Say Goodbye for Now Read online

  Also by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Leaving Blythe River

  Ask Him Why

  Worthy

  The Language of Hoofbeats

  Pay It Forward: Young Readers Edition

  Take Me with You

  Paw It Forward

  365 Days of Gratitude: Photos from a Beautiful World

  Where We Belong

  Subway Dancer and Other Stories

  Walk Me Home

  Always Chloe and Other Stories

  The Long, Steep Path: Everyday Inspiration from the Author of Pay It Forward

  How to Be a Writer in the E-Age: A Self-Help Guide

  When You Were Older

  Don’t Let Me Go

  Jumpstart the World

  Second Hand Heart

  When I Found You

  Diary of a Witness

  The Day I Killed James

  Chasing Windmills

  The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance

  Love in the Present Tense

  Becoming Chloe

  Walter’s Purple Heart

  Electric God/The Hardest Part of Love

  Pay It Forward

  Earthquake Weather and Other Stories

  Funerals for Horses

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503939448 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503939448 (paperback)

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE THE HALF-WILD PRINCE

  Chapter One: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Two: Pete

  Chapter Three: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Four: Pete

  Chapter Five: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Six: Pete

  Chapter Seven: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Eight: Pete

  Chapter Nine: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Ten: Pete

  Chapter Eleven: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Twelve: Pete

  Chapter Thirteen: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Fourteen: Pete

  Chapter Fifteen: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Sixteen: Pete

  Chapter Seventeen: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Eighteen: Pete

  Chapter Nineteen: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Twenty: Pete

  Chapter Twenty-One: Dr. Lucy

  PART TWO SAY GOODBYE FOR NOW

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Pete

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Pete

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Dr. Lucy

  PART THREE NEARLY EIGHT YEARS GO BY, SO FAST

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Pete

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Pete

  Chapter Thirty: Dr. Lucy

  Chapter Thirty-One: Pete

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Dr. Lucy

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS FOR SAY GOODBYE FOR NOW BY CATHERINE RYAN HYDE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PART ONE

  THE HALF-WILD PRINCE

  June 1959

  Chapter One: Dr. Lucy

  The knock propelled her out of sleep and set the dogs barking. Or maybe the knock propelled the dogs out of sleep and their barking finally broke through the nightcap, the sleeping pill, and the exhaustion.

  Winston the greyhound, the only dog allowed to sleep in her room and on her bed, sat up and stared in the direction of the windows, growling softly.

  She stood, cursing under her breath as a way of dismissing fear, and crossed to the windows.

  She opened them out into the cool night and looked down.

  Below her on the front porch stood two young men, dressed in matching uniforms of white T-shirts and jeans. Even their flattop haircuts looked identical. The only obvious difference, at least at this distance and in the dark: one was a good six inches taller than, and had forty pounds on, his companion. That and the fact that the little man’s T-shirt was soaked through with a jagged map of bright blood.

  “Who is it?” she called, making her voice the equivalent of a high barbed-wire fence guarded by dogs. As if to aid in the effect, the sixteen dogs in the downstairs runs continued to rage, barking and howling their fear and displeasure.

  “Ma’am?” the larger man called up.

  “Who is it?” she repeated.

  Truthfully, she knew from experience that she would never know—or care—who they were. Only why they were here, which was clear enough already.

  “Are you the doctor?”

  “The question at hand is not who I am. It’s who you are.”

  “We’re supposed to say Victor sent us.”

  Lucy sighed and blinked a few times, grasping that fully waking up was no longer optional.

  “Give me a minute to get dressed,” she said, “and then I’ll be down.”

  She led them through her living room, though in a more traditional sense it was no such thing. More of a zoo, really. It was lived in, all right, but never by humans.

  She led the little guy by one arm, because he was beginning to go all puny and faint.

  The big man stared into the cage of Archimedes the owl, who stared back. Then the man walked on, but shied suddenly like a spooked horse when Angel the golden eagle lifted and spread her wings.

  “What is that?” he asked, steadying himself and pointing to an animal huddling in the shadows in a cage on the floor.

  “That would be a pig.”

  “In the house?”

  “Too much risk of infection outside.”

  Dr. Lucy led the men into her examining room and helped the wounded man onto the operating table.

  “What’re you doing with all these animals?” the big man asked.

  “Fixing them,” she said simply.

  “Hey!” the little guy piped up. “Are you a vet?” Then, to his companion, “Did you take me to a vet—”

  Dr. Lucy could tell he had almost spoken his friend’s name, then censored himself.

  “I’m not a veterinarian,” she said. “I’m a doctor.”

  “A regular people doctor?”

  “Yes. A doctor of human beings.”

  “Then why do you take in all these animals?” the big man asked.

