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Authors: Fern Michaels

BOOK: Finders Keepers
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Grace sprinted across the lot just as the golden dog collapsed. She gasped at his raw and bleeding paws. He was matted and dirty, his eyes crusty, his lips cracked and bleeding. The sound of his whimpering was heartbreaking. “Quick, Jonah, get some water and bring your truck. We have to get him to the vet right away. It's going to be all right, Jelly. Please, God, I need you to help me. Let this dog live. For Hannah when she comes back. For me for now because it's all I have. Please, God. I'm begging you. Don't let anything happen to this dog. Please. Please, help him.” Grace swore later that she knew the moment she finished uttering her small prayer that Jelly felt the power of another being because he struggled to lick her hand and wag his tail.
“Just give him little sips of water, Grace,” Jonah said. “Not too much. Can you get him in the truck?”
“I can get him in the truck, Jonah. I want you to drive like a bat out of hell. As soon as you hit the parking lot of the clinic start blasting your horn.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“My God, Grace,” Charlie Zeback exclaimed when he heard the horn and came running.
“Whatever it takes, do. I don't care how much it costs. I'm staying with him, so don't even think about asking me to leave.”
Four hours later Grace said, “I'm taking him home, Charlie. He'll mend faster at home. I don't know how to thank you.”
“He's not out of the woods, Grace. He's going to need constant care. I'll come by later tonight to check on him. It will be around midnight or so. Is that too late?”
“That's fine. I want to make sure I have this right. He can lick ice cubes and he gets a spoonful of boiled ground beef every hour. You hydrated him. We're putting doggie diapers on him so he doesn't have to get up and down. He's not to walk on his paws at all. I can carry him, that's no problem. I have the ointment for his mouth and the drops for his eyes. He's going to be okay, isn't he, Charlie? I want the truth.”
“I think he's going to make it. Lord, I wish he could talk.”
Grace started to cry. “He ran himself ragged trying to save Hannah. He must have run after a car. Can I pay you later, Charlie?”
“No, you cannot. This one is on the house. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I charged you for this. Call me if there's a problem. Ben just pulled up. Do you want me to carry him out to the car?”
“I'll carry him, Charlie. He needs me. And I need him.”
Ben offered to carry Jelly into the house. “No, I'll carry him,” Grace said. “Will you cook up some hamburger for him. You have to boil it. Bring it upstairs with a bowl of ice and all that stuff Charlie gave me.”
“Upstairs? Aren't you going to keep him in the kitchen?”
“No.”
Grace struggled upstairs with the heavy dog. Breathing like a racehorse, she made it to Hannah's small, colorful bedroom. Holding the yellow dog securely, she sat down in the rocking chair. “Hush little baby, don't you cry ...” Tears splashed down on the dog's head. “I know you did your best. You're going to be fine. We'll do what we can. That means we'll do our best. Sleep now, Jelly. You're safe. Thank you, God.” Grace wasn't sure, but she thought the big dog sighed with relief. An instant later he was asleep in her lap. She continued to rock him, singing the familiar lullabies she used to sing to Hannah.
“Grace, it's three o'clock in the morning. Aren't you coming to bed?” Ben said from the doorway. He listened to the dog's painful whimpering—or was it Grace whimpering? It was hard to tell. He wanted to pray at that moment. The need was so strong he felt his knees start to give way.
“No, Ben, I'm not. I'm going to sit here with this dog forever or as long as it takes him to regain his strength and until his paws heal. I might be sitting in this chair for a month. This is my only link to Hannah. When he's well he might be able to lead us to the place where he lost our daughter. It's a miracle we got him back. Four days, Ben! Four damn days! Look at him! He was almost dead, but he made it back to the station. I told you he would. I knew it. I just knew it. Go back to bed. We'll talk in the morning.”
They didn't talk in the morning. They didn't talk for days. Grace grew haggard and gaunt, Ben just as gaunt and haggard.
