Chapter 16
Present Day
Ivy had come to tell Wren that Ben Brooks was waiting downstairs. Despite her exhaustion, Wren pulled herself out of bed, checked her makeup, and spoke sweetly to Pierre the Frenchie. “Let’s go see your friend,” she said. She was sure that whatever it was, it wouldn’t take long.
They padded downstairs to find Ben on the sofa, his ankles crossed nervously as he sipped what looked to be Ivy’s favorite ginger tea.
Ivy puttered around the kitchen loudly, plates and bowls crashing into the dishwasher.
There seemed to be no end to her anger and malaise.
Wren prayed that Elliott would get home soon and help her unwind.
He seemed to be the only one capable of it.
Upon seeing Wren, Ben stood abruptly. Wren laughed. “I’m not the queen of England,” she said. “Rest in peace.”
Ben laughed at himself and ran his fingers through his thick hair. “I’m sorry to bother you at home like this. I should have called.”
“It’s not a problem,” Wren said. “I should get used to it, anyway. Small-town living.”
Ben bent down and scratched Pierre behind the ear. Pierre panted happily and smiled up at the vet who’d saved him. Another dish crashed in the kitchen, and Ben and Wren made eye contact.
“Maybe we should go for a little walk,” Wren suggested.
“Only if you’re up for it,” Ben said.
Wren was surprised to find a little bit of strength left in her.
She put on her shoes, attached Pierre’s leash, and led Ben out back, where they caught the trail that led down, down, down to Bluebell Cove below.
Wren felt a strange bubbling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the baby.
She could feel Ben’s eyes on her back as he followed her.
Once on the sand, she unhooked Pierre’s leash, and she and Ben watched as he ran up and down the water, panting and kicking his legs up so that sand shot everywhere. Wren laughed, grateful to see the joy written in everything her little friend did.
“Thank you again for everything you did for him,” Wren breathed, glancing at Ben. “Seeing him like that, so helpless under that rock… It did something to me.”
Ben nodded. “I can understand that.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” Wren said. “Seeing animals in need all day. Helping them.”
“They need us,” Ben said gently. He looked nervous, his cheeks taut.
Wren waited. It wasn’t far from her mind that he’d come here for a reason.
“Listen, I know who Pierre belongs to,” he said finally.
Wren took a dramatic breath. This was it, the moment she’d been dreading. Ben was here to take her dog away. “That’s wonderful,” she lied.
“It’s complicated,” Ben said. He explained what had happened: an older woman named Nelly had come into the vet clinic and immediately had a medical emergency. “I went over to her house to check on things, and I saw a photograph of her and Pierre. I learned his real name, too.”
Wren tried to smile, although her heart ached. “What is it?”
“Do you really want to know?” Ben asked.
Wren nodded.
“Pudding,” Ben said.
For a little while, with her eyes only, Wren followed Pierre-slash-Pudding’s jaunt up and down the sand.
Her heart felt mushy with sorrow. She told herself that this was for the best, that she didn’t know what life was going to throw at her next, that she couldn’t very well take on a dog at the same time she took on a baby. But still.
She told herself not to cry. But within a minute, she gasped with sorrow and put her face in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she groaned. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Ben touched her shoulder. “It’s sad. You and Pierre have a real connection.”
Wren’s shoulders shook. “Yes, but the thing is…” She trailed off for a moment.
“For years, I was a traveler above everything else. I knew not to make too many connections. I knew not to get invested in too many things. I simply couldn’t carry all of those things around!
Now, I’m making connections left and right, and they’re destroying me. It’s like I’m getting weaker as I age.”
“You aren’t weak for wanting connections,” Ben whispered.
But Wren couldn’t be dissuaded from that belief.
She sniffed, then bent down and called for Pierre.
“Pudding!” she said first. But the dog only came when she switched back to Pierre, which she thought was odd.
Pierre hurried over, smiling, and she hugged him.
“Your owner is all right,” she told him. “Nelly’s all right.”
Ben sighed. “She isn’t back from the hospital yet.”
Wren’s chest tightened. She stood back up. “When she gets home, we’ll go see her together,” she said.
Ben looked surprised. “You don’t have to do that. I’m happy to deal with this. Honestly.”
But Wren shook her head. “I want to meet her. I want to tell her that her dog’s been a lifeline for me. I think she deserves to know that.”
* * *
Two days later, Ben called Wren to tell her that Nelly was home and ready to see her dog again. “Her son is not happy about the dog coming over,” Ben said, laughing over the phone. “But it’s difficult to describe human-animal love to someone who can’t possibly understand it.”
Wren knew that was true. They decided to meet directly at Nelly’s place at four that afternoon. Scott Winston, Nelly’s son, had told Ben that that was usually when his mother woke up from her nap. “She’ll be more awake than at any other time during the day,” Scott had explained.
Wren walked Pudding-slash-Pierre to Nelly’s place, watching his gait to see if he sped up excitedly when they neared the house.
But Pierre did nothing of the kind. Ben was already waiting for her on the sidewalk in front of the house, and he admitted that he didn’t think Pierre got very many walks from Nelly, as she wasn’t very mobile.
It meant Pierre might not know the surroundings very well.
“Maybe I can come over and walk him sometimes,” Wren suggested timidly. “I mean, for as long as I stick around in Bluebell.”
“I’m sure something like that can be arranged,” Ben said.
Together, they walked up the steps and knocked on the door.
Scott Winston answered the door wearing a loose pair of sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a band’s name written on it.
