Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(66)

He had, indeed, managed to eat a burger without knocking out his loose tooth. And there is, indeed, an all-night diner around here. Grant had driven straight there—on back roads, of course—after they left Doctor Bailey’s office. He even managed to convince her that the crateful of felines would be fine in the car for half an hour while they went inside to get a bite to eat.

How could she refuse? Max was beside himself with excitement at being out in a restaurant so late at night, especially when Grant told him to order anything he wanted.

“You, too,” he said to Bella. “It’s on me.”

He wouldn’t take no for an answer—about the money or the food. Anyway, she suddenly seemed to have a voracious appetite, as did Max. So she pushed aside her misgivings about her son eating burgers and fries with someone who wasn’t Sam. She ordered a meal for herself, too, and she let Grant pay. She felt guilty, but she had no choice.

Lately, she doesn’t seem to have a choice about anything, does she?

With a yawn, she gets out of bed quietly so as not to disturb Max and starts to feel her way across the room toward the crate.

Her bare foot slams into the post at the foot of the bed.

“Ouch!” She hops, rubbing her stubbed pinky toe.

Max stirs. “Mommy?”

“It’s okay, kiddo. I’m just being clumsy as usual,” she whispers. “Go back to sleep.”

“What about the kitties?”

“They’re fine. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of them.”

And you. And everything.

I’ve got this.

Beyond the window, the sky has cleared, and the light of a fat full moon spills through the lace curtains, pooling on the floor where Chance lies nursing all but one of her kittens. Little Spidey, as she now affectionately calls him—“for short”—is nestled at his mother’s furry side, his faint mews only audible when Bella is standing right over him.

She swiftly assembles the syringe, the tube, the formula, and a soft cloth on Leona’s dresser top and measures two milliliters of formula into the syringe the way Doctor Bailey showed her. Then she gingerly extracts the runt from the nest, swaddles him in the cloth, and gently inserts the tube into his mouth. The veterinarian was right. He’s learning to swallow it without as much of a struggle now, knowing that it will result in a comfortably full belly for a while.

For the third time since they left the animal hospital, she settles wearily into a chair to feed him.

Sitting there in the moonlight dutifully tending to a swaddled, famished newborn, she realizes that every part of her—save her throbbing toe—is numb with exhaustion. Tube and syringe aside, it all feels so familiar . . .

Just like the wee-hour feedings when Max was a baby.

Five years ago, he slept in a cradle on her side of the king-sized bed in a room very much like this one. She nursed him in a chair by the window.

At first, in a valiant show of parental solidarity, Sam insisted on getting up with her for every feeding. He would hover, perched on the arm of the chair, watching Max eat, making conversation when she would have preferred the quiet.

“I’m afraid that if I don’t talk to you, you’ll fall asleep,” he’d say.

“Believe me, I won’t.”

“But I might.” She can hear his laugh, hear him offering to burp the baby and singing silly songs to Max as he changed his diaper afterward.

Eventually, the novelty wore off, and Bella told him not to bother getting up. He had an early commuter train to catch, and anyway, she didn’t mind when it was just her and Max. Just mother and son with the world all to themselves in those hushed hours.

Yawning deeply, lost in drowsy twilight, she can hear Sam’s voice calling from the bed, “Are you two okay over there, Bella Blue?”

“We’re okay,” she whispers, and for a moment, before reality dawns, she expects a reply.

Why do memories of Sam seem to pop up more constantly here than they even did back home?

Not at first, of course. The first few months after she lost him, there was a constant ache. But as time went on, before she left Bedford, there were occasions when she almost forgot. There would be moments when she’d be going about her daily business—at work, at the grocery store, even, sometimes, at home—and she would feel like her old self again.

Here in Lily Dale, though . . .

It’s like he’s everywhere.

Maybe these people are rubbing off on her, with their philosophy that the dead are hanging around among, and interacting with, the living.

All the more reason to get out of here as soon as she can.

Chance’s eyes glitter in the dark, keeping a protective watch over her kitten on Bella’s lap.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers—one mom to another. “I promise. I’ll figure it out.”

It was too late when they returned to the Dale to talk to Odelia about taking on the cat and kittens, plus this special-needs one. And she didn’t want to bring it up to Grant in front of Max.

The two of them seemed to have bonded over the binoculars while Bella was otherwise occupied in the hospital room. Over their late-night meal at the diner, Grant regaled her son with tales of his exotic travels. He’d dined with sultans, hunted big game, climbed the highest mountains, sailed the seven seas, and seen all seven wonders of the world—and then some.