She got out her rubber gloves and her spray bottles and was working in the bathroom, when her sister called. “Well, as much as I love any interruption from cleaning bathrooms,” she said to her sister, “you only call when you have a reason.”
“Somebody saw Kurt in town,” her sister said without any preamble.
“That’s nice,” Laurie Ann said calmly. “I saw him this morning.”
A horrified gasp came from the other end of the phone. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Nothing to tell,” she said. “I stopped in for a bite to eat. After staying up all night, I didn’t have time this morning to fix breakfast. So I stopped in at the truck stop and had coffee and one of their danishes.”
“You know that you shouldn’t be living on sugar,” her sister said irritably. “You’re a doctor. You should know better.”
“I also know that sugar is what gives me energy, and I needed something to get through the morning,” she snapped.
“What about Kurt? Did you call him?”
“I haven’t seen or contacted Kurt since he left town thirteen years ago,” she said for what had to be the thousandth time over the last decade plus. “He was sitting behind me. I saw him as he came down the aisle. I couldn’t believe it, but then I recognized his voice.”
“And did you get up and run out of there?”
“I don’t run from anything these days,” she snapped. “Now did you have a reason for calling? Otherwise I’m going back to cleaning the bathroom.”
“Why aren’t you at work?” her sister snapped back.
“Look. The second clinic had a flood in their bathroom, so everybody was sent home, and I’m just taking the opportunity to get some housekeeping done.”
“Well, you only clean house when you’re upset,” her sister said, in that same shrewd tone that said she knew too much about Laurie Ann already.
“No,” she said. “I just have a busy weekend planned, and I didn’t want to ruin it, trying to get all this stuff done at the same time.”
“Oh,” Sally said. “Did you talk to him?”
“Yes, I did,” she said.
“And?” Sally asked after a moment, when Laurie Ann didn’t volunteer anything.
“And what?” she said. “We exchanged some basic greetings. How are you? How’s life been treating you? That was it. I was late for work, got up, and left.”
“Okay,” Sally said, “but make sure you avoid him in the future.”
“Just like I said already, I don’t run anymore,” she repeated. She sprayed the bathtub with the phone tucked into her shoulder and said, “If there’s nothing else, let me get back to my cleaning.”
“You’re not seeing him again, right?”
“Stop worrying, Sally,” she said. “We have to take every step forward in life that we can. I’ll not allow his return to hold me back.”
“I know that, but what if he finds out?”
“It’s been on my mind a lot anyway,” she said. “What if he does find out? What do you want me to do? Ignore him? I don’t think so.”
“You can’t tell him,” Sally said, horrified.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there,” she said wearily. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going back to my cleaning.” In frustration, she hung up, put the phone on the counter beside her, and then she attacked the bathtub ring with a vengeance. Ever since she’d gotten pregnant, her family had treated her as if she were an innocent gullible fool. And that, even now, she would go running back into Kurt’s arms.
As she thought about it, she wondered if maybe she would. He was older and more mature, and something was clearly different about him than the bad boy she’d known. But still that same frisson of attraction existed between them. That had partly been the reason why she’d been so grateful for a chance to leave the coffee shop. It had been such a shock to see him. Yet he was on her mind most days because of Jeremy. Why the hell should her son not have a father? It’s not as if she’d given Jeremy a choice, and she hadn’t given his father a choice either. But it was just one more of those things in life that she had to sort out for herself, and she didn’t quite know how to do that.
“Mom?” Jeremy called out.
“I’m upstairs in the bathroom, cleaning,” she called out. He raced up the stairs. She groaned and said, “Are those dirty shoes you have on?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but I’m leaving right away.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Can I go over to Frank’s house?”
“Yes, but I want you home before five.”
He groaned.
“Home before five, or you can’t go,” she said in that calm voice that she always used with him.
“Fine.” And he bolted off.
She smiled because of all the things that she’d done well, raising Jeremy was one of them. He was a good kid, and it just made it all that much harder to wonder if he was missing out on that whole father-bonding thing because she hadn’t bothered to tell Kurt that he would be a father.
Kurt walked around the truck stop for a couple hours, looking for any sign that the War Dog was around. He talked to the staff currently on duty, but the shift changed in another hour, and then he would speak to the new staff. He wandered all along the edge of the gravel area leading to the bushes, where they thought they’d seen the dog, but nothing fresh remained. He sat inside the shrubs for a good hour, waiting to see if anything would approach. So far nothing. He got up and walked a good one hundred yards into the treed area and circled around the truck stop another one hundred yards back of the pavement.
Animals were attracted to humans because of the food supply, and, in this case, maybe also because human companionship is what Sabine knew. But, if she’d had a few bad months, it would make her wary, and she wouldn’t get too much closer to Kurt. After he did the one pass, he went out another one hundred yards farther into a bigger and wider pass. Again nothing, although he saw bits and pieces of golden fur on the bushes.
It was almost impossible to tell how fresh they were after the rain last night. He wasn’t seeing any fresh tracks, but he knew that Sabine had to be somewhere around here. At least in the last couple days. As he slowly made his third and final wide path around, he stopped at a fallen tree and just sat here.
“Sabine,” he called out softly. “Sabine, I’m here for you. Let me help you, little one.”
Of course there was no answer.
After he rested a bit, he resumed walking slowly, calling out to her every once in a while in a gentle voice, letting her know that he was around. He returned to the fallen tree and put some treats on the stump for her. The birds might get them, but maybe she would too. And he kept walking around to the next point. He stopped listening to the trucks coming and going, even though they were there nearby, but it remained dim in the background of his primary focus.
He noted another tree stump up ahead. He put a few treats on it, and he walked ten feet forward and then slowly stopped. He tilted his head but didn’t turn around. He smiled at the gentle rustling in the bushes. “Are you stalking me, Sabine?”