Escape Claws. Linda Reilly
way to get her some help. “So you’ve been doing some private tutoring?”
“Not really. So far I’ve only helped Darryl with reading, but I’d like to do more if I can. Actually,” she said, “I don’t get paid for working with Darryl. His mom barely makes ends meet as it is. And speaking of Darryl…”
“Yes, speaking of Darryl,” Lara repeated. “Why do you think he suddenly started reading practically at high school level?”
Slowly, her aunt shook her head. “I can’t explain it, Lara. I saw it with my own eyes and I still don’t believe it. Just yesterday he couldn’t pronounce the word quarry. But this afternoon…” Her words drifted sideways, and she seemed to lose the thread. She leaned her head back in the chair and closed her eyes. She remained that way for so long that Lara wondered if she’d nodded off.
Taking advantage of the awkward silence, Lara glanced around, drinking in all the treasures that had fascinated her as a girl. When she was young she’d called this room the “fancy” room. She could still picture herself stretched out on the floor with her sketch pad and colored pencils, trying to copy the swirly patterns in the Oriental carpet. What had delighted her most was her aunt’s collection of Victorian flue covers. Lara was happy to see they were still displayed on the mantel, each one depicting a colorful cat or kitten.
There was, of course, a cat tree in the front window. Covered in sturdy beige carpeting, it had ledges and cubbyholes and a perch at the top. Two gray-and-white kittens were nestled inside the lower cubby. Lara cooed to them in a soft, singsong voice, hoping to entice them closer. Instead they huddled into a tighter ball, as if protecting one another.
Lara’s gaze drifted to the doorway that led to a back hallway. Beyond that was another porch—one that was screened in. When Lara had been hunting down litter boxes to clean, she’d found three of them out there. For some reason, she didn’t recall her aunt ever having spent much time on that porch, even with its short set of stairs that led out to the side yard. Aunt Fran evidently preferred the openness of the wraparound porch in front, and the padded wicker chair in which she could rock to her heart’s content.
Aunt Fran’s eyes opened abruptly. “Tomorrow, if you’re still here,” she said, “maybe you could sit with Darryl for a while. What happened today might have been a complete fluke. I’d welcome your opinion, Lara.” She rested a hand on Dolce, who snuggled farther into her lap.
“I’ll be happy to do that,” Lara said. She was miffed at her aunt’s implication that she was going to hightail it back to Boston the next day and leave her without any help. “And unless you toss me out, I have no intention of bailing on you.”
Lara knew she sounded cranky, but she was tired and beyond frustrated with her aunt’s situation. How could Aunt Fran have let things get this dire? Why hadn’t she tried to find homes for some of the cats? Wasn’t there a local humane society that could give her some assistance?
“Why would I toss you out, as you put it?” her aunt asked testily.
Lara blew out a breath. “Listen, Aunt Fran,” she said evenly, “from the time I got here this afternoon, I’ve sensed that you’re angry with me.” Her aunt started to interrupt but Lara held up a hand. “Granted, I haven’t tried to contact you for a very long time. I honestly can’t explain why. When Dad first got that new job and we moved to Sudbury, I was utterly miserable. I missed you so much. Plus, I was dying without Sherry. But I remember sending you a bunch of cards and you never wrote me back.”
Aunt Fran looked genuinely puzzled. “I only received one card,” she insisted. “It was about a week after you’d moved. I wrote several letters to you, but never heard from you again. One day I tried to call, but the number had been changed to a private one.”
Lara was stunned. She’d never received those letters. As for the phone number, she remembered her dad saying that because of his job they needed to get an unlisted number. She assumed he’d given the number to Aunt Fran, his only sister.
Her aunt’s eyes misted. “I’m sorry if I sounded cross,” she said. “My emotions are all over the place right now.”
Yeah, tell me about it, Lara wanted to say. “I know. Mine, too.” She placed a hand over her aunt’s thin fingers and was rewarded with a squeeze. “So maybe we can start fresh, okay?”
Aunt Fran smiled, and her eyes brightened. “That sounds like a plan. You can start by telling me what I’ve missed all these years. Your career, boyfriends…” She let the words dangle.
Lara skimmed over the details of her art career, which, so far, had been less than impressive. She’d sold a few watercolors, but her earnings hadn’t been spectacular. Her online art projects supplemented her income, but the work was sporadic—nothing she could depend on. Her part-time job at the bakery kept her in food and rent, but with little left over. Not having a car helped. Taking the T to get around Boston, while annoying, gave her plenty of opportunities to find interesting faces to sketch. She occasionally did it surreptitiously between the seemingly endless T stops.
“Is there…anyone special in your life?” Aunt Fran asked.
The question surprised Lara. The dismal truth was that she’d never had anyone truly special in her life. Oh sure, she’d had boyfriends. But none had ever risen to the level of a “significant other.”
“No, no one. Aunt Fran, you were going to tell me all about that awful Theo Barnes. Why is he bothering you?”
Her aunt’s face clouded. “He’s been trying to coerce me into selling part of my land. You know the vacant stretch below the crest of the hill, behind the town’s parcel?”
Lara nodded slowly. She realized she was smiling to herself. She’d spent much of her early childhood exploring that empty field. It stretched from the back of the town’s tiny park to the bank of the narrow stream that formed her aunt’s rear boundary line. The meadow was a haven for a wealth of small animal species. Her favorites had been the red salamanders that darted along the water’s edge.
Aunt Fran continued. “Theo desperately wants that land so he can build luxury condo units. According to him, he already has interested buyers.”
“First of all,” Lara said, “he can’t force you to do anything with your own property that you don’t want to do. And second, think of all the animals that would be disrupted! And besides,” she added, picturing the location in her mind, “isn’t it landlocked?”
Her aunt nodded. “Right on all counts. Unfortunately, Theo owns the parcel adjacent to mine—it’s part of the town block where Bowker’s Coffee Stop is. If he consolidates my land with his, then the problem of street access will disappear. But that’s not all. His latest ploy is to claim he owns a big chunk of my land. Supposedly he had a survey done. My vacant parcel, he insists, doesn’t stretch as far as I think it does.”
Lara rolled her eyes. “What a royal toad. No offense to frogs.”
“He’s not a nice man,” her aunt said tartly. “And that’s as much as I can say without using a few choice descriptors that are not in the dictionary. Not in my dictionary, anyway.” Her green eyes twinkled a bit.
Munster rose, stretched, and lumbered off Lara’s lap. Lara took advantage of the sudden freedom and stretched out her legs. “Aunt Fran, have you talked to a lawyer about this?”
“Not yet. But I did try to find a survey of my property at the town hall. The only thing they had was the assessor’s map. The town clerk told me I’d have to go to the Registry of Deeds in Ossipee to get the recorded survey.”
“If you need it, Aunt Fran, I’ll drive up there and get it for you.”
Aunt Fran’s smile was warm, if a bit awkward. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
There were so many other questions Lara wanted to ask. She was beginning to realize how much she’d missed during all the years she’d been away. But when she looked over at her aunt, she saw that her