Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Gayle was sitting on the floor in front of Presti's kennel when the bell chimed at the front door.
She'd been there since seven and was still wearing the same jeans she'd had on the night before, when she'd sat in this exact spot until nearly midnight, unable to make herself go back upstairs.
The bell chimed again, more insistently.
She pushed herself up, her legs aching from the cold floor, and walked to the front.
Miss Doris was on the other side of the glass, a covered dish in one hand and a determined set to her mouth that Gayle had seen exactly twice before. Once at a town council meeting fifteen years ago, and once when Gayle had come home from Charleston after Daniel left.
Both times, Miss Doris had gotten what she'd come for.
Gayle unlocked the door and let her in.
"You look terrible, dear," Miss Doris said, not unkindly. She set the covered dish on the reception desk. "Sit down. You need to eat something."
"I'm not hungry."
"I didn’t ask if you were. You need food." Miss Doris nodded toward the chair behind the desk. "Sit."
Gayle did as she was told.
Miss Doris uncovered the dish—a warm biscuit and some scrambled eggs, still steaming—and set it in front of her. Then she settled into the chair across the desk and folded her hands in front of her.
"Gayle," she said quietly. "What happened?"
Gayle stared at the biscuit.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do, honey."
The silence stretched out. Miss Doris didn't press. She just waited, her hands folded, her eyes steady, the same way she had waited in that kitchen while a much younger Gayle had cried over a man who'd told her she was too much.
Miss Doris was very good at waiting.
Eventually, Gayle heard herself say, "I sent him away."
"Corey?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because—" Gayle stopped. Tried again. "Because I was doing what was best for him."
"And what was best for him, exactly?"
"A quiet, simple life. Not—" She gestured vaguely at the shelter around her, at the kennels, at the perpetual chaos of her days. "Not this."
"Mmm." Miss Doris tilted her head. "Did he ever once say he wanted a quieter life?"
Gayle didn't answer.
"Did he ever say he wanted a simpler one?"
Silence.
"Did he ever, in any of the weeks he was helping you and fostering that puppy and standing beside you at a Christmas market with your hand in his—did he ever, at any point, indicate that he wanted to be spared from any of it?"
"No," Gayle said quietly.
"Then who exactly were you saving him from?"
Gayle closed her eyes.
Miss Doris waited.
"From me," Gayle whispered.
"Yes."
"Because he doesn't know yet. What it's like. He hasn't seen the worst of it. The weeks when the bills don't add up and I don't sleep and I have to make impossible choices about which animals get treated and which ones don't. He's only seen the good parts. He'd get tired eventually. He'd realize?—"
"Realize what?"
"That I'm too much." Gayle opened her eyes. They were wet. "That my life is too much. The way Daniel realized."
Miss Doris was quiet for a long moment.
"Gayle," she said softly. "Daniel was a coward. And he was wrong about you. And I have been waiting patiently for you to figure that out."
"But what if he wasn't wrong? What if?—"
"Then Corey would have figured that out himself.
And he'd have told you. And you'd have dealt with it like two grown adults having a real conversation.
" Miss Doris leaned forward slightly. "But instead you took his choice away from him.
You decided for him. You told yourself it was kindness, but it wasn't. You did to him exactly what Daniel did to you.
You made a decision about his life and didn't ask him what he wanted. "
The tears spilled over. Gayle pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
"He was trying to choose you," Miss Doris said gently.
"For weeks. Everyone in town could see it.
He was showing up at hardware stores asking for donations to your shelter.
He was calling in favors from his students' parents.
He was walking around like a man who had found something he wanted to keep. And you?—"
"I know."
"—decided he didn't get to keep it."
"I know."
"You didn't trust him," Miss Doris said. "You didn't trust him to know his own mind. To choose you knowing what choosing you meant. You didn't even give him the chance."
Gayle nodded, her face still in her hands.
Miss Doris let her sit with it for a moment. "So what are you going to do?"
Gayle lifted her head. Wiped her face with the back of her wrist. Looked out through the glass door at the parking lot, empty in the gray Saturday morning light.
"I don't know," she said.
"Yes, you do."
Gayle drew in a long, shaky breath.
She looked at the clock on the wall behind Miss Doris.
Ten-oh-seven.
The Beaumonts were coming at noon.
"Presti is supposed to be picked up in two hours," she said quietly.
"Then it sounds like you've got two phone calls to make." Miss Doris's voice was gentle but firm. "And not much time."
The first call was harder to make than she expected.
Gayle stood at the window in her office, phone in her hand, watching the light change on the parking lot outside. Sarah Beaumont's name was pulled up on her screen. All she had to do was tap it.
Sarah answered on the third ring, her voice bright. "Gayle! We were just about to leave. The kids are so?—"
"Sarah." Gayle closed her eyes. "I need to tell you something. And I'm so sorry."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. "What's wrong? Is Presti okay?"
"Presti's fine. It's not that." Gayle drew in a breath. "Sarah, I haven't been fair to you. Or to your family. And I haven't been fair to Presti, either."
"I don't understand."
"You saw it, when you were here on Saturday. The way he kept watching the door. He was watching for someone."
A slower pause this time. "His foster."
"Yes." Gayle's throat felt thick. "He belongs with the person who’s been fostering him.
I knew it when you came to meet him and I apologize for ever letting it get this far.
Your kids don't deserve to bring home a dog who's grieving someone else.
And Presti doesn't deserve to go to a home where he's going to spend months missing the person he already chose. "
Silence.
Gayle could hear, faintly in the background, the voices of the Beaumont children. Excited, high-pitched, arguing about something. Getting ready to come pick up their new dog.
"I am so sorry," Gayle said. "I know how much this means to your family. And I know I'm doing this at the last possible minute. But I couldn't let you drive over here and load him into your car when I knew, when I've known?—"
"Gayle." Sarah's voice was quiet. Careful.
"Yes?"
"I saw it too. On Saturday. My husband and I talked about it in the car on the way home."
Gayle sat down slowly in her chair.
"We thought maybe it would be okay," Sarah continued.
"We've raised dogs before. They adjust. We thought we could love him through it.
But I've been up half the week thinking about that puppy watching the door.
And I—" Her voice caught. "I don't want to be the family who takes a dog who already has a person. "
"Sarah—"
"The kids are going to be upset."
"I know."
"But they'll understand. Eventually." Sarah exhaled slowly. "We're going to be okay. And you're doing the right thing. It took a lot of courage to make this call. I know that."
Gayle pressed her fingertips against her eyes. "I could bring some of the other dogs by, if you wanted. When your family is ready. There are so many wonderful ones here who need homes. Not right now. Whenever you all are up to it."
"I think we'd like that. In a few weeks. Let the kids grieve a little first."
"Of course."
"Gayle." Sarah's voice softened. "The person he was watching for. Does he know?"
"No." Gayle laughed, a small, wet, broken sound. "No, not yet."
"Then go call him."
She ended the call and sat at her desk, staring at the phone in her hand.
The idea of calling him was too much. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to hear his voice, or worse, not have him pick up. She couldn’t do it.
But a text she could do.