Hello Love (17 page)

THIRTY-THREE

When Dan woke up the next morning, his first thought was that he should stop at the Phoenix Health Care Center after work. A few days earlier, Lindsay had made copies of a photo of Anni with their contact information, which she’d e-mailed to the nursing home. The administrator had e-mailed back saying they’d have to bring in physical copies if they wanted them posted on each floor, something his daughter found infuriating. Her biggest search strategies for finding Anni so far had involved trying to get the dog’s photo to go viral on Facebook. She didn’t understand that not everyone was as tech savvy. “How lame is this?” Lindsay had said, holding her phone out so that he could read the woman’s response.

He couldn’t see it without his reading glasses, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “Just tell me what she said.”

After Lindsay explained, she said, “Like they couldn’t just print them off at their end. Jeez!” The last word was said as if she alone carried the weight of the world, and had to do
everything.
“How lazy can you be?”

“It might not be laziness,” Dan said, feeling empathy for the poor woman. “It’s probably just company policy.” He knew a thing or two about that. Sometimes in business, things got so convoluted.

“What kind of policy doesn’t let people find a lost dog? I mean, please, people, have a heart.”

After that she’d printed the notice on regular printer paper, and left a stack on the kitchen table with a Post-it note asking him to drop them off as soon as he could. Every morning he looked at the fliers, sighing over the photo of Anni’s little face, and every day he had a good reason why that particular day wouldn’t work out. He’d been working longer days lately, trying to get the new lager line up and running, and hadn’t been getting home before seven as it was, but today he woke up with the thought in his head that dropping off those sheets was a priority. He’d let it wait for far too long. He’d make a point to leave at five thirty at the latest, drive straight to the Phoenix Health Care Center, and get the chore done.

That would give Lindsay peace of mind. She still had it in her head that Anni was out there, just waiting for them to find her and bring her home. He appreciated her faith, even as he didn’t share it. Anni had been gone too long. With every passing day his hope was being chipped away, and now the thought of ever finding Anni seemed remote at best.

He stuffed the printouts in his briefcase right before he left the house, and when he left work at night, he double-checked to make sure they were still there before heading out to his truck. His day had gone well, no big problems at work, and not too many small ones either.

Dan slid behind the wheel, noting that he didn’t even have to brush snow off his windshield. He pulled out of the parking lot without having to wait for oncoming traffic, and hit all the green lights on the way to the expressway. This is how it always went, it seemed to him. On good days everything lined up perfectly, like the universe was trying to help you along. And on bad days? Well, on bad days, you better watch out because if something bad was going to happen, it would, and there’d be no stopping it. Today, though, was a good day. He’d had that feeling from the moment he’d awoken.

He got a good space in the nursing home parking lot too, watching as a car vacated a space in the front row around the side of the building, and grabbing the spot immediately after it pulled out. If the woman at the front desk wasn’t busy, he could dash in and out and be on his way home in minutes. He was feeling so charitable that it occurred to him he could stop in and see Nadine while he was here, but then he rationalized that dinnertime might not be ideal for a visit. Soon, though, some weekend day very soon.

He went through the glass doors, relieved to see that the woman at the front desk didn’t look busy. She had a friendly-looking older woman look, big smile, gray hair done up in some kind of beehive thing teased up five inches from the top of her head. “What can I help you with, hon?” she asked in a high-pitched, Minnie Mouse voice.

Dan set his briefcase on the floor and told her about their previous visit, about how Nadine, a family friend, claimed she had seen their stolen dog visiting at the Phoenix Health Care Center. That was as far as he’d gotten, when the woman interrupted. “You said your friend is up on the third floor?” When he nodded, she said, “You know that’s our cognitive impairment floor.”

“I understand that—”

“Many of our residents up on the third floor are so easily confused.” When she shook her head, her hair didn’t move, not one iota. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.”

Dan gritted his teeth. “I realize this, really I do. But you have to understand that my daughter is heartbroken over this.” He was too, if the truth be told. “And I promised her I’d drop these off and make sure they got distributed on every floor in your facility. If there’s any chance at all that this would help us find our do
g . . .
well, we’ve looked everywhere else.”

