Wrapping her arms around her legs, she rested her forehead on her knees. “It’s not fair. I’ve been asking You ever since I turned fifteen for a boyfriend—for a husband ever since I turned twenty. What have I done so wrong that You’ve kept that from me?”

A large raindrop plastered hair to the top of her head. The cold water running down her neck made her feel even worse, adding insult to injury. She scooted back up the porch to lean against the house wall and pulled her coat closer. Driving rain sliced the air, eliminating her view of the tree-lined fence at the back of her half-acre lot. The squeaky moan of the floorboards did nothing to help her mood—one more thing that needed to be fixed.

She was just like this house. The part the world saw was complete, pulled together, polished; but inside, everything was a mess. The difference was that she could fix the house.

Lightning streaked, followed by booming thunder, the sky nearly black, water forming in vast pools in low-lying places in the yard. The porch boards moaned—no, that wasn’t possible. She wasn’t moving. Something else was making the noise.

The pounding rain nearly deafened her. She leaned over and pressed her ear to the crack between two floorboards.

Was that something whimpering? She crawled to the edge of the porch and leaned over, her head and shoulders instantly soaked. The trellis that enclosed the area under the porch broke away easily.

With one hand trying to keep her hair out of her eyes, the other sinking into the mud to keep her balance, Meredith hung half off the porch, trying to see under it.

No good—too dark.

She pushed herself up, and not caring about the rivulets of water—and mud—she tracked in, she ran into the dining room. From the bottom drawer of her tool chest, she grabbed the giant flashlight.

Back outside, she once again leaned over the edge of the decking. She flicked on the high-powered beam and swept it slowly from one side to the other—

There. Light reflected in two small eyes. Too big to be a rat, not close enough together to be a possum—or were they? No, the rounded shape of the shivering body was wrong.

Though the edge of the porch dug into her diaphragm, Meredith whistled. “Come ’ere,” she called in a high-pitched voice.

The shape moved—Meredith nearly lost her balance in surprise.

“Come on. That’s it. I’m not going to hurt you.” She ignored the water running up her face, filling her nose, and stinging her eyes but kept offering encouragement until she could finally see the puppy clearly.

A few long moments brought it close enough for her to make a grab for it—Meredith landed shoulders-first flat out on her back in the grass, face fully exposed to the drowning rain. And now she had a cold nose whuffling in her ear.

She grabbed the squatter, mud squishing between her fingers. Numb, soaked, and trembling, she struggled to her feet, puppy clenched firmly before her, and went inside.

“Look at the pair of us! Good thing we’ve got hot water, huh?” The heavy pup nearly wagged itself out of her grip. In the utility room, she set him down in the deep sink and hosed him off with the sprayer—revealing what looked like a puppy that was mostly black Lab, though his gangly legs, large muzzle, and huge feet indicated he had some other, bigger breed in his blood, too.

The caked mud and dirt gone, fur soaked down smooth, she could see the poor little guy’s ribs and hip bones. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

The tail thumped against the side of the sink. Meredith grabbed a towel off the stack of old ones she kept there for emergencies and did her best to wrap up the little bundle of energy. She carried him into the living room, dragged a drop cloth over in front of the space heater with her foot, and sat down to towel-dry the dog.

The towel proved too tempting, and the puppy grabbed a corner and started to play tug-of-war with her. After unsuccessfully trying to get him to behave, she finally gave in and just played with him.

Once they’d both stopped shivering, Meredith walked over to the small, dormitory-style fridge in the dining room. She crouched in front of it and, keeping the puppy at bay, pulled out the half loaf of bread. “I don’t know if you’d be able to eat roast beef.” She pushed the Vue de Ceil box back into the fridge, took out a slice of bread, and put the rest of it away.

After nearly snapping her fingers off the first couple of tries, she finally convinced him to take the bits of bread politely from her fingers. She held him over the utility sink to let him lap water from the faucet, then put him down.

She followed him around as he explored all the rooms in the house. After about twenty minutes, he curled up on the drop cloth in front of the space heater, heaved a huge yawn, and fell asleep.

Meredith shook her head and glanced at the ceiling. “If this is Your idea of a joke, God, I’m not laughing. I asked for a husband, not a dog.”

