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ELIZABETH WRENN
Second Chance
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This paperback edition 2007
First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Ltd 2006
Copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2006
Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006 All rights reserved.
Excerpt from ‘Her Grave’ from New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver.
Copyright © Mary Oliver, 1992. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.
Elizabeth Wrenn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9781847560049
Ebook edition: September 2008 ISBN: 9780007278961 Version: 2018-05-23
For Stuart
You must have been a dog in a past life because never in the world has there been a better best friend.
Tteote
A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.
—from ‘Her Grave’
MARY OLIVER
Contents
Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Epilogue An Interview With Elizabeth Wrenn Questions For Discussion Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher
Hairy took some sort of perverse feline pleasure in shedding his voluminous white fur into my cookware. I’d been cleaning behind the kitchen sink when I’d seen him paw the door open and slip into the spinner cabinet. In my simmering anger I didn’t think it through and I’d gone in after him. Now my hips were stuck in the door opening, my torso wedged between the two tiers of the giant lazy Susan that held my pots and pans.
My derriere was blocking most of the light, but just enough found its way in for me to see Hairy’s smug Persian face staring at me from the depths. I probed with my toothbrush. He retreated farther into the dark recesses, his tail swishing with satisfaction.
Hairy loved all cabinets, but especially the spinner. He often clambered over and around the small towers of pots and pans, heaving his girth over hill and dale, sending the circle spinning as he jumped into the empty back corner. He’d then watch the pans fly by, looking like a kid at an amusement park debating whether to hand over his ticket and actually go on the ride. But the spinner was motionless now, held in place by my shoulders. Hairy lifted a paw, gave it a single neat lick, and stared at me from the back of the cabinet.
‘Hairy, get out of there!’ I growled. He was just beyond my reach and he knew it. It made me crazy to find him in a cabinet, especially the spinner, since white cat hairs had a way of turning up in my stir-fry.