Wendy fought back tears, ignoring the pain in her arms and back from the muscle strain of carrying her overloaded backpack and tote bag. She wished she was as strong as her aunt. But she had to keep going—she couldn’t stop now.
She’d jumped off the Metro North train at 125th Street and was walking the block to the subway station. Another passenger had given her directions. She needed to go back to Juliet’s apartment. She had no choice—she’d left Teddy’s ashes under the futon couch. She hadn’t wanted her aunt to see them and had hidden them there, feeling his spirit as she’d slept, dreaming about him running through the apple orchard.
She couldn’t believe she was so stupid as to have left his remains behind in New York. If Juliet found the tin, she might think his ashes were dirt or some whole-grain organic flour or something, and dump them in the trash.
Wendy couldn’t bring herself to call and ask her aunt to mail the ashes to her in Vermont. It was too embarrassing—she didn’t want to admit she’d carried her dog’s remains all the way to New York—and too risky. Ashes by mail?
When she spotted a subway car at the station, Wendy ran, squeezing her way between the closing doors. She found a seat right away and decided her luck was changing. The man who’d given her directions had told her she could get off at Eighty-first Street without having to go all the way down to Grand Central. Once she recovered Teddy’s ashes, she could take the subway back to 125th Street and wait for another Metro North train.
But she knew when she didn’t show up on time in Katonah, her father would go nuts. She could imagine him calling Juliet and getting the marshals involved. He was always overreacting. It would never occur to him that she might know what she was doing. She vowed to call him as soon as she got aboveground.
The Eighty-first Street station was the Museum of Natural History stop—its walls were decorated with reliefs and mosaics of dinosaurs and whales. On a different day, Wendy thought, she’d have been mesmerized. Today, she charged to the exit like most of the seasoned New Yorkers around her.
When she reached the street, she got out her cell phone and dialed her father’s cell phone, getting his voice mail. Thank God he didn’t answer. “Hi, Dad, it’s me, Wendy. I’m going to be late, I think just an hour or so. I’ll call you when I know for sure what time I’m getting to Katonah. See you!”
She shut off her cell phone. She didn’t want him calling and telling her what to do. She had a plan—she knew what to do. But when she looked up at her surroundings, she didn’t recognize where she was and felt a jolt of panic. What if she couldn’t even remember Juliet’s address? And her arms and legs—they couldn’t hold up while she tramped all over, lost, with her heavy backpack and tote bag.
But she turned, saw the museum and relaxed. She’d found her way to her aunt’s once. She could do it again. Taking a few seconds to get her bearings, Wendy reminded herself that she was doing the right thing. She’d thought it all through on the train after she’d realized she’d left Teddy’s ashes behind. She was convinced he’d died just before her mother left for Nova Scotia because he’d sensed she was renting their house for six months and wanted her to feel free of him.
And her father. Always so practical. “Most dogs don’t live to sixteen. He had a good run.”
Although she was seventeen and knew sixteen was very old for a golden retriever, Wendy still had wanted Teddy to live forever.
When she reached her aunt’s building, Juan, the doorman, ran down the steps and took her bags from her. Wendy smiled, her arms and legs screaming. “Thank you, thank you! I don’t think I could make it up the stairs with them. I shouldn’t have packed so much.”
“I thought you left—”
“I forgot something.”
He carried her bags into the lobby and offered to hold them for her, but she didn’t want him to see her with a cracker tin and have to explain its contents. She shook her head, thanking him for his offer. “But can you let me into my aunt’s apartment? She’s at work. I don’t want to bug her. I’ll only be a minute. If you have the key—”
“No problem.”
He went into a small room behind the stairs and returned with a set of keys. “Just bring them back when you’re finished.”
“I will. Thanks!”
Juan carried her bags back to the elevator and pressed the up button for her.
Once inside the elevator, Wendy leaned against the shiny brass wall and let her backpack and tote bag sink to the floor. She was so spent! She thought she was in good shape, but tramping around New York was killing her.
The fourth-floor hallway was quiet and steamy warm, much warmer than Juliet’s apartment. Wendy dragged her bags to her aunt’s door and set them in front of it as she tried to figure out which of the two keys to use, in which lock.