Her heart throbbed in her chest as she gaped at them. “Wait. You bought Sanctuary for me?” she squeaked out in disbelief. “But you donated all that money to the renovations already! If it wasn’t for you, Mr. Noodles wouldn’t have an enclosure, let alone a sign language teacher. You already paid a fortune to help here. I can’t let you buy—”
“The fuck you can’t, Sunshine. Look, kiddo. We’re rich. All of us. Like no-joke, make-it-rain-cash rich. You’re our friend. You needed help. We helped. This ain’t nuthin’ but a blip in our bank accounts and it’s for a good cause I can get behind. Plus, you and Cormac are a damned good investment as far as we’re concerned. Now take the fucking deed. You and Pooh Bear go off and save all the furry and/or winged babies you can with the peace of mind that this shit is yours. And never forget, Mr. Noodles the monkey is my boyfriend. He needed someone to help him express himself so he’d quit flingin’ poop at little Jo-Jo out of anger. He was frustrated is all. I get that. My primate man gets only the best if I have shit to say about it.”
When the women had first come to the shambles of Sanctuary, just shortly after they’d taken down Stas, and Cormac and Toni were preparing to testify against him, Teddy had been in the process of trying to find last-minute investors who’d donate money to save the place she loved.
Checkbooks had flown from purses as each woman had donated a hefty sum. Sums big enough to allow Teddy to pay off the bank and take care of some of the more pressing structural issues haunting Sanctuary. Then they’d called their friends and they’d donated, too.
Mr. Noodles, the Macaque monkey, had taken one look at Nina cooing up at him from the ground and lobbed a pile of his lunch—a lunch that had just exited his back end—right at her head. But Nina didn’t get angry. Instead, she’d climbed the tree he sat in with one hand, against their protests about her recent injuries, and talked to him for two solid hours and even though Mr. Noodles was deaf and couldn’t hear a word she said, he’d curled into her arm and wouldn’t let go.
She agreed, because he was deaf and his mother had abandoned him, leaving him incapable of surviving on his own, that he was just misunderstood, and she’d set about finding someone skilled enough to teach a monkey sign language—which, it turned out, Mr. Noodles learned quickly. His anger turned to productivity right before Teddy and Cormac’s eyes.
Nina, Charlie, Carl and Greg skyped with Mr. Noodles every week now without fail to check on his progress.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for this. For everything. For saving both Cormac and me. For giving me back the place I love almost more than anywhere else.”
Carl poked his head inside the bathroom, two of Sanctuary’s parrots, Kanye and Kim, sitting contentedly on his shoulder. The zombie loved animals as much as Nina and his uncanny ability to soothe them, communicate with them, had Teddy dialing him up on more than one occasion since they’d been back to ask for his advice when she struggled with a new rescue.
She couldn’t help but notice how smart and mature he looked in his tuxedo, with his hair brushed over his forehead and his shiny cufflinks winking under the bathroom light.
Carl thumped her on her shoulder and held out his arms, pulling her into a crooked hug full of his particular brand of warmth. Then he pointed to the watch on his wrist. “Ur…” He struggled with the word.
Teddy cupped his jaw to reassure him. “Go slow. I can wait.”
Carl had managed to express to Nina how frustrating it was for him to keep people waiting when he attempted verbal conversations—because Carl was always worried about everyone else’s comfort but his own.
Nina and Greg had considered a signing teacher, but Carl had trouble keeping his fingers glued to his hand; bending them to sign was likely going to prove difficult.
So instead, Teddy reminded him that she didn’t mind waiting at all, due to the fact that when Carl spoke, he didn’t need a lot of words to fill up a conversation. What he managed to say was always valued and important without the hindrance of frills.
Carl smiled and repeated, stuttered and broken, “Uur—eeee.”
“Hurryuphurryuphurryup!” Kanye squawked impatiently, dancing along Carl’s shoulder.
Teddy laughed, straightening his boutonniere. “What am I hurrying about?”
Carl took her by the hand, tucking it under his arm. “This way.” He tugged her back out of the office and down the long hall.
As she entered the penguin room, where waterfalls trickled out their tune and Suits the penguin waddled up and down the paths leading to the beautiful new pool just recently installed, she saw Cormac.
Dressed in a blue tux with blue ruffles, holding a corsage in his hand, so handsome her teeth ached from just looking at him.
He held out his arms to her and she rushed into them, burying her face in his broad chest, just the way she’d done so many times before.
“For you,” he said, holding up the wrist corsage made of mint-green and white carnations.