The Words We Whisper by Mary Ellen Taylor

CHAPTER TWO

ZARA

Present Day

Saturday, June 5, 2:00 p.m.

Zara Mitchell had discovered more about death in her twenty-nine years than most learned in a lifetime.

As she held the small, trembling Chihuahua, Little Sister, close to her body, she leaned against her van warmed by the afternoon sun. Because of Little Sister and her two dogs, she was parked twenty feet away from the grave site, but she had a clear view of the military color guard as they slowly lifted the flag from the cherrywood coffin and folded it into a crisp, precise triangle. The motions of the uniformed soldiers were practiced, almost meditative, and everyone in this crowd watched.

The triangle settled into the white-gloved hands of a soldier barely old enough to shave and certainly not worldly enough to have such a solemn and stoic expression. He walked toward the white-haired woman sitting in the front row of folding chairs and handed the flag to her. There was sadness in her gray eyes but also relief and a sense of gratitude for the well-lived life of her husband, Colonel Harvey Wallace, who had passed at the age of eighty-two three days ago, in his bed, with Little Sister at his side.

Zara was a hospice nurse, and she had been to twelve funerals in the last seven years. Some were like this one, a final chapter, a closing of the hymnbook, so to speak. But others were so ripe with sadness the air curdled with a choking grief, making it impossible for mourners to draw in full breaths or speak without their voices breaking. Those funerals left a somber aftertaste that never really rinsed away.

Riflemen raised their guns toward the blue sky and fired. The pup in her arms looked up at her, whimpering. The dog shook more with the second and then third gun blasts and finally buried her head into the crook of Zara’s arm.

“It’s okay, Little Sister,” she said. “It’s almost over.”

A dog’s deep woof had Zara turning toward her van, where her two dogs, Gus and Billy, watched from their windows. She had left her engine running and the air-conditioning blasting, but the pups were restless.

Gus was a large, wiry terrier-lab mix with a stout body and long legs. Gray covered his dark snout as he looked to her for an explanation regarding the noise and, more importantly, the reason for the delay of their morning walk. Beside him sat Billy, a mutt with a short body and legs.

“It’s okay, fellas,” she whispered. “Like I told Little Sister, it’s just noise. We’re going to the park soon.”

At the mention of park, a staple in their lexicon, the big dogs wagged their tails. Her pups had traveled all over the country in her van. They had explored more parks than she could remember, but they all agreed walks in the woods restored the soul.

Knowing her boys would start making a fuss, she reached in her pocket and pulled out biscuits for both. They gobbled them up. She offered one to Little Sister, but the dog turned her face away.

Zara understood Little Sister was mourning as sharply as the humans dressed in black for her late owner. Likely more so, for now she worried over her uncertain fate.

The colonel’s youngest granddaughter had pledged to take Little Sister after the funeral to her home. So once Zara saw the dog safely placed, her duty to her client would be complete.

“Then it’s off to the park, boys.” Both wagged tails and nosed her hand, a signal they wanted head rubs.

If anyone understood Little Sister’s plight now, it was Billy and Gus. Both had been much-loved pets of Zara’s former clients who had left the earth before their times. Billy’s owner, Burt Thompson, had been a gentleman who had made a good living selling cars until ALS had wrecked his body. Gus’s owner had been a young attorney, Catherine Bernard, who had passed two years ago from ovarian cancer. She’d been thirty-two, and her untimely death had devastated too many lives. Neither dog had had anyone who was fit to take them, so she had.

When the colonel’s ceremony ended, the mourners stood around the grave, talking and sharing stories. Finally, a midsize blonde always filled with nervous energy approached Zara. She was the colonel’s granddaughter, Kelly Decker.

“Thanks for coming,” Kelly said. “It would’ve meant a lot to Granddad.”

“He was a great guy,” Zara said. “I took Little Sister for a walk, so she’s ready to go.”

“Hey, about Little Sister,” Kelly said. “What about you taking her? I mean, you’re great with dogs, and it’s pretty clear she loves you.”