“I see.”

“We e-mailed ahead of time, and Ms. Kasbaum said it would be fine.”

“Oh,” she said, brightening. “If Ms. Kasbaum said it’s okay, then it’s fine by me.”

“Great.” He set his briefcase on the counter, snapped open both sides, and grabbed the stack of papers, conveniently paper clipped by Lindsay. Closing it up again, he grabbed the handle and, at the same time, handed her the printouts. “Our contact information is at the bottom,” he said, stating the obvious. “My daughter and I thank you. We really appreciate it.”

Dan was almost to the glass doors when he heard the woman cry out, “Wait, wait just a minute.” He turned to see her waving the sheet over her head. “I’ve seen your dog.”

His heart picked up, matching the pace of his footsteps as he made his way back to the counter. “You’ve seen her? When?” For a split second he allowed himself to hope.

She stood up and he understood the reason for the tall hair. She wasn’t much taller on her feet than she had been sitting. Her words came out in an excited, breathy stream. “I mean I just saw her, today. At least it looks like the same dog. I mean, could there be two that look the same? I guess there could be, but boy, she looks just like the photo. Exactly like this photo.”

Dan swallowed. “Okay, let’s back up for a minute. The dog that looks like Anni was here today? Who brought her?”

“A young woman. Late twenties, or maybe thirty, it’s hard to tell. Kind of long brown hair, well, not real long, just past her shoulders, I guess. Pale skin, very pretty. That’s all I know.” She held out one empty hand apologetically. “She had a nice smile.”

“She was a visitor, or what?”

“Visiting a resident, I guess. She’d been here before, so I just waved her throug
h . . .
” Her face grew stricken as she spoke and Dan knew why.

“So she didn’t sign in,” he said. It was only a guess, but her face already told him the answer.

“No, she didn’t sign in,” she said. “I’m sorry. I always follow the rules, but I was on the phone and someone was waiting to ask me a question, and she was such a good little dog. She’d been here before and everything was fine. I thought it would be okay. I’m just a volunteer.” Her face crumpled like she was about to cry.

“It’s okay,” Dan said. “If she’s been here twice, chances are she’ll come back, right?”

“Right.” The woman pulled a tissue out of the box next to her phone, put it up to her nose, and blew.

If she started crying, Dan didn’t know what he was going to do. He said, “Maybe some of the staff will be able to identify the woman and the dog. And it might not even be my dog. Please don’t be too hard on yourself. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Thank you for being so understanding.” She pulled out a fresh tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “When I think of your little girl missing her puppy, I could just cry.”

“So,” Dan pressed on, “when did all this happen? Can you remember what time she arrived and left? Approximately?”

“Well,” the lady said, sniffing. “She got here not too long ago. It’s hard to remember.” Her mouth pulled from side to side as she thought. “And she lef
t . . .
” She glanced up at him, puzzled. “I don’t actually remember seeing her go. I mean, sometimes I miss things, but you’d think I’d notice that little do
g . . .
”

Dan gulped. “So there’s a chance she’s still here?”

“I guess.” She leaned over the counter and twisted her head to see the two side-by-side elevators. Her forehead furrowed, as she tried to remember. “I mean, I don’t know for sure.”

Dan reached down to grab a copy of the sheet with Anni’s picture. “I’m going to go up to the third floor and see if I can find them. I’ll leave my briefcase here.” He set it down on the floor in front of the counter.

“And I’ll make some phone calls,” she said excitedly. “I’ll call the other floors in the building and ask if they’ve seen a lady with a dog.”

As Dan rode up the elevator, he wondered if the place had a PA system. Making an announcement seemed like the most expedient way to handle this. The woman hadn’t offered, though, and maybe they had specified requirements for using the system. He’d ask after he was done checking the third floor.

The elevator car stopped on the second floor and when the door opened, he saw a woman about his age leaning on a walker. She wore what he was starting to believe was standard fare for the place, comfortably stretchy clothing, in her case yoga pants and a hooded sweatshirt. Pushing the walker slowly in front of her, she was halfway into the elevator, when she said, “Going down?”

