Page 84 of Wayward

“No,” he insisted. “Not at all.”

She only smiled at him.

ELEVEN

“You know,” Ada was saying as she and I walked together toward the bungalow two weeks later, Misha running in front of us, or more accurately, bounding, as he was leaping in little arcs, “the house is so very big, perhaps instead of having you and Misha live out here, the two of you should move in with me, and we could offer the bungalow as an incentive for the vet we’ll hire and keep on staff.”

“That’s a very kind offer, but we’re going to have Dr. Coleman be our vet,” I explained. “We’ll partner with his clinic, which will help make certain that it remains in our community, which benefits not only us, but others.”

“So then each new dog or cat we get in will go to Dr. Coleman’s clinic?”

“Exactly. But I do think the bungalow can be made into the office and perhaps a place to keep animals who need to be quarantined. Once we break ground on that, we’ll make certain we fence the entire area from where the barn is back to the edge of the property.”

“Why not from where the drive begins at the frontage road? All that land is mine.”

“And what does Gale own?”

“Oh, I see what you’re saying. His piece is strange. It’s that square the house sits on and two acres back.”

“Okay. So we need to start, in my opinion, from the barn.”

“Well, you know best.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but it’s sweet of you. What I do know is that we need to have a conversation with a reputable builder, and they’ll be able to tell us what can be zoned for residential and what can be zoned for commercial. Our sanctuary will be a bit different as we’ll be a nonprofit, so I’m fairly certain we can put a nonprofit near a residence, but again, a builder who knows all about permits and what can go where will know precisely what we can do.”

“You’re so clever, Maks. I really am so fortunate to have you here.”

“Keep that in mind, please, when we start to have conversations about the house.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” she grumbled.

I smiled at her. “Here’s the thing. You have so many salons in the house and little puzzle-box rooms that fit together, and I’m wondering if a more open layout might be better, especially if, let’s say, Eugenia stays long-term, has a family, or if there are other people whom you might want to invite down the road.”

“You mean friends in need or other relatives.”

“A generational home. That’s what my mother had growing up, and she loved it. Her grandparents on the ground floor, then her parents and she and her brothers, then unmarried aunts and others above them.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“Your folks are gone—”

“Thank God.”

“Ada, that’s not nice.”

“Oh, Maks,” she said with a shiver. “If you knew them, you’d be happy too.”

I couldn’t very well argue the point with her about parents since my father was the devil incarnate. “Did you like your grandparents?”

Her smile was instantaneous. “I did. Especially my mother’s mother.”

“There, see? I miss my mother every day, and my grandmother, and I mean this in the best way when I say that you remind me of them.”

“Oh, Maks, I take no offense. I’m sure your grandmother was charming.”

“She really was and—what is that?” I yelled at Misha, seeing him shove his nose into the dirt. “What’re you doing?”

Letting go of Ada’s arm, I bolted over. Apparently, he’d found an anthill. “No,” I said, picking him up and tucking him against my chest. “We don’t know what kind of ants those are. What if they can kill you?”