Wren didn’t recognize the name, but she recognized the scowl on Scott’s face, as it felt entirely like Ivy’s.
He was a worrier, just as she was. He was trying to do the right thing.
Scott led Ben and Wren down the hall to Nelly’s bedroom. “She used to sleep upstairs before my father died,” Scott explained. “But she can’t make it up the stairs anymore.”
Wren wondered if Pierre the dog had ever been upstairs at all, or if he’d remained down here, living in Nelly’s smaller and smaller reality, until he’d gotten lost.
When Scott opened the door to Nelly’s bedroom, Pierre bolted through the crack and sprang up on the bed.
Wren lurched with fear, nervous that the little dog would hurt Nelly in some way.
But it was soon clear that “Pudding” knew exactly how to handle his mistress.
He was on her bed, directly beside her little body, licking her face and hands.
Nelly smiled and giggled like a much younger woman.
“Oh, Pudding, you old scoundrel,” she said.
Wren liked the woman immediately.
“Mom? These are the people who found Pudding,” Scott said, gesturing for Ben and Wren to sit at the side of the bed. Scott remained standing by the door, as though he wanted to monitor the situation.
“Oh, wonderful.” Nelly tilted her head to smile at them. She looked terribly thin and worn out, but her eyes lit up, maybe from the joy of seeing Pudding again.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “I was terribly worried. I got myself all worked up, and now, look what I did to myself.” She sighed and stroked Pudding’s head.
Wren was touched. “He’s such a sweetie,” she said. “I fell in love with him immediately.”
“He’s a lover!” Nelly laughed. “He’s been my very best friend for years, haven’t you, Pudding?”
Wren’s smile was beginning to hurt her face. She hadn’t fully prepared herself to say goodbye to Pierre forever, but she wondered if this was it. She had to get used to this again, to losing people and animals and things. She’d have to return to her old life soon. With the baby.
It was then that Nelly looked at Wren—really looked at her. Her face echoed shock. “Why, I know you,” she said. “You’re Margaret Harper!”
At the sound of her mother’s name, Wren’s head buzzed with shock. “No,” she whispered.
Nelly furrowed her brow. “Yes, you are,” she said. “Or no. No. Of course not.” She closed her eyes, as though time had just caught up to her. “But you look just like her.”
Wren breathed easier, but only slightly. “She was my mother.”
“Of course,” Nelly said. “I’m sorry. Silly me.”
Wren was scared of what the woman might say about her mother. But she had to know.
“You knew my mother?” Wren asked.
“Of course. Everyone knew her,” Nelly said.
“But I like to think I knew her very well. You see, back then, I had a tremendous garden. It went all the way through the backyard.” She gestured toward the window, through which they could see only grass where that garden had once been.
“I grew everything there was to grow. All kinds of vegetables, whatever fruit I could. And flowers. Endless arrays of flowers. Your mother was quite in love with that garden. She liked to bring her daughters over to learn how to tend to it.” Nelly frowned.
“I always had the sense that she was very sad, that she needed to get out of the house just as much as the girls did. Which one are you?”
“The last one,” Wren said. “Wren.”
“You were the baby,” Nelly said quietly.
“The unplanned pregnancy,” Wren affirmed.
Nelly was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know if it’s better to know you weren’t planned,” she said.
“But it’s true that your mother didn’t take to mothering the way many mothers do.
The fact that she had four daughters and a borderline narcissistic husband…
God rest your father’s soul.” She shook her head.
“It was a lot to take on for anyone, and certainly too much for your mother, what with her gentle personality. But after you were born, she used to bring you over.”
Nelly brought her arms out in front of her.
They were as slender and weak as willow branches.
She pretended to hold a baby, then cooed, “You were so small and so beautiful. I couldn’t stop holding you.
I loved giving your mother a break. Oh, I was devastated when she died. I suppose you don’t remember her?”
Wren shook her head. Sorrow swam in her chest and made it difficult to breathe.
At this, Pudding-slash-Pierre hopped off Nelly’s bed and jumped onto Wren’s lap. He twirled around twice, then sat, panting, looking over at Nelly.
“It looks to me like he loves you,” Nelly said. “That’s no surprise. Everyone loved your mother, too.”
Wren ached with jealousy that this woman had known her mother so well that she had actual memories with her. “I know my mother wanted to leave Bluebell Cove. She wanted to go somewhere else and build a different life,” she said.
Nelly nodded. “Sometimes I challenged her on that. I’d ask her, ‘Margaret, what kind of better life do you really think is waiting out there for you?’ She could never really answer me. I think she had a restless soul, and there is no answer for a restless soul.”
Nelly’s eyelids began to flutter. It was clear that they were at the end of their conversation, and Nelly needed to rest.
“It was wonderful to meet you,” Wren said, helping Pudding down to the ground and standing up herself. “And it was wonderful to meet Pudding. I hope I can come by and see you soon, before I go.”
Nelly smiled. “Thank you again, sweetie,” she said. “Your mother would be so proud of you. You’re a beautiful spirit, just like she was.”
Scott led Wren and Ben back to the foyer, leaving Pudding with her beloved owner. Scott shook their hands and thanked them for their help.
“I don’t know how we’re going to take care of that dog,” he said, shaking his head.
“But she loves him more than she loves anything, so I guess we’ll figure something out.
” Scott’s eyes found Wren’s. “You know, she sounded more lucid, talking about your mother, than I’ve heard in quite some time.
It was like she was dropped into the past. It took me back through time. ”
“I loved it,” Wren whispered. “It was a beautiful surprise.”