family. And yes, she’d been depressed for a long time. Who wouldn’t have been? They talked about fostering, they talked about adoption, but their hearts weren’t in it. For a long time they weren’t able to look at each other, always averting their eyes not because they didn’t care about each other, but because it was too painful.

To learn about Ava had been a shock, but it had been a double whammy because Ava was pregnant, too. There had been disbelief, then anger. As the days became weeks her emotions hit highs and lows but eventually settled on the plateau of guilt.

Guilt because she couldn’t give Bill a child, as if it were somehow her fault. Guilt because she’d been so difficult and closed off that past year. Guilt because she’d yelled terrible things at him when he left. And then guilt when he died, as if she had somehow been responsible for making him turn down the wrong way on that one way street. Guilt because she forbade Ava from coming to the funeral. He may have been living with Ava at the time, but the divorce wasn’t final and Bill was still her husband. It was always possible that he might have come back to Isabel, too. Always possible.

But not likely.

Isabel knew miracles happened in other marriages, that somehow couples could find their ways past affairs and broken trust. For a long time she thought that there might have been hope for them, but now she’s not so sure. The truth is their marriage had been stuck in neutral for a long time. She never saw it as a bad thing but it wasn’t until Bill left that she realized it wasn’t enough.

The doorbell’s ringing. Isabel takes a deep breath, then goes to answer it. Ian Braemer is standing on her new porch, proud.

“Looks great, doesn’t it?” he says, waving his hand down the length of her porch. “We’re going to start painting but I thought you might want to take a look, take a little walk on it. Nice, huh?”

Isabel steps carefully out onto the wood. “Wow,” she says. She’s been living so long with the bare framing that she almost forgot what it was like to have it be so solid, to have a floor beneath her feet. Suddenly it looks so spacious. And, a porch swing. She can see it now.
Right over there, to the left of the window so it doesn’t block the view from inside the house.

“A porch swing would be nice,” Ian says, his hands on his hips. “You could put it right here.” He opens his hands and points to the exact same spot Isabel was looking at.

Isabel walks the length of her porch, leans against the railing, takes in the view of her front yard from the comfortable shade of the patio. It’s nice. She turns and can picture herself leisurely stretched out on a whitewashed swing, reading a book, a glass of lemonade nearby.

And then she remembers that her house is for sale, maybe even sold.

“The new owners can put it in,” she says to Ian. Next door she sees a movement in one of Bettie’s windows, a flicker of the curtain, then nothing.

“Okay, then,” he says. He motions to Jeremy, who’s sitting in the car with headphones on, his head bobbing to the beat. “Hey, son, break’s over!”

There’s something about the way Ian calls to Jeremy that makes Isabel want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head.
Son
, she thinks as she goes back into the house. Such a simple word. Words she’ll never speak, nor will Bill.

Son
.

Chapter Fourteen