“You told your grandfather you were taking her.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to upset him. And you didn’t know him before, but he could get really upset if he didn’t get what he wanted. That’s why I said I’d take the dog.”

Zara’s work had taught her that families were complicated. As death neared, the cracks often widened, and loved ones lied to each other in the name of kindness, peace, and harmony.

“I was talking to my husband, and our life is so crazy. We have the twins, and our youngest isn’t out of diapers. I don’t know what we’d do with a dog.”

Three dogs.

“I’ll pay you,” Kelly offered.

“It’s not about the money,” Zara said. “It’s about having three dogs.”

Kelly scratched Little Sister on the head, but the dog only burrowed deeper. “She’s small and will be easy to take care of. Besides, she’s ten, and how much longer can she live?”

Zara had taken the dog on enough walks to know she was strong and healthy, and given her size, Little Sister had another five to eight years in the tank. Three dogs. She would officially be the leader of a pack.

Gus and Billy woofed. She was not sure if that was a yes or no vote as she tightened her hold on the dog. Most motels tolerated two animals, and though she sometimes fudged on the boys’ weight, they were quiet and could be trusted not to chew furniture. Three dogs would cement her in a no-man’s-land of campgrounds, drive-through restaurants, and limited job opportunities.

No sane woman would take a third dog while balancing her crazy life. “Okay. I’ll take her.”

The woman’s relief was palpable. “There’ll be a bonus in your last check.”

“It’s not necessary.”

Kelly brushed aside a curl and looked eager to return to the lingering crowd. “We really appreciate what you did for Granddad.”

“That’s what I do.”

“Where do you get the patience? How do you spend so much time with the dying? It would make me so sad.”

Zara remembered how Kelly had always vanished when her grandfather had become ill and needed cleaning up. She called people like Kelly runners. “I appreciate life more when death is close.”

“Yeah, like a reminder to us all to seize the day,” Kelly said, more to herself.

“Basically.”

“Sometimes that’s easier said than done. Everyday life makes it hard to stop and smell the roses.”

“All the more reason,” Zara said.

“You don’t have three kids and a husband,” Kelly challenged. “My life is not my own.”

“Then whose is it?” Zara asked.

“You don’t get it.”

Zara let the silence linger between them.

Kelly’s brow knotted. “Well, thank you for all you did and for accepting the job as mom to Little Sister.”

“Sure.”

As Kelly turned and all but ran away, Zara looked at the dog. “You can stop hiding now, Little Sister. She’s gone, and you’re part of the pack.”

The dog looked up.

“That’s right, girlfriend. You’re a free spirit like the rest of us.” Little Sister weighed well under ten pounds, so tossing her in the back seat with the boys did not make sense. Until she decided where the pup fit in this new pack dynamic, Little Sister could get trampled. “Looks like you’re riding shotgun.”

Zara moved around to the driver’s side, slid behind the wheel, and grabbed a blanket from the back, arranging it on the front passenger seat. She settled the dog in the center of the threadbare blue blanket. “I hope you can read a map. That’s the navigator’s seat.”

The dog glanced at the pilling fabric and immediately pawed it, as if she were intent on digging a hole.

Zara’s phone rang, and she stared at the screen displaying the name of her older sister, Gina. Families were complicated. “Gina.”

“You have to come home.” Her sister’s annoyingly upbeat tone had hardened.

Zara leaned against the headrest. “I was home at Easter, and I’m scheduled to be there in late July.”

“Easter was two months ago, and July will be too late.”

Gina lived with their ninety-seven-year-old grandmother, Renata Mitchell, in Richmond, Virginia.

“What’s going on?” Zara asked. “Is Nonna okay?”

“She’s dying.”

“She’s been dying for years. You know how she gets worked up. She likes the attention.”

“No, it’s for real this time,” Gina said. “The doctors are giving her six weeks. Her heart is failing fast.”

Nonna had been a fixture in all their lives for so long Zara could not imagine the world without her. “Have you spoken to the doctor, or is this what Nonna is telling you?”

“I spoke to the damn doctor. She’s failing fast.” Gina’s voice turned uncharacteristically sharper.