On the sixth day, Jelly wiggled and squirmed in Grace's arms. He wanted down, and he wanted the contraption wrapped around his back end off. Grace ran to the linen closet for an old towel she laid by the door. On wobbly legs, the bandages still wrapped around his paws, he lifted his leg. “It's okay, Jelly, that's what it's for. How about some food. Good stuff, hamburger and dog food mixed together.” Jelly wolfed it down in seconds.
Grace howled her misery when the dog leaped into Hannah's small bed. With his bandaged paws he made a nest for himself, his eyes soulful when he stared at Grace.
“Maybe she'll come back someday, Jelly. I just don't know. Everyone is doing what they can. It just isn't good enough. In another month those same people will be saying, Hannah who? I don't pray anymore. I try, but the words stick in my throat. I asked God to keep you alive. That was my last prayer. I don't even know if I believe in God anymore. I miss her so much, Jelly. I don't know what to do anymore.”
Grace slid onto the bed and stretched out next to the golden dog. She cried in her sleep, tears rolling down her cheeks. The dog licked them away, his eyes ever watchful.
It was all he could do.
 
The last golden days of summer fled with the tourists, some of them passing through Ashton Falls on their way home to ready the children for school and the Labor Day picnics that flourished in backyards across the country.
Ten weeks later Hannah Larson's pink stroller and Jelly's frayed rope still stood sentinel at Jonah Delaney's filling station, along with a poster-size picture of the missing toddler.
Little progress had been made in the ten weeks since Hannah's disappearance. As one federal agent put it, “It's like the earth opened and swallowed the little girl.” The bureau brought in bloodhounds. Twice the agents took Jelly and the Larsons out in the car, stopping every few miles for Jelly to get out of the car to see if he could pick up the scent. The agents could only marvel when the retriever reached the point where he'd either given up or he could no longer follow the car carrying Hannah. The loyal dog had run a total of 135 miles. The AP wire service flashed his heroics around the country to no avail. He still wore booties filled with lamb's wool, the pads of his paws slowly healing with the ointment Grace applied three times a day.
One of the ladies from St. Gabriel's Altar Society presented Grace and Ben with a thick scrapbook of newspaper clippings that detailed Hannah's disappearance and Jelly's heroics. “For when Hannah comes back, Grace,” she had said. “Put it away and don't torment yourself by looking at it.” Grace had put it in Hannah's sock drawer and swore she would never ever look at it.
Grace was unemployed these days because the grocery store wouldn't allow her to keep Jelly with her. Sanitary reasons, the manager had said. She didn't care. Instead of working she dragged her sewing machine into Hannah's bedroom, where she sewed dresses and playsuits for Hannah, beautiful clothes with bits of lace and colorful rickrack. Often she sewed far into the night, Jelly at her side, Ben alone in their room. She didn't care about that either.
The holidays passed in a blur of misery. There was no Christmas tree, no wrapped presents, no Christmas cookies. Grace refused to attend Midnight Mass, so Ben and his parents went alone. She spent Christmas day knitting a bright red sweater for Hannah, a sweater she knew the little girl would never wear.
By the time winter passed and the first daffodils sprouted in the front yard, Ben Larson was spending more time racing home to check on his wife than he was working. His termination slip arrived the day before Good Friday. Grace shrugged when she looked at the pink slip. She continued to sew and knit.
The day Ben's unemployment ran out the mortgage company foreclosed on the small two-bedroom house. Cyril Andrews and Nick Larson, along with Ben, carried Grace kicking and screaming from the small bedroom that had once been Hannah's room.
Later, when the townspeople spoke about Grace, they shook their heads, and whispered, “A nervous breakdown is nothing to be ashamed of.” Then they would go on to say, “Time will heal Grace's wounds.”
