The Darkest Evening Of The Year

Chapter 28

From the back of Amy’s Expedition, Fred and Ethel and Nickie watched solemnly as Mandy and the nameless dog were loaded into Dani Chiboku’s SUV.

A few clouds had materialized. Although at ground level the air hung as still as old clothes in the back of a closet, at the higher altitude white cloaks were flung across the sky, billowing eastward, tattering to the west.

With the dogs safely aboard, Dani closed the tailgate and said, “Seriously, Amy, five years.”

“Something will happen. We’ll have more and better fund-raisers. I’m applying everywhere for grants.”

“But the number of dogs that need to be rescued keeps rising in direct proportion to the amount of money you generate.”

“So far, yeah, but it’s not an economic law. Eventually the need and the resources are gonna come into balance. People just can’t keep throwing so many dogs away.”

“Look around, girl. The world’s never been meaner. It’s going to get worse.”

“No. I’ve known it worse than this.”

Amy seldom spoke of her past and always with circumspection. She sometimes wondered if friends accepted her as merely a private person or if instead they suspected her of having secrets.

The sharp interest in Dani’s eyes and the curiosity that pinched and dimpled every feature of her face answered that question.

When Amy offered nothing more, Dani said, “You should start to think about getting a job.”

“This is my job. The dogs.”

“It may be a passion. It may even be a calling. But, girl, it isn’t a job. A job pays you.”

“There’s nothing else I can do, Dani. I’ve been doing just this for like ten years. I’m unemployable.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re smart, you’ve got drive-”

“I’m a spoiled little rich girl living off an inheritance.”

“You’re not rich anymore, if you ever were, and you don’t know what spoiled is.” Dani shook her head. “Love you like a sister, Amy.”

Amy nodded. “Me too.”

“Maybe someday you’ll open up to me like a sister would.”

“I’m afraid what you see is what you get. Nothing to open up.” She kissed Dani on the cheek. “I’m not a book, I’m a pamphlet.”

Buttering her words with sarcasm, Dani said, “Yeah, right.”

“Tell Mookie I’m grateful for him taking Janet Brockman’s case.”

Opening the driver’s door of her SUV, Dani said, “What’s the story with the little girl?”

“Theresa? I don’t know. She may be some kind of autistic or just traumatized from…the way it was in that house.”

“Mookie says a strange thing happened at the office.”

Amy raised one hand to the locket at her throat. The pendant featured a cameo carved from soapstone, but instead of the classic profile of a woman, the subject was a golden retriever. She never wore other jewelry, nor owned any.

“The girl goes straight to Baiko,” Dani said, “sits on the floor with him, pets him.”

The previous night, as Amy had carried the sleepy child into Lottie Augustine’s house, Theresa had reached up and touched the locket.

“Later, when they’re leaving the office, she says to Mookie, ‘No more cancer.’”

The wind, Theresa had said so softly, fingering the locket. The wind…the chimes.

“Mookie hadn’t mentioned that Baiko had just gone through chemo. Didn’t say a word about the cancer.”

“Maybe Lottie told them,” Amy suggested.

“Not very likely, is it?”

Twenty years ago, Lottie had lost her only child to cancer. Five years later, her husband died of the same malignancy. As if cancer were the secret and the truest name of the devil, which would conjure him in a sulfurous cloud even if whispered, Lottie never spoke of the disease.

“The girl says to Mookie, ‘No more cancer,’ and then she says, ‘It won’t come back.’”

The wind…the chimes.

“Amy?”

“She’s a strange child,” Amy said.

“Mookie says she’s got troubling eyes.”

“I thought beautiful.”

“I haven’t seen her myself.”

“Beautiful but bruised,” Amy said.

“Let’s hope she’s right.”

“What?”

“About Baiko’s cancer.”

“I suspect she is,” Amy said. “I’m sure she is.”

She stood by the driver’s door of her Expedition and watched Dani Chiboku drive away with the two latest rescues.

The day remained sunny, but she could no longer feel its warmth.

A moving shadow wiped the sun glare off the Expedition.

When Amy looked up, the covey of eastward-racing clouds seemed to be too high to cast such a shadow.

A change was coming. She didn’t know what it would be, but she knew it would not be a change for the better.

She did not like change. She wanted continuity and the peace that came with it: day folding into night, night into day, dogs saved and passed to loving homes, and more dogs saved.

A change was coming, and she was afraid.