Elizabeth Wrenn - Second Chance

ELIZABETH WRENN

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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This paperback edition 2007

First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Ltd 2006

Copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2006

Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006 All rights reserved.

Excerpt from ‘Her Grave’ from New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver.

Copyright © Mary Oliver, 1992. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

Elizabeth Wrenn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9781847560049

Ebook edition: September 2008 ISBN: 9780007278961

Version: 2018-05-23

For Stuart

You must have been a dog in a past life because never in the world has there been a better best friend.

Tteote

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

—from ‘Her Grave’

MARY OLIVER

Title Page ELIZABETH WRENN Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Epilogue An Interview With Elizabeth Wrenn Questions For Discussion Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher

ONE

Hairy took some sort of perverse feline pleasure in shedding his voluminous white fur into my cookware. I’d been cleaning behind the kitchen sink when I’d seen him paw the door open and slip into the spinner cabinet. In my simmering anger I didn’t think it through and I’d gone in after him. Now my hips were stuck in the door opening, my torso wedged between the two tiers of the giant lazy Susan that held my pots and pans.

My derriere was blocking most of the light, but just enough found its way in for me to see Hairy’s smug Persian face staring at me from the depths. I probed with my toothbrush. He retreated farther into the dark recesses, his tail swishing with satisfaction.

Hairy loved all cabinets, but especially the spinner. He often clambered over and around the small towers of pots and pans, heaving his girth over hill and dale, sending the circle spinning as he jumped into the empty back corner. He’d then watch the pans fly by, looking like a kid at an amusement park debating whether to hand over his ticket and actually go on the ride. But the spinner was motionless now, held in place by my shoulders. Hairy lifted a paw, gave it a single neat lick, and stared at me from the back of the cabinet.

‘Hairy, get out of there!’ I growled. He was just beyond my reach and he knew it. It made me crazy to find him in a cabinet, especially the spinner, since white cat hairs had a way of turning up in my stir-fry.

How did I end up here? I wondered. Not here in the cupboard, but here as the owner of a cat, much less a fat, white Persian cat. I’m a dog person.

I’d always had dogs, growing up. My family lived on a cantaloupe farm in southeastern Colorado. We grew Rocky Ford cantaloupes, among other things, and over the decades we’d had a succession of black Labradors. Always two, always named Rocky and Fordy. My farm family did not routinely demonstrate the height of creativity.

My parents got Rocky number one before they had us. When I was three, they got Fordy. When Rocky one passed on, we got a new puppy, named him Rocky, and off we went. When Fordy died, enter Fordy two. My aging parents still have Rocky four and Fordy five. My brother Roger absconded with Fordy four. Which means there are two Fordys running around at every family reunion. Then Roger went and named his son Rocky. Don’t get me started.

When Neil and I married, I got not only in-laws in the deal, but cats. Three of them, all gone now. Hairy was ‘Lainey’s cat.’ Lainey’s cat for whom I cleaned the litter box, and who I fed and watered, took clawing and yowling to the vet, and, every so often, to the groomer for a first-class cut and poof that cost three times as much as my own economy-class haircuts.

It wasn’t that Neil disliked dogs; he loved Rocky and Fordy. When we went to the farm, he was often out throwing a stick or taking them for walks down to the lake. He explained that he didn’t want to own a dog because ‘dogs tie you down.’ Like a wife, two teenagers at home, a son at college, and a thriving medical practice didn’t. He was also fond of saying, ‘The only good dog is someone else’s dog.’

The phone rang. I pushed back, trying to wriggle out, but the only part of me moving was the flab on my upper arms. The phone rang a second time.

‘Damn!’ It might be one of the kids calling from school. Or even Sam. Although Matt and Lainey rarely called these days – very uncool in high school – and Sam had called only once since he’d left for college last year. For money. But old instincts die hard. A third ring. I pushed myself backward but my hips were stuck. Painfully stuck.

‘Ow! Goddamn it, Hairy! ’ I had to blame someone for my big butt, and Hairy was as good a candidate as existed. I twisted sideways, pushed off the center pole of the spinner, and finally shimmied out, lunging for the phone.