CHAPTER 2: Annabel Lee
Wendy, my receptionist, stuck her head in the operating room door and waited for me to acknowledge her presence with a quick glance. She knew better than to come inside when I had an animal open on the table. One, it wasn’t sanitary, and two, Wendy puked her guts out at the sight of blood.
The operating room was nothing fancy and certainly not as sterile as those found in hospitals for humans. It was just a small room in the back of my practice with a tall table covered in sterile plastic and a large light that loomed above my head like some kind of hovering Martian ship. I was stitching up Dolly the eighty-pound Labrador after spaying her. Dolly was sleeping like a baby on the table.
Without taking my eyes off my work, I barked at Wendy, no pun intended. “Speak, Wendy.”
“Vernon Gibbs is on the phone. He says Buttercup is about to deliver that fold.”
“Fuck. So much for taking off early. Okay, tell him I’ll be out as soon as I’m done here. And please tell Juan to come in and get Dolly.” I tied off the last stitch and clipped the suture short so Dolly couldn’t dig or chew it out before it was healed. I’d spayed and neutered thousands of dogs and cats over my six years as Gulf Breeze’s only veterinarian. I could do it with my eyes closed, but I still made sure things were good to go before calling any operation a success.
Juan came in holding a blue plastic cone that would go around Dolly’s neck to keep her from chewing at the wound on her belly. Juan, a fifty-something Mexican-American who was as round as he was tall, was my lead vet tech and righthand. He was a leftover from old Doc Anderson when I bought the practice and I was glad to have him with me. He pretty much ran the office when I was out in the field. I was a small and large animal vet, which meant that I could be working on a four-pound Chihuahua one minute and a two-thousand pound bull the next. Buttercup was a full-grown mare about to drop her first fold. Horses give birth on their own, but I needed to be there just in case there were complications.
“Okay, Juan, put the cone on her neck and put her in a kennel to sleep it off,” I said, tugging off the latex gloves. “Check her when she wakes up and if everything looks good tell Mrs. Perkins she can take her home in an hour or two.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Juan said formally, giving me a nod as he easily scooped the large dog off the table and cradled her to his chest like an overgrown baby. Dolly slept peacefully with her long tongue hanging out the side. I gave her head a quick scratch and smiled. I envied her. I would have loved to have been passed out in my bed at home, but I knew it would be hours before I had that pleasure.
Juan paused before going through the door. “Do you want me to go with you to Mr. Gibbs’ place?”
“Nah, I can deliver a fold with one hand tied behind my back,” I said with a tired sigh. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly five o’clock. I’d been at it since 3 A.M. dealing with a horse on the Tremont place that had splintered a leg. Now, I was headed off to deliver a fold thirty miles out of town. I’d be lucky to be home by midnight. I couldn’t complain, though. I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought old Doc Anderson’s practice a year ago. I’d worked under him since graduating vet school three years ago. When you were the only vet in a tiny Texas town where nearly everyone owned at least one dog and one cat, and some people had multiple cows and horses, you didn’t get much down time—and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved my work. It kept me busy. It kept my mind off other things, like dwelling on just how shitty my personal life was.
* * *
I was married to Bradley Bates for less than a year. It was ten months and twelve days, to be exact, from the time I walked down the aisle as a blushing bride with his ring on my finger to the time I ran from our house with his handprints on my face.
Amazing how in ten short months I went from being a happy bride who couldn’t wait to set up house with the man she loved to an abused wife escaping with her life in the middle of the night.
Bradley would have chased me down and beaten the shit out of me and dragged me back home if I hadn’t made it to my daddy’s house. My daddy never liked Bradley and would have gladly filled his face with buckshot if we hadn’t stopped him. He had his shotgun in hand and was headed to the front porch when me and mama literally jumped on his back and made him stay inside.
I could not bear the thought of my beloved daddy spending the rest of his life in prison for killing my abusive husband. Plus, Bradley’s daddy was the president of the Gulf Breeze Savings & Loan that held the mortgage on my daddy’s place. He could make things very difficult for the Lees. And I could not let that happen.
Bradley came back a few times all apologetic and begging me for forgiveness. Honestly, I didn’t understand why he wanted me to come home. With us divorced he could do all the drinking and whoring he wanted to without worrying about me finding out about it. I mean, he had been fucking that whore Juju Wheeler the entire time we were married. Being married to me just got in his way most days. Then it hit me. It wasn’t about Bradley’s freedom. It was about mine. He wanted me under his thumb where he could control me, use and abuse me, do whatever he wanted, and come home drunk to fuck me until I was sore. It was when I realized it was all about control that I decided to take charge of things myself.
It took some convincing, but Bradley finally agreed to the divorce when I said I’d give him everything: the big house his parents had bought us, my new Lexus and his new truck, all the furniture and fixtures, all the money in the bank we had jointly saved, everything we had ever bought together. I agreed to walk away without a dime. I got to keep my clothes and my practice. Everything else was his with good riddance.
It was a price I gladly paid. My practice barely netted enough to pay my way, but I’d make due somehow. Hell, I’d rather sleep on the concrete floor of the dog kennels than lie next to Bradley in our five-thousand-dollar bed.
I was never gonna get rich being the only veterinarian in Gulf Breeze, but I had a roof over my head (I lived in the small apartment above my practice), food in my belly, and lots of patients that needed my help. I drove my daddy’s old pickup truck and was glad to have it. Life was good. Or as good as it could be. At least I wasn’t covered in bruises. Or having to cover them up with makeup.
I went out of my way to avoid Bradley on a daily basis. I hated to admit it, but I was still afraid of him. He’d come around drunk several times, beating on my door in the middle of the night, yelling one minute, apologizing the next. He only stopped when I threatened to shoot him with the .38 my daddy made me keep in my bedside table.
Could I really shoot Bradley, a man I once thought hung the moon? If he was coming at me with his fists out you bet your sweet ass I could. I’d shoot him dead and drink a beer over his carcass until the sheriff arrived. I even dreamt about it some nights. Sad, I know, but that was the life of Annabel Lee.