Say That Again (12 page)

“Please, let go, Mario. Please,” Ariella whimpered. “I just meant that my job’s important to both of us. I wasn’t putting you down. Honest.”

He bunched her hair in his other fist, turning her away from him as he slammed his hips into her from behind to pin her against the counter. Bending over her, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Am I important to you, babe?”

Ariella was crying softly now, her small sobs broken by groans of pain as Mario forced her arm farther.

“Am I?!” he screamed.

She stiffened at the force of his words, her eyes shut tight. “Yes,” she whispered.

I crept forward, my heart breaking for her. She had been kind to me and tolerant of him; he had been possessive of her, manipulative, domineering — and even jealous of me. Why couldn’t she see that? Why was she even with him?

“Do you love me, baby girl?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“Say it.”

“I love you, Mario.”

“Do you want to make me happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re staying home today, right?”

Her head moved in an almost imperceptible nod.

He loosened his hold on her gradually, but before he let her go, he told her, “Get your phone. Call in sick. Tell them you have the flu and might be out for a few days.”

“A few —?”

“Just do it. You
don’t
want to make me unhappy.” This time he didn’t yell or hurt her. The flatness of his tone delivered the threat quite plainly.

Ariella complied, telling her boss exactly what he had told her to. When she ended the call, he took the phone from her and tossed it across the room. It bounced off a wall and hit the floor, breaking into pieces.

“There,” he said. “They won’t bother you now.”

She kept her eyes on the phone as he unbuttoned her blouse and slid it from her shoulders. Every time his fingers brushed her skin, she shuddered. I slinked closer, my head low, watchful. Mario buried his mouth in the space between her breasts, lapping and sucking greedily like a pup at its mother’s teat. Ariella gasped and bit her lip. What was he doing? Whatever it was, she didn’t seem to be enjoying it. Was he ... was he
biting
her?

A growl rumbled in my belly. I wasn’t even sure where it came from. I just knew I didn’t like what he was doing to her. Hell, I didn’t like him, period