  “Because nobody else seems inclined.”

  “I’m not so sure about a lady doctor,” the man on the table added.

  “Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers,” his friend shot back, effectively shutting down the complaint.

  The big guy continued to pace around the room, staring out windows into the dark and examining the medical certificates on the walls. Each time he passed by a window the dogs—outside in their runs—set up barking again.

  “My name is . . . Steve,” he said. “And this is Jake. Those aren’t our real names, though. You know how it is.”

  Dr. Lucy said nothing. She was trying to figure out how best to remove the small man’s bullet- and blood-damaged T-shirt, assuming he would want to wear it out into the night again. Well, he would want to wear something, she figured, and this seemed to be all he had.

  The bullet had gone through the back of the man’s left s
houlder, seeming to indicate that he had been running away when shot. There was no exit wound in the front.

  “What do we call you?” the big man asked.

  Dr. Lucy looked up and leveled him with a gaze that stopped his pacing in its tracks.

  “I respond to ‘Doc,’ ‘lady,’ and ‘hey, you.’ Listen. Steve . . .” She exaggerated the name for effect. “This is not what you might call a long-term relationship. I’m not so sure about this idea of our needing to be on a first-name basis. How about we skip the introductions and just get this done so I can get back to sleep?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the man whose name was certainly not Steve said. “No need to get ticky. You got something he can bite down on? Maybe a kitchen spoon? Like a wooden spoon?”

  While he spoke, Dr. Lucy filled a hypodermic with a local anesthetic and said nothing.

  “Because, you know. He’s my buddy, and besides, we want to keep the screaming down. Not that anyone could hear us way out here, but—”

  He stopped talking suddenly when she buried the needle into “Jake’s” back near the entrance wound, right through his T-shirt.

  “Ow!” the stuck man yelled.

  The dogs set up barking again, briefly.

  “You’ve been watching too many motion pictures, Steve,” she said. Then, to her patient, “We’ll give that a few minutes to work.”

  She stepped over to one of her counters to fetch a pack of cigarettes. She leaned on the counter and lit one with the silver lighter that had been tucked under the pack’s cellophane.

  “Hey,” the wounded man said. “That’s starting to feel a little better.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s my job,” she said, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the examining room’s ceiling. “Which leads me to a point. It’s my job, not my hobby. In other words, I do it for money. A hundred.”

  “A hundred?” both men echoed.

  “That’s a little steep, don’t you think?” the big man said. “We could go to the emergency room and get out for maybe thirty, tops.”

  Dr. Lucy pulled another deep drag. She had no patience for games and no innate ability to hide her impatience.

  “If you could go to the emergency room,” she said, “that’s where you’d be.”

  “Yeah, yeah. All right. A hundred.”

  “In advance.”

  “Why in advance?”

  “Because one guy walked out of here without paying. You can thank him for the new policies.”

  “The money’s out in the car,” the big man said. Sheepishly enough that she knew he would go get it.

  “Well, don’t just stand there.”

  He sighed and walked out.

  The small wounded man stared into her eyes the way one might expect a hamstrung deer to regard a hovering wolf or coyote.

  “You’ve done this kinda thing before, right?” he asked.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Some. You’ll feel it. But with that lidocaine I just shot into your shoulder, I expect it’ll hurt less than it did to get out of the car and walk up to my front door.”

  “That’s good to hear, ma’am. Can I trouble you for one of those cigarettes?”

  She took the pack off the counter and shook it in his direction until three cigarettes popped up to be grabbed. He took one, and she lit it for him.

  “I appreciate your not asking how I got myself into this bind,” he said.

  “At the emergency room they ask questions. And, more to the point, they file reports. That’s why I charge more.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Steve” returned and pushed a hundred-dollar bill in her direction. She took it without comment and tucked it deep down into the pocket of her skirt.

  Then he glared at his friend on the table. “That’s coming out of your half,” he said.

  “What? Why? It’s not my fault I caught that bullet, not you. Dumb luck is all.”

  “Yeah, well, dumb luck just cost you a hundred bucks.”

  “You ready, Jake?” Dr. Lucy asked, wanting an end to the squabbling.

  No reply.

  “Or whatever your name is?”

  “Oh, me. Right. Yeah. Let’s get this done.”

  “I’m going to leave this T-shirt mostly where it is. Just pull it up enough to get to the problem. It would hurt a lot to take it off and put it back on, and I don’t want to cut it off. Because I expect you won’t want to walk out of here without it.”

  She almost gave him a piece of advice. She almost said, “Make your next stop someplace where your friend here can buy you a clean shirt. Maybe something you can put on right over this. Nothing like red on white to attract attention.”

  She didn’t.

  She was being paid for basic wound care. Not to help him get away, beyond that, with whatever he’d done.

