“’Morning, Reynold,” I replied. “No sign of Henry?”
“I’m afraid not, Chrissy. Sorry. Hey, I printed out these fliers. If you can’t turn him up looking around in the woods, then you might try distributing them up in the town. We’ve got a pet store here, so if anyone found him, they’d probably go there.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. “Thanks Reynold.”
“Hey,” he said, giving me an encouraging smile. “Keep your head up.”
I smiled back. “Yeah.”
Lee and I moved out from the gas station and started to comb the trees surrounding it. Lee split off from me to cover more ground, and he carried Henry’s bowl filled with kibble to shake and entice him out if he was hiding. Every dozen feet or so, I would call Henry’s name, stopping to look up into the overhead branches and beneath shrubs. I realized that the chances of just happening on him were pretty slim—he would need to come out and find us. There was just too much ground to cover, too many places he could be hiding.
After fifteen minutes of walking, I checked the map on my cell phone and saw that I was quite close to a street, and I followed the GPS until I reached it. I called for Henry again, and then stood there silently, straining my ears hoping to catch the sound of his meow. All I heard was the steady patter of rain on soil and asphalt, and the light rustle that came from thousands of trees caressed by the wind. I walked up the street a little ways until I reached a large wood paneled house with a white BMW parked in the front. I was surprised to see that it had New York plates.
Guess I’m not the only one from out of town, I thought, and turned to head back to the gas station. I’d have to depend on the fliers—they’d be more effective than walking around by foot, and I didn’t want to keep Lee. He hadn’t eaten breakfast, and he’d already done a lot more than he needed to just to help me. So far, everyone had.
I felt my eyes getting hot with tears. It was a weird mixture of disappointment in myself for losing Henry, sadness knowing he was out there scared and hungry, and amazement for how these strangers had gone so out of their way to help me and show me such kindness and hospitality. It was something that had been sorely missing from my world.
“Anything?” Lee asked, back at the gas station. I shook my head, and he patted me on the shoulder. “Nothing on my end either. We’ll drive up into the m
ain part of town, and put the fliers up in the pet store, the bank and the market. If anybody’s seen Henry, they’ll pass through one of those places for sure.”
I nodded and smiled. “Thanks, Lee. Really. I’m just blown away at how kind everyone has been to me since I’ve arrived. Is everyone this nice here?”
“Well, I don’t know about everyone,” he said, shrugging. “But I suppose most. There are a few that keep to themselves, but for the most part, Armstrong is a pretty close-knit community. We’re a small place, and we’re all the type of people who like simple things, so we all share something in common. Some folks have lived here all their lives.”
“Have you?”
“Oh, no. We moved here when we had our daughter. Wanted to raise her away from the big city life. Of course, that’s where she is now, but I’d like to think she has a wider appreciation for things after growing up here. And it’s not so bad, you know? We’re only an hour or so out from a city anyway. I’ve been retired for a while, but I still work at the gas station to keep busy. Reynold has been here his whole life; his father was the one who opened that gas station.”
Lee opened the door to the minimart and we went back inside. “There’s a few others on our side of the town,” he continued. “Oh, the Duncans. Their property was unmanaged for a while after the husband and wife passed and their children moved out, but recently one of the daughters came back. She kind of keeps to herself though.”
“No luck?” Reynold asked, sipping a coffee.
“None,” Lee said. “Fliers?”
Reynold pushed them over the counter to us. “Hey, Chrissy.”
“Yes, sir?”
“So, Lee filled me in a bit on your situation. He said that you’re headed to California, is that right?”
“That’s right. Though I don’t really have much of a plan once I get there.”
“Any reason why you chose there?” He paused and scratched his chin. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry, that wasn’t my intent.”
“Oh, no problem,” I said, waving my hand. “You all have been so welcoming to me, you have a right to know why I left Georgia and all.”
“Well, your business is your own, if you want to keep it. I just wanted to know if you had a specific reason why you were going to California. What your end goal was, that is.”
“I left Atlanta because of the hurricane and flooding there—I know, ironic, isn’t it? But that was more of a catalyst. I’d been thinking about leaving for a while. Or rather, I just wasn’t happy with my life there. I was working a call-center job where I was supposed to be helping people, solving problems for them, but with corporate BS, all I could do was ruin days and put people in bad moods. It was the only work I could find after school, and well, frankly, I don’t even know what I want to do with my life.”
“I see,” Reynold said. “A journey of self-discovery.”
“Nothing like a quarter life crisis,” Lee chimed in, fishing a frosted donut out from the plastic box of donuts and bagels.
Reynold nodded thoughtfully. “You’re young, so it’s a good time to be thinking about that stuff. You’ve got choices available to you, so you might as well explore them. Broaden your horizons.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That was my thought.”