“No, up.”

“Oh shoot,” she said, backing up one baby step at a time. “Sorry to be a bother.”

“No trouble at all,” Dan said, stepping forward to hold the doors for her. He shot looks in both directions, but there was no sign of a lady with Anni on the second floor. At least not that he could see from the elevator. “Have you seen a woman with a small dog? Sometime in the last hour or so?”

“Nope, can’t say that I have.” She nodded and kept inching backward.

“Okay, thanks.” The door closed and the elevator shuddered before continuing its rise to the third floor. After getting buzzed through the locked door, he wandered down the hall until he came to the nurses’ station. The last time he and Lindsay had been here, a sign on the back wall had said, “Happy Birthday, Kevin.” Since then, a new sign had replaced it. This one said, “Congratulations, Cleo.” Someone either had a baby or was retiring. A sheet cake underneath the sign sat partially eaten, and some empty punch cups were scattered nearby. No one sat at the desk, but voices drifted from the room beyond. Down the hall Dan heard someone say loudly, “I’m not going to tell you again,” and then the sound of a door slamming, muffling what came after. He stood at the counter for a second before calling out, “Excuse me?”

A woman in scrubs, a blood pressure cuff in one hand, walked through the doorway. A pair of glasses dangled off a chain onto the front of her scrub top. “Yes? Can I help you?” She had a weary look about her, like it had been a long shift.

“I hope so,” Dan said, holding up the sheet. “A few months ago, someone stole my dog. Her name is Anni.”

“Uh-huh.” The woman glanced down at the blood pressure cuff as if thinking about her next task, the one she’d been about to do before Dan’s interruption.

“A patient here reported seeing my dog, and the woman at the front desk thinks she was here today, with a woman with brown hair, visiting one of your residents. I wonder if you’ve seen her?”

From a room off to the right, a television came on, volume full blast, followed by someone yelling for it to be turned down.

The nurse sighed. “Just a minute.” She turned around and yelled, “Tim! It’s happening with that TV again.” Facing Dan once more, she said, “What size dog we talking about, sir?”

“Small to medium, I guess. About thirty pounds.”

The woman struggled to put her reading glasses on with one hand, then leaned in to take a good look.
“Today, you say?”

“Yes, with a woman in her late twenties or maybe early thirties, pale skin, brown hair. Did you see them?” Down the hall someone reduced the volume on the offending TV and now it was just a murmur in the distance. “She had a nice smile?” Now he was reaching, but that’s all he had to go on.

“No, but let me ask someone in back—” She turned around. “Tim? Tim!”

Tim came out, a cup of punch in his hand.

“Have you seen this dog?”

He glanced at the sheet. “Yeah, like two minutes ago, with a really cute girl.”

“Two minutes ago?” Dan looked up and down the hall. “Is she still on this floor?”

“Nope, she was leaving. You just missed them.”

“Just missed them—like how long ago?”

He shrugged. “A few minutes, maybe. I just buzzed her through the door.”

Dan silently cursed his poor timing. She had to be going down one elevator as he was going up the other. He didn’t wait to hear any more but nodded and took off in the direction of the stairwell, having remembered it from his previous visit. His footsteps pounded out her name. Anni. Anni. Anni. She’d been here, he was sure of it. It had to be her. Only seconds later, he reached the door to the stairwell, but his sense of urgency had caused time to slow. He reached for the knob and couldn’t turn it, tried again, and then once more, but it was no good—it was locked. Dan slammed a fist against the door. Anni was so close. All he needed to do was get down two flights of stairs. Why was the universe conspiring against him?

The nurse came huffing down the hall toward him, a ring of keys on the end of her outstretched hand, like a baton in a relay race.

“It’s locked,” he said miserably, stating the obvious.

“That’s because we don’t want the residents to fall down the stairs,” she said, stopping in front of him and fumbling with the keys. “With their confusion and physical problems, it could be a huge problem.” She added, “It’s just for the third floor, though.”

When she got the door unlocked and pushed it open, he said, “Thanks,” and darted through the opening and down the metallic stairs. He heard her voice behind him call out, “Good luck!”