They were wrong. Two years went by before Father Mitchell took matters in his own hands and announced at early Mass that the following week was going to be dedicated to Grace and Ben Larson. Translated it meant the good people of Ashton Falls were going to build a house for the young couple on land donated by the parish. To further sweeten the deal Ben was offered the job of custodian of St. Gabriel's when seventy-seven-year-old Malcom Fortensky retired. The women from the Altar Society took it upon themselves to refurbish the Larsons' furniture, which was stored in their families' basements.
Grace, Ben, and Jelly at her side, wept when she walked through the small house that was almost a replica of the one they had once owned.
As Father Mitchell put it, it was time for Grace and Ben to join the living again.
When they retired for the night, Grace said, “I want a baby, Ben. It's been three years.”
Exactly one year later, a seven-pound-nine-ounce baby boy named John was born to the Larsons. That same year, Jelly fathered a litter of six. The pick of the litter was named Jelly Junior.
2
Charleston, South Carolina
1965
 
The little girl looked wistfully at her classmates as they skipped off holding hands. She wished she could run alongside them, singing at the top of her lungs the way they were doing. She hung back, not wanting to get into the limousine that dropped her off and picked her up every day after school. She knew her mother was sitting in the backseat, watching her behind the heavily tinted windows. The moment Thea Roland stepped out of the car to the curb, the other children stopped to stare. Dressed in a swirling flowered dress with matching floppy-brimmed hat and short white gloves, she handed her daughter a single yellow rose. Jessie accepted the rose because it was a ritual her mother went through every day. She hated the roses, hated the way her mother looked. Why couldn't she dress like the other mothers who came to pick up their children in station wagons, wearing jeans or slacks, their hair tied in ponytails? Jessie suffered through the paralyzing hug and sickening kiss of adoration before she climbed into the backseat of the limousine.
“Now, tell Mama what kind of day you had, sweetheart. You look tired. Do you feel all right?”
“It was a nice day, Mama. I got red A's on all my homework. Sheila told the class she climbed a tree all the way to the top. Marcy said she went canoeing with her father. Claire Marie said her daddy built her a tree house, and she had a tea party. She invited all the girls to the tea party. She asked me why I didn't come. I told her I didn't know she invited me. I wanted to go, Mama.”
“I don't want you scampering up and down trees. It isn't ladylike. You and I can have a tea party when we get home. Miss Ellie baked cookies today just for you. Won't that be nice? Now, slide over here and sit on my lap and tell me what else happened in school today.”
“I'm getting too big to sit on your lap, Mama. You shouldn't hold my hand when you walk me to the door in the morning. The girls laugh at me and call me a baby.”
“You are my baby, Jessie. They're just jealous because their mothers are too busy. Those mothers can't wait to get rid of their children in the morning. I count the hours until it's time to pick you up. Tell me what you want to do after we have our tea party. Do you want to ride in your electric car or do you want to ride your pony? Samuel finished painting the trim on your playhouse this morning. He said it would be dry by the time you got home from school. School will be out in another week. And then it's that magical day—
your birthday
. Have you been thinking about what you'd like for a present?”
“Yes. I want a pair of blue jeans, some sneakers, and a beanie. I want one of those book bags that the other girls have. I hate this book bag. Nobody has a flowered book bag. I want a dog. Everyone has a dog.”
“Darling, that bag cost a hundred dollars. If the other girls had a hundred dollars to spend, they'd have one just like it. Mama is allergic to animals, so you can't have a dog.”
“I could keep the dog in the playhouse. The kind of book bags the other girls have only cost five dollars. Why can't I dress the way they do? I want a dog.” Jessie jerked her hand away and slid to the corner of her seat, away from her mother.
Thea Roland sighed as though the weight of the world settled on her shoulders. “Sweetheart, those girls dress that way because it's all their parents can afford. They think it's fashionable, but in reality it is quite tacky. Their parents are probably struggling to pay the tuition here at Miss Primrose's school. Daddy and I don't want you looking like a ragamuffin.”
