Today had been made worse because Charlie had been there.
He’d felt like a damn failure.
In every other way, Charlie made everything better. His days since she’d come to Autre had been some of the most exasperating yet fun days he’d had in a very long time. She’d brightened everything up. And not just with the new bright paint colors around the petting zoo or the colored caramel corn she’d ordered for them to sell in their pseudo-concession stand that would eventually be replaced by a much bigger, better-stocked snack shack. Not just in the various colored t-shirts she’d convinced Maddie to add to the green and white tees Boys of the Bayou had been selling. The brightness she had added was deeper than all that. She made him happy. She made him smile, laugh, and look forward to his day in a way he hadn’t in a long time.
But today, having her there as the dog slipped away had been heart-wrenching.
She hadn’t handled it well at all. Tears had been streaming down her cheeks, and the moment he said, “I’ve got this, Charlie, you can go,” she’d spun and run from the room.
There was no way he was going to make her stay and clean up. Or help him track down the owners. Or anything else involved in dealing with an animal that had died.
He’d wanted to go after her, but there was nothing he could say that would make it better. The dog had been hit by a car and died. Yes, it had been in some pain. And yes, there was a family out there who was going to be heartbroken tonight when they found out their dog had been killed.
There was nothing he could say or do to make that better.
His line of work came with a lot of joy and fun. Animals amazed him on a regular basis. But it also came with sadness. Veterinarians had one of the highest suicide rates of any of the professions, not only because it was always hard to lose a patient but because of the human beings who were devastated by those losses. Veterinarians were often blamed for not doing more or working harder and faster, and having that piled on top of already feeling like they hadn’t done enough led to a lot of stress and depression.
But veterinarians knew death was part of life. Just like human physicians did. And when they went into practice, they knew there were going to be times when patients didn’t pull through or when euthanasia was the humane thing to do.
But knowing it didn’t always make it easier.
He was used to working with other animal experts. When an animal had died on the preserve or in one of the zoos, it had been hard, but he hadn’t felt it was his obligation to comfort his co-workers. They got it. They’d dealt with the same things he had.
Seeing the woman he was eighty percent sure he was falling in love with heartbroken, had made his heart ache in a whole new way.
“What was I supposed to say?” he asked Gertie, who was perched on his lap, lecturing him.
He handed her treats, and she quieted for a moment.
“Do you really think that going after her and telling her that if she was going to be involved with animals, she’d have to get used to this was really the right thing to do?” he asked the otter.
She did not think that was the right thing to do, but she kept insisting that he should have said or done something.
“If I thought just hugging her would’ve been enough, I would have done that.”
Gertie gave up on him, slipping off his lap and sliding into her man-made river.
He turned to Gus with a sigh. “So, I’m not great at the boyfriend thing. Big shock.”
Gus told him he was being dramatic.
“Easy for you to say,” Griffin said. “Human females are a lot more complicated than otter females, Gus.”
Gus told him to fuck off if he thought he had it so bad. Gus was living and raising kids with his girlfriend.
Griffin stroked the otter’s back. “Okay, so you might know a little bit about relationships. But I can’t tell her that we’ll never lose another animal. I can’t tell her that I can save them all.” God, he really couldn’t tell her that. “I can’t promise there’s never going to be heartbreaking moments. She’ll get used to it. It was harder on me in the beginning too.”
Gus informed him that that was not the right approach with Charlie.
“Well, I’m not going to tell her that she has to just get used to it, but it will get easier with time.”
It didn’t actually get easier. It just became less of a shock when things didn’t turn out as expected.
The otter in his lap chattered at him again, and Griffin shrugged. “Yeah, okay, I was wallowing a little bit about things not turning out in D.C., but I’ve been getting better.”
For a guy who claimed to know that life didn’t always go according to plan, Griffin had definitely let the situation at the National Zoo throw him for a loop.
He’d come to Louisiana with a plan to approach his life and work with animals completely differently than he had in the past. Rather than looking for ways to make it all work and pushing for bigger and better, he had been determined to simply be content with what he had and to take one day at a time.
It had taken the bubbly, pushy, addictive blond Landry to shake him up and make him wonder what the hell he was doing.
“But I never would’ve come up with the idea of having an animal park here,” Griffin told Gus. “It’s not like I was missing some obvious answer.”
Gus didn’t agree with that either, even after being given a treat. He sat in Griffin’s lap, chattering about what a dumbass Griffin had been.
Griffin shook his head. “Yes, I know the Landrys are hugely supportive and always willing to think outside the box. And yes, I feel a definite kinship with Tori and her willingness to take on any and all animals. But I wouldn’t have thought about having an elephant in Louisiana.”
Gus asked him why the hell not.
“Because having an elephant here is definitely over the top,” Griffin explained to the otter. “But,” he said over the otter’s protest. “Lemurs, and a sloth, and an ostrich, and… Maybe some other stuff could work.”
Remembering Charlie’s face after he told her the dog had died made his entire chest hurt, but he also thought about how she’d lit up when she noticed the sloth in the trailer. And, he knew it wasn’t because she was particularly fond of sloths. In fact, he doubted very much that she’d spent much time in her life thinking about sloths.
He’d put that look on her face. Because he’d surprised her and done something that clearly said he was listening to her and wanted to make her happy. The only other look that was even more poignant had been the look on her face when he’d first seen the lemurs. It had been clear that it meant a lot to her to give him those.
Charlie cared about him. It was obvious, and it made his heart swell and ache at the same time.
He’d had relationships in the past. He’d been serious with a couple of women. He’d known women who cared about him and possibly even loved him. But the idea that Charlie Landry would want to give him an elephant and had succeeded in giving him lemurs did more to him than any other woman had ever done.
Charlie was special. She knew almost nothing about animals, particularly exotic ones. She had come to tiny Autre from Paris, France. And yet she looked around the little town and the dinky petting zoo that hadn’t even had proper signage and saw nothing but possibility.