Zara had planned a couple of days at the beach before visiting her grandmother. And given the addition of Little Sister, they were basically the kind of traveling circus that her grandmother hated.

Zara had moved in with Nonna and Papa when she was twelve. Her father had died seven years earlier in a car accident, and her mother had basically drunk herself to death. Her mother’s family did not really want the moody twelve-year-old Zara, but Nonna and Papa, already in their eighties, welcomed Zara into their home. Gina, the product of their father’s first marriage, was twenty-four when Zara moved into her grandparents’ house but still lived with Nonna and Papa under the guise she was saving money for graduate school. Gina’s relationship with her own mother had always been problematic, and she had been living with their grandparents for a year at that point.

Whereas Nonna was close to Gina, Zara always gravitated to her quiet, well-read grandfather, John Mitchell, who took her with him during her summer vacations to Washington, DC, to visit old associates from his time in the army. Whereas Nonna never spoke of the war, Papa enjoyed talking to his friends about their time in the army. Even after he opened a successful law practice, Papa still loved to travel, and each summer he would pack up Nonna, Gina, and Zara, and the four would take a road trip somewhere in the United States. The car rides were always an adventure and a study in patience. For every historic site Papa had seen, Nonna had taken time to visit a thrift shop, and by the time they’d returned to Richmond, the trunk had been full of historical books and vintage clothing. Zara supposed she had inherited her wanderer tendencies from her grandfather.

Gina and Nonna had both shared a love of fashion and had always enjoyed each other’s company. Zara had been a kind of odd man out in their trio, and she had never wedged a place in their lives. When her grandfather had died seven years ago, her last solid link to the family had vanished, and she had taken the traveling nurse job. Seeing Gina and Nonna at Christmas, Easter, and Nonna’s birthday had become a kind of middle ground that suited them all.

Tiny paws stepped onto her lap, and she watched Little Sister circling and looking for a comfortable spot. She rubbed her head.

“I’m in North Carolina,” Zara said. “I can leave in the next couple of hours, but I won’t be there until very late.”

Gina’s relieved sigh cut across the line. “Fine. As long as I know you’re coming.”

Little Sister yipped, reminding Zara of her promise to take them to the park.

“Is that Billy or Gus?” Gina asked. “He sounds funny.”

“That’s because that’s Little Sister.”

“Who?”

“Little Sister. I now have three dogs.” She glanced in the rearview mirror at the boys and smiled as she rubbed Little Sister’s head.

“Shit, Zara. Three dogs. Is that really wise?” Gina asked.

“It’s not, but that’s never stopped me before.”

“You’re there for everyone,” she said quietly. “Now you need to be here for us. I can’t do this alone, Zara.”

She stared out the van’s front window toward the mourners as they dispersed. It was one thing to walk strangers through the process of dying, but it was another to apply the lessons to family.

She thought back to their own father’s funeral, when she had been five and Gina seventeen. The reception had been at Nonna and Papa’s house and had included a collection of family friends, her father’s work associates, and several former girlfriends. Gina’s mother had attended, but she and Gina had soon been fighting. Zara’s mother had refused to attend and had told Papa if he wanted Zara there, he could come and get her. He had.

The funeral had been grim, and Zara had felt out of place and lost until Gina had grabbed the keys to Nonna’s car and found five-year-old Zara sitting alone at a folding table, pushing around a plate filled with casseroles and fruit salads.

“You want to blow this party, kid?” Gina asked.

“Can we?” Zara asked.

“Sure, why not?”

Zara looked up into her sister’s eyes, reflecting the anger and frustration mirroring her own heart. “Nonna will be mad if we leave.”

“We’ll get her strawberry ice cream while we’re out. She’ll get over it. Come on, kid.”

Zara followed her big sister to the car; sat in the front seat, something she had never done before; and clicked her seat belt in place. Gina cranked Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Let Her Cry” on the radio, slid on her white-rimmed sunglasses, and revved the engine. “Hang tight, kid.”

For the first time in weeks, Zara was hopeful.

“Hang tight. I’m on the way, Gina,” Zara said.