  “Yes, ma’am. What’re you going to do now?”

  “What you paid me to do. Try to relax.”

  She stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray on the counter. The patient continued to smoke his. If anything, he smoked faster.

  She chose fine forceps from a jar of alcohol on the counter, wiped the instrument off with sterile gauze, and entered the wound with its long tips. She made it fast. It’s better to make it fast, she had learned. To get beyond the idea of gentleness and caution. Because the patient is suffering every minute those forceps are exploring the wound. Psychologically if nothing else. The patient wants you to be done.

  She grasped the mangled bullet, pulled steadily until it was free, and tossed it in the direction of the metal trash bin. It hit the inside of the bin with a clang that made both men jump.

  Dr. Lucy placed two sutures in the flesh of the entry wound, dressed it with a sterile gauze pad, and pulled the shirt back down into place.

  “There,” she said. “You’re as good as you ever were. However good that was.”

  The men ignored the slight and moved toward the door.

  “Wait,” she said. “I need to give you some tetracycline. So that doesn’t get infected.”

  She counted him out thirty of the pills into a paper envelope.

  “Three a day until they’re gone.”

  It might or might not be enough, she knew. But Dr. Lucy was happy to let the patient’s care be somebody else’s problem after that.

  “And you probably need a tetanus booster. But I don’t happen to have one.”

  And she knew he likely wouldn’t get one. But anyway, she had done her duty. She had advised the patient.

  “On your way to Mexico?” she asked as she walked them to the door.

  The big guy turned back, blinking.

  “Mexico?”

  “Yeah. Mexico. You know it? It’s a country near here. I figured that’s why you were on that highway. Most people who come by here are headed south.”

  “No, ma’am. Not us. We live around here.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Good to know.”

  They left without further comment, and she was blissfully alone again. At least, alone in human terms.

  On the way back through the living room, Archimedes stared deeply into her face. Truth be told, he always did. There was nothing special to be read into his gaze and—at some level—she knew it.

  “Don’t you give me that look,” she said. “You think I do this for myself? Well, I don’t. I do it for you and your friends.”

  Then she put herself back to bed.

  Chapter Two: Pete

  “Hey, Petey,” Jack said. “Whose dog is that?”

  Pete shaded his eyes from the sun with one hand and looked up and down the deserted stretch of two-lane highway.

  “Don’t see a dog.”

  “There. Lying down.”

  Then Pete saw the dog—lying flat out on his side on the highway shoulder—but figured he was dead.

  “Got hit, most likely,” Jack said.

  “We should go see if he’s okay.”

  They set off down the highway shoulder tog
ether, even though it led them in the wrong direction, away from the lake. It was early morning, the first day of summer vacation from school, and the goal had been fishing. Not looking at a perfectly good dog someone had killed on the highway, which Pete figured would likely ruin his whole day. Or, if it was gruesome, maybe even his whole summer.

  Pete liked dogs, provided they were healthy and alive.

  “I don’t know that dog,” Pete said to Jack as they drew closer. “You’d think we’d know all the dogs around here.”

  “Maybe he’s not from around here. Maybe somebody didn’t want him and they put him out of the car.”

  “Maybe he’s not hit then. Maybe he’s just taking a nap while he’s waiting and hoping they’ll come back for him.”

  “That would be nice,” Jack said.

  He was a big dog, Pete couldn’t help noticing. It brought a slight jump to his stomach. He liked dogs but he could be afraid of them, too. It depended on the dog. This one looked grayish-tan with a heavy coat like one of those sled dogs up in Alaska, where Pete had never been and didn’t figure he’d ever go. Which was about as far away from south Texas as Pete figured you could get.

  “He’s not moving,” Jack said when they were less than ten steps away.

  Just at that moment the dog lifted his head and looked right into Pete’s face, causing Pete’s blood to run cold and making him wonder why the dog couldn’t have given Jack that scary look instead.

  The dog struggled up onto three paws—one of his back legs seemed to hang limp from the hip—and tried to move away from the boys. Instead he quickly collapsed to his side again with a pained grunt. But at least it got him a couple of steps farther from the traffic lane of the highway.

  “Oh yeah,” Pete said. “He’s hit all right. Poor guy.”

  “What’re we gonna do?”

  “We gotta take him to the vet, I guess.”

  “Why us?”

  “You see anybody else around?”

  “Damn,” Jack said. “There goes fishing.”

  Pete eased a little closer to the dog, one hand out as a peace offering.

  “It’s okay, boy. We’re not going to hurt you. We want to help. That’s okay, boy.”

  The dog’s upper lip peeled back. It was a silent but terrifying gesture, displaying a shockingly long and pointy set of canine teeth on either side.