Jessie's voice took on a stubborn tone. “I want to look like everyone else. If I looked like everyone else, maybe the girls would eat lunch with me or ask me to skip rope at recess. They don't like me, Mama.”
“I told you, Jessie, they're jealous of you. Would you like to go to another school?”
“Mama, this is school number four. I don't like starting over.”
“Let's talk about what we're going to do for your birthday. Daddy wants to have a big party for you. We'll invite everyone from your class.”
“Can I invite Sophie?” Sophie was the daughter of Thea's best friend in Atlanta. She was a year older than Jessie and came to visit twice a year. Jessie adored her.
“I don't see why not. I'll call her mother tonight.”
“Can I talk to Sophie?”
“We'll see.”
“Daddy promised to put a telephone in my room so I could call Sophie when I wanted to. He said I could have one in the playhouse, too.”
“I'll talk to him.”
“When?”
“At dinnertime.”
“Will you promise?”
“Yes, Jessie, I promise. Now, slide over here and give me a big kiss.”
Jessie inched her way over to her mother. She wanted to cry, but then her mother would think she was sick and take her to the doctor or else she'd give her a laxative and a cup of stinky tea that tasted like dirt from the backyard.
The moment the huge car stopped under the portico, Jessie leaped out.
“Change your clothes, darling. Everything is laid out on your bed. I'll arrange for our tea party. I think some of Ellie's ice cream will go nicely with those fat sugar cookies she made this morning.”
Jessie slammed the door shut. If she had one wish in life it would be that the door had a lock. She looked around at the elaborate bedroom that had its own sitting room. She didn't like it at all.
The frilly playsuit beckoned with the matching socks and sandals. She felt the urge to cry again. “I just want a friend,” she whimpered.
Jessie's eyes narrowed when she heard her mother call from the bottom of the steps. “Our tea party is ready, darling.” Defiantly Jessie sat down on the bed. She looked around at what her father called Princess Jessie's bedroom. It looked just like Mac Neals toy store on King Street. As soon as a new toy or game came on the market, it was hand-delivered, and then she was forced to play with it with her parents. Everything was bright and shiny new because she didn't want to disturb her mother's arrangements. She knew when she was dropped off at school that her mother rushed home to arrange everything to her liking. She flopped back on the bed to stare up at the lacy canopy overhead. Belgium lace, whatever that was, hung in folds and drapes.
“Jessie, sweetheart, what
are
you doing up there?”
“I'm coming, Mama.”
Jessie suffered through the tea party and the obligatory ride around the garden in her electric car. She did two turns on the sliding board, allowing her mother to push her on the swing before she was forced to ride her own personal carousel and what her mother called her pony. Raucous music filled the garden. She heaved a sigh of relief when the merry-go-round shut down.
“Would you like to play Old Maid or Candy Land, sweetie?”
“I have a lot of homework, Mama. I'm going into the playhouse to do it.”
“Goodness, I'm going to have to speak to Miss Primrose. It's almost the end of the year. You shouldn't have homework now.”
“Mama, please don't talk to Miss Primrose. Today is the last day of homework. I want to make sure I do it perfectly.” From years of experience, Jessie knew if she hugged and kissed her mother and said, “I love you,” she would allow almost anything.
“Ah, that's my girl. Mama loves you so much it hurts. I'll wait on the verandah for you. When you're finished with your schoolwork we can take a walk around the garden and perhaps pick some flowers for your room.”
“All right, Mama. You won't forget to ask Daddy about the phone, will you?”
“Don't I always do what's best for you?”
“Yes, Mama.”
Inside the playhouse that was really three small rooms complete with bathroom, Jessie went straight to what she called her bedroom. She tossed her books onto the built-in bunk bed. Everything was neat and tidy, the games and toys frayed and used. It was cozy here with the small white rocking chair and stacks of books. She loved the bright colors, but something was missing. She reached up to the lowest shelf for a giant teddy bear. It belonged, but it didn't belong. She sat down on the floor, Indian fashion and waited. She did this every day and didn't know why. She rolled over and over on the thick carpeting and didn't know why she did that either. Something was supposed to happen, but it never did. What? She forgot about her homework that really wasn't homework at all. All she was supposed to do was erase all the pencil marks she'd made in her books during the year. She hadn't made any marks, so there was nothing to erase. Her books would be perfect when she turned them in.
