I changed my clothes, threw a load of laundry in the washer and cleaned up the catnip and bits of funky chicken from the stairs and basement floor because who was I kidding, there was no way Owen was going to do it. Then I went back upstairs, rooted around to see what was in the fridge and the cupboards and decided to make apple spice muffins. Once the muffins were in the oven, I pulled out the vacuum.
Finally, I sat down at the table with my laptop and a cup of hot chocolate. Hercules had retreated upstairs when I’d gone out into the porch with the vacuum cleaner. Now he poked his head around the living room door and meowed inquiringly at me.
“All done,” I said.
He padded over to the table and launched himself onto my lap.
“Remember the drunken man from last night that I told you about?” I asked. I talked to the cats a lot. Saying what I was thinking out loud helped me sort things out in my own mind; at least that’s what I told myself.
Hercules gave a murp of acknowledgment.
“His name is Lewis Wallace. I want to see what I can find out about him.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Want to help me?”
“Merow!” he said. Hercules was almost always enthusiastic about helping me look things up online. He’d squint at the screen as though he were reading an article or examining a photograph. More than one stray swipe of his paw at the keyboard had somehow taken me to exactly the piece of information I needed.
It turned out there was a lot of information to be found online about the former football star. Wallace had played in the Canadian Football League for six years with three different teams. The offensive lineman’s behavior had been offensive off the field, as well, at times. There had been multiple complaints from the cheerleaders for two of those teams about Wallace making inappropriate comments and getting handsie with them. He had also been fined several times for breaking curfew and for showing up late on two occasions for training camp when he was with the Montreal Alouettes, both of which he blamed on his chronic insomnia, which often left him wandering around in the middle of the night at whatever hotel the team was staying.
Given Wallace’s checkered past and how easy it had been to find that information, I was surprised that the development committee was considering going into business with the man. Maybe this at least partly explained why coming to a final decision was taking so long.
It turned out that the supplement business wasn’t the only deal Lewis Wallace had in the works. He and two partners were also in negotiations to lease a failed marina they co-owned on the Ohio River to a group that wanted to base a riverboat casino out of the space. Wallace had owned the property since his playing days in Canada.
Hercules sat on my lap and seemed to read each new screen that came up. When I reached for my cup he put a paw to the keyboard, then turned and looked expectantly at me. We seemed to have landed on a fan forum. I read a few posts and very quickly realized that Lewis Wallace had been a very polarizing player as far as the Canadian fans were concerned. Some had praised his play and excused his off-the-field exploits as nothing more than a young man letting off a little steam. The expression “boys will be boys” was used more than once. Others had been critical because Wallace wasn’t always willing to sign autographs, and several posters felt he was just lazy. Wallace had never seemed to work out in the off-season and his diet had been crappy because of his rabid sweet tooth.
I stretched and got up to switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer. When I came back upstairs Hercules was standing on his back legs, one white-tipped paw resting on the edge of the table while he studied the computer screen. I picked him up again, sat down and waited while he got settled.
There was an article from an Ottawa newspaper’s website on the screen. It appeared to be about Lewis Wallace’s life since retirement.
“How did you get here?” I asked the cat. He looked pointedly at the touch pad and then at me. Being a cat, he didn’t say, “Well, duh,” but it was implied.
After he retired Wallace had been involved in an online memorabilia business that went under, leaving disgruntled customers behind. There were accusations from clients that not all the items that had been on the company website were legit—several pieces turned out to be fakes and some others had been obtained through some sketchy means.
“Lewis Wallace doesn’t sound like someone who’s very responsible,” I said.
“Mrr,” Hercules agreed without moving his gaze from the laptop.
There was a link to another newspaper article at the end of the one about Wallace’s business dealings. I clicked on it. From a quick skim of the second piece I learned that the former football player had lost both of his parents within six months of each other when he was just nineteen.
I shifted Herc on my lap, leaning back so I could stroke the soft black fur on the top of his head. I thought about myself at nineteen. I had been so eager to get away from home and so lost and homesick once I actually had.
“That might explain why he acts a lot like a bratty teenager,” I said. I wasn’t condoning kicking a dog or harassing women but I wondered what kind of person I would have turned out to be without my mom and dad.
Hercules cocked his head to one side and wrinkled his nose. He didn’t seem quite as convinced.
I shut down the computer and set Hercules on the floor. The dryer was about to buzz. At the meeting I’d gone to we’d learned that Lewis Wallace had bought a small organic supplement business. He was looking to expand, to set up a home base for the company as well as a distribution center. Mayville Heights was one of the possible sites.
“I remember Thorsten saying that we had a bit of an advantage because many of Wallace’s suppliers are in this area, but that Wallace was looking for some pretty significant tax breaks from the town,” I said to Hercules as he followed me down to the dryer. “The thing that sticks in my mind was that the presentation was a little short on hard numbers and firm timelines. And I don’t remember anyone mentioning that failed memorabilia business.” Had Lewis Wallace’s obnoxious behavior contributed to its failure? I wondered.
Ethan was back in time for supper. Milo and Derek were with him. I fed them chicken tortilla soup. Ethan made corn bread and the guys did the dishes.
“When are you going to join the twenty-first century and get a dishwasher?” Ethan teased as he put the bowls away in the cupboard.
“As long as you’re here I have one,” I countered.
We hadn’t had a dishwasher when Ethan and Sara were little and they had taken turns drying and putting things away while I washed each night. Cleaning glasses, plates, bowls, cutlery and pots and pans for five people should have turned me off of doing dishes for life, but I’d had some of my best conversations with my brother and sister during those times. For me there was nothing tedious about washing dishes by hand, just lots of great memories. If nothing else, it was a good time for thinking while my hands were busy.
“Hey, Kathleen, how did the furry dudes get their names?” Milo asked, dipping his head in the cats’ direction. He was the one up to his elbows in soapsuds.
Ethan turned to look at me. “Yeah, good question. How did you pick their names?”
Both cats turned to look at us as though they knew they were the topic of conversation.
“I was reading A Prayer for Owen Meany,” I said, “and every time I went to pick up the book Owen was sitting on it. So I named him Owen.”
“What about Hercules?” Milo said.
“He was named after the Roman god, the son of Zeus.”
“So they got book names,” Ethan said.
I nodded. That was true, for the most part. I didn’t add that Hercules was actually named for the particular incarnation of the Roman god on the cheesy nineties’ TV show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. I knew I’d never hear the end of it if Ethan had that piece of information.