On the Thursday after the dinner party, Kaybri informed Noah she wanted to visit the Stoltzfus farm that night. As Noah started to protest, Kaybri cut him off and stated that she intended to leave the clinic at ten and needed him to show her how to get to the farm.
Kaybri was asleep on the sofa in her office when Frank touched her hand to wake her.
“What time is it?” she asked, raising her head groggily.
“It’s six a.m.”
Kaybri found Noah’s and Autumn’s report on her desk a week later. The information was clear without doing a statistical study. The dogs sold by Puppy Camp were dying too young and too often. Of the sixteen dogs that had died, eight had been purchased there. She asked Noah to go with her to Puppy Camp.
As Kaybri walked under the enormous sycamore tree and spotted Frank on his rocker on the porch, she wondered if he had spent the night right there with a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. Fairbanks was still at his feet. There were even more children and pets running across his lawn than there had been the previous day.
Later that day, Tandy and Ethan Danzig arrived at the clinic carrying Linny, their gray Labradoodle. Autumn paged Kaybri and Noah to come to the treatment room right away. When they arrived, Tandy and Ethan explained how they had read every book they could find and watched hours of video online, but the thought of being responsible for Linny and the birth of her first litter was too much for them.
Even though the clinic didn’t start seeing patients until eight, Kaybri arrived at six a.m. on Tuesday. She loved the quiet of the morning, the dew on the grass, and treating the recuperating dogs even if she didn’t agree with how they had arrived at the clinic.
When Kaybri arrived at the clinic, Dr. Frank Stevens and his staff of three greeted her warmly. Dr. Stevens was tall and thin and had only a few tufts of white hair on his head and a sparse white beard. He struck her as quite elderly, and he seemed to have trouble walking, but he had a youthful smile and seemed genuinely delighted to meet her.
Many nights, Esther felt all alone despite her mother’s presence in the house. At night, she would often hear her mother plodding to the bathroom of their small apartment and then the squeak of the medicine cabinet opening and closing. By the time she was six years old, she understood that her mother was taking pills to “make a sad feeling go away,” as she explained it. She said the pills helped, but she never seemed to get any better despite taking them more and more frequently.
It was a gorgeous sunny day for the outdoor graduation ceremony on the quad. When Dr. Stevens, the dean of students, saw Kaybri Lynn seated with her classmates, she left the faculty processional for a moment to say something strange in Kaybri’s ear. “Come see me after the ceremony. I have a contract for you.”
Had she said contract or contact? What could this be about? But first Kaybri had to give her speech. She was the valedictorian of her class of fifty-four at the California School of Veterinary Medicine.
The dinner conversation was stilted. No one wanted to step on one of the landmines that were scattered across…
“Dr. Bloom entered Richard’s office as Alex was walking out the door. Closing the door behind her, she asked Richard…
Secrets Kept was uncharacteristically quiet even though there were seven people sipping coffee or tea in its elegant salon. Two of the people were there because…
Opening the door to his suite, Richard was surprised, if not shocked, to see Annie. If he knew she was coming, he wouldn’t have been…
The drive to Eupepsia gave Annie a chance to reflect on her relationship with Richard, how they had gotten to this point, and where she thought…
For Annie, leaving work a few hours early on Fridays was starting to feel comfortable. She thought it frivolous that some of her colleagues would regularly …
Annie felt lifeless on Monday morning as she pored over the morning stock quotes, analyst’s upgrades and downgrades, and rumors of what the Fed’s would do next with interest rates.
Richard had cleared the table and was rinsing the dishes when Annie came in the galley. She leaned her head against his back and put her arms around his waist.
The evening couldn’t have been more pleasant. Richard was in great spirits and Alex played his well-practiced role as the younger brother with gusto.
“I’ve met those type of men.” Cathy said with a laugh. “Where do you keep them?”
“I have a house in the country, and a barn that stables cars instead of horses. I buy the cars, and I pay my siblings who work in the family business to restore them when I don’t have the time.”
Annie put her arm around Richard’s waist, lifted him to his feet, and held him tight to her side. They hadn’t moved more than a couple of steps when Annie stopped their progress.
