Abigail gave me the thumb-and-pinkie-extended hand to her ear,callmegesture.
I turned to my car and froze as I looked through the window.
On my seat was a paper bag, I knew, filled with a big M&M caramel apple.
I checked my door.It was locked.
“How did he?—?”
It didn’t matter.
I didn’t care.
I opened the door, shifted the bag out of the way, dropped my other bags with it on the passenger side floor, snapped my fingers at my dog who popped into the cab before me, and hauled myself in.
I did this smiling.
FOURTEEN
Honey
Mabel
Iwas at my kitchen island making a turkey sandwich.
It was afternoon the next day.
I’d started it with homemade Nutella crepes with toasted almonds.
Then Tonks and I moved out to do our perimeter walk, and annoyingly, but necessarily, whenever we were going along the south wood line, I got tense and more alert, which meant Tonks did too.
But now it had been over a week since my neighbors left that note and…nothing.
Maybe itwasa blip.
After our walk, Tonks and I got stuck in at the workshop.
That week, full out of summer and careening headlong into fall, therefore likely the waning days of yard sales (and, thankfully, I’d hustled my ass off all spring and summer so we had plenty of vintage stock, and I’d picked up every cute (or cool, I thought) cast-off Christmas decoration, so we were good to go for that season), I’d not only scored an awesome shelving unit I was refinishing, but also three old, neglected Coach bags I knew I could bring back to life.
Tonks had learned workshop time meant she didn’t get close to me unless I called her (see?she was so smart—totally special), so, since I’d stripped the shelves that week, I stained them that morning.
I then turned my attention to the Coach bags, removed the hardware, went to town on them with Brasso, before I thoroughly cleaned the bags with leather cleaner.I stuffed them with tissue paper to bring back their shape, and they’d get a massive moisture massage with leather conditioner once the mild dampness of the cleaning had dried.
At this point, I realized I was hungry, so Tonks and I went back into the house.
And now I had a dog at my feet, watching with extreme focus as I made my sandwich, and a cat sitting on the stool opposite the counter from me, just her ears and yellow eyes appearing over the surface, and she was doing the same.
As for me, I’d tried to keep busy, but my mind was consumed with what happened with Hutch yesterday.
No, not true.
It was consumed with what had happened with Hutch since the beginning.
Yesterday, he was not Mr.Grouch.
Yesterday, he was amazing.
Friendly, great with kids, awesome with a basketball.