Chapter 3

“I want grandchildren, Major.”

Major tucked the blanket around his mother’s legs in the recliner. Her private room in the assisted-living facility was as homey as they could make it. “Ma, let’s just concentrate on getting you better.”

“I am better. My boy’s here.” She reached over and patted his cheek with her smooth, dry fingers. Though not quite sixty, his mother’s hard life showed in her sunken, dark-circled eyes and white hair.

He sank into the chair he’d pulled over beside her recliner. “You’re sure there was no episode?”

“That little boy just panicked. He’s an intern. He doesn’t know anything.”

“He said you were pacing the hall and yelling and wouldn’t stop when the nurse asked you to return to your room.” Major leaned forward, elbows propped on his knees.

“I was bored.”

“You were bored.”

“It’s boring here, if you haven’t noticed, son. Everyone who lives here is crazy—there’s no one to carry on a conversation with.”

No, no, no. She couldn’t want to move again. Beausoleil Pointe Center was the only assisted-living center for the psychologically challenged in this part of the state—over the last eight years, she’d lived in every other inpatient facility in the parish that would take psychiatric patients; she’d either demanded to be taken home, or Major had been told by the staff he had to remove her. If it happened again, he’d be forced to look at properties in Shreveport or Baton Rouge, both about two hours away. Which would mean moving. Leaving behind his friends, his job. And his dreams of possibly opening his restaurant this year—or ever—would vanish.

He clenched his fists and pressed them against the tops of his legs. “I thought you liked it here. Every time I come, you’re always in the lounge playing Rook or gossiping with the other ladies. Aren’t they your friends?”

“Yeah—the crazy ones.” She smiled, her blue eyes twinkling. “Crazy—I guess that’s me, too, or I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

Major shook his head and swallowed hard. “You’re not crazy. You’re schizophrenic. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve always done the best you could for me.” The words oozed with thick bitterness in his mouth. He hated feeling this way, hated resenting the fact that her illness kept him from pursuing his goals, from making his dreams reality.

“Sometimes I think I am crazy. Sometimes when the meds wear off and the hallucinations creep in...” She took hold of his hand. “Maybe I didn’t ... take my pills last night like I should have.”

Truth. Finally. “Maybe?”

“I wanted to watch Dick Clark on TV. The meds make me sleepy—they want us all doped up and asleep by eight o’clock. But it was New Year’s Eve. I always watch Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve. Although some young kid was on with him, and I didn’t like him at all. Looked like he was up to something. I think he’s trying to take that show away from Mr. Clark.”

“Well, Dick Clark is getting awfully old now. He needs help with that show. What did you do with the meds, Ma?”

“But I’ve always watched Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve—since Guy Lombardo went off. Talk about a great musician. That Guy Lombardo was something. Good-lookin’, too, before he got so old. Why don’t you like Guy Lombardo, Major?”

“I like Guy Lombardo just fine, but he died when I was just a kid. Ma, what did you do with your pills last night?”

“I think Dick Clark may have died a few years ago and was reanimated by scientists in some kind of experiment.”

“Ma—what?” Major rubbed his palms up and down his face.

“Well, you know they do it for commercials all the time—Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra. Natalie Cole did a duet with her reanimated father. And they brought back the popcorn guy, too—that Knickerbocker guy.”

“Redenbacher. And they’re not reanimated. They just use old footage of them and splice it into the new stuff—Mother, quit trying to throw me off the subject.” He paused for a moment to try to take the anger out of his voice. “What did you do with your meds last night?”

“I wanted to watch Dick Clark.”

“Yes. I got that part.” Inside, Major shouted with frustration.

She held her left hand out in front of her, forefinger and thumb pinched together. “Plop.” She opened her fingers. “Dropped them in the commode and flushed them away. Let the fishes go to sleep early on New Year’s Eve.”

He dropped his head into one hand and rubbed his eyes with the other so hard he saw white dots.

“But then when the nurse came to check on me later and saw I wasn’t asleep, she told me that I had to turn the TV off. Well, no one tells me to turn off Guy—Dick—whoever it was. But I wasn’t watching that anymore because there was a John Wayne movie on another channel, and I really wanted to watch that. They don’t understand about John Wayne here. Can you make sure they understand about John Wayne?”