Mrs. Saint and the Defectives

Was it her own childhood she was remembering? Markie wondered. Or one she had once hoped to witness and never did? Markie recalled Mrs. Saint’s curt “Non” when she had asked about children. But was curt the correct word? Or was it that the topic was a painful one for her neighbor, and she simply hadn’t wanted to discuss it? Not every woman is heartbroken to not have children, but plenty are.

How did I overlook that possibility? Markie asked herself. Why had she allowed herself to leap straight to a conclusion that was completely devoid of compassion? And she had done the same thing with her neighbor’s evasiveness about the topic of how she knew Frédéric; for all she knew, there could be an equally reasonable justification for why Mrs. Saint didn’t want to discuss it. Yet all this time, Markie had been irritated by her refusal to answer. She had been five parts suspicion and zero parts sympathy. So eager to blame, so slow to try to understand.

God, Markie thought, when did I become so hard?

She regarded her son, still laughing as he hugged the dog. She didn’t want a dog. But then, she also hadn’t wanted to give things another try with Kyle, and now he had dissolved into vapor in his child’s life. She hadn’t wanted to borrow more money from her parents to keep Jesse at Saint Mark’s, either, or to stay in town near his old friends, so she had moved him away, stuck him in a big public school with a new batch of kids—and look how that was turning out.

She reached for the leash. “But that’s all,” she said firmly. “No jobs for Jesse.” She pointed to the list in the woman’s other hand and shook her head.

Mrs. Saint tucked the paper away in her jacket pocket, and Markie waited for an indication that the bossy old woman was thinking to herself that the dog was not all, in fact, and there would indeed be jobs for Jesse. But Mrs. Saint’s wistful expression didn’t change, and when she withdrew her hand from her pocket, it clutched a tissue, which she touched to the inside corner of each eye.

“I have left food and bowls outside the door,” she whispered, turning to leave. “And Frédéric will come soon with a cage—I mean to say a crate—in case you . . .” She bowed her head and gave up the end of her sentence. Reaching the door, she gave Markie a quivering smile, then let herself out.

Markie rushed to the window and watched as Mrs. Saint made her way slowly home, stopping several times to lift the tissue to her eyes. Frédéric appeared then, carrying a dog crate out of the garage. When he saw Mrs. Saint, he stopped midstride, dropped the crate, and ran to her, a hand extended. Markie waited for the old woman to wave him off, annoyed, but instead, she allowed him to take her arm.

When she was safely on the other side of the fence, the old woman tilted her head and rested her cheek on his chest. Markie’s jaw dropped, and her mouth stayed open for a long moment as Frédéric and Mrs. Saint stood there, his lips moving as he said things that made her nod her head or shrug or lean harder against him. From time to time, she raised the tissue again, until finally he took it from her and touched it to her eyes himself.

Markie couldn’t breathe. Her own eyes filled, and as she reached up to wipe them, she realized her head no longer pounded. The ache had moved to the left side of her chest.

Finally, Mrs. Saint extricated herself and continued toward the house. Frédéric called something after her, and she held up a hand without turning back, then let herself in the side door and disappeared while he remained at the fence, staring after her. He pressed the tissue to his own eyes and held it there for a moment before he shoved it in the pocket of his dress pants and trudged, slump-shouldered, to retrieve the crate.





Chapter Seventeen


The dog was finally, blessedly, asleep. Jesse had wrestled with her for an hour in the backyard, then fed her and took her for a long walk. She was on high energy for all of it, with no signs of tiring, and Markie wondered what feat of strength it would take for him to force her into her crate. But when they returned from their walk, he simply pointed to the bed waiting inside the metal enclosure and said, “Crate,” and she walked in happily and plunked herself down, exhausted. When he latched the door closed, she looked up, mildly curious, and then laid her head back down. She was snoring moments later.

Markie sent him immediately to the pharmacy to apologize to the Levins, telling him their discussion about consequences could wait. She had no intention of being home alone when the animal was fully rested and back into jumping/running/barking/licking mode. Along with the food and bowls, Mrs. Saint had left a long tie-out leash for the yard, a luxurious-looking dog bed and matching blanket, a thin file about “Angel” that the pound had handed over, and a book about Australian sheepdogs. Markie glanced at the table of contents, and when she saw the chapter titled “High Intelligence, Higher Energy,” she closed the book, frowned at the sleeping animal, and silently cursed her neighbor for forcing on them the exact thing she didn’t need in her life right then.

She decided that when she and Jesse did get around to their consequences discussion, part of it would include a threat that if the dog became too much for her son to handle, they would take it straight back to the pound. Her capitulation had come during a moment of mental weakness, brought on by her hangover and caffeine withdrawal. Now that she had partially cured herself with two cups of strong coffee and three ibuprofen, she was thinking more clearly, and she was prepared to set some firm limits.

At about the time she was beginning to wonder how things were going at the pharmacy, Jesse walked in. She didn’t have to ask how it went: he was crying. She stood and opened her arms, but he evaded her hug and flopped onto the family room rug beside the crate. He unlatched the door and Angel rushed out, ready to play.

“No,” he told her quietly. “Just lie down.” To Markie’s surprise, the dog folded her legs, landing on her stomach, and nestled her nose into his neck. He pushed her gently on her side and buried his face in her furry chest, and Markie silently cursed her neighbor again—for forcing on them the exact thing her son needed in his life right then.

She gave him what she hoped was enough time, and then asked, “So I guess the Levins didn’t want to listen to your apology?”

“They listened,” he said, his voice muffled by the dog’s coat.

“Oh! Good. But then why are you—”

“He was devastated, Mom!” It wasn’t easy to make out his words, but he had his face pressed into the dog for a reason, so she wasn’t about to ask him to sit up and face her so she could hear him more clearly. After a while, Jesse rolled his head away from Angel and looked at his mother with red-rimmed eyes.

“He’s almost eighty,” he said, “and of course he has that German accent. I never added it up before.” He made a guttural noise then, his mouth twisting in self-hatred. “I’m such a jerk!” He waited for her to catch on, and when she didn’t, he said, “Have you heard of Kristallnacht?”

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