Jessie waited expectantly for something to happen. When it didn't, she reached for the teddy bear and started to stroke its furry head. Within seconds she was asleep on the floor, the teddy bear alongside her.
“I'm going to huff and puff and blow this place down,” a voice shouted from the small doorway.”
Jessie woke with a start. “Daddy!” she squealed. “Are you home early?”
“I came home early just to see my princess. Did you finish your homework?”
“All done. Daddy, you promised I could have a phone in my room and one in the playhouse. Are you going to keep your promise?”
Barnes Roland clucked his tongue. “When you come home from school tomorrow it will be hooked up. Do you want a colored one or one of those old black ones?”
“I love bright colors. Red. I love red.”
“Then red it is.”
“Can I call Sophie as much as I want?”
“As long as Sophie and her mother don't mind, I don't see any reason why you can't.”
“Is that a true promise?”
“It's a true promise. Where's your mother?”
“She said she was going to sit on the verandah until I finished my homework.”
“She wasn't there when I got home. Let's ask Miss Ellie if she knows where she is.”
Moments later, Jessie's fears were realized. “Miz Thea went to see Miss Primrose.”
Jessie started to cry. “Now it's going to be worse, Daddy. She's going to make Miss Primrose do something. Nobody will want to come to my party. Mama is going to tell Miss Primrose they have to come. I don't want a party.”
“If you don't want a party, then we won't have a party. Shhh, don't cry. Do you want to tell me what else is wrong?”
“Daddy, I'm going to go into the fifth grade next year. Mama still walks me to the door, and the kids make fun of me. Why can't I walk to school? I don't have any friends, Daddy. Sophie is the only girl Mama likes. She said the girls at school are white trash. I asked Miss Primrose what that meant, and she wouldn't tell me. She said all her students were fine young ladies.”
“My goodness, that's a long list of grievances. I'll talk to your mother this evening. I brought you a present. Your mother isn't going to like it one little bit. I put it on the steps. Get it, run to your bedroom, and unwrap it. Then come down and tell me how you like it.”
“Are you sure Mama won't like it?”
“I'm positive.”
“Will you wait for me at the bottom of the steps?”
“I'll wait.”
“Overalls!” Barnes heard her scream. “I love you, Daddy! Wait till you see me!”
“You look like a farmer's daughter.” Barnes laughed. “I don't think your mother will let you wear those in public.” Jessie threw her arms around her father and gave him a smacking big kiss.
 
The front door slammed shut behind Thea Roland. Her gaze was venomous as she witnessed the spontaneity of Jessie's kiss to her father. She didn't miss the denim overalls on her daughter. “I want to talk to you, Barnes. In the library. Jessie, darling, run upstairs and dress for dinner. The lavender dress with the white collar will do nicely.”
“No. I want to wear these. Daddy gave them to me.”
“Do as I say, Jessie. We always dress for dinner.”
“I'll eat in the kitchen with Ellie.”
“You will not eat in the kitchen with a servant. Now go upstairs and change into the lavender dress.”
Jessie dug her toes into the carpet. One hissy fit coming up. She jumped up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs. “No! No! I hate that dress. No! I'm going to wear these overalls forever and ever. I'm going to sleep in them!”
“Good God! Now look what you've done, Barnes. Our daughter has thrown a temper tantrum. What are you going to do about it?”
“I am not going to do anything. Children do that from time to time when they have overbearing mothers. You said you wanted to talk to me.”
Thea stomped her way to the library. Barnes held back for a minute and winked at his daughter. “It was a hissy fit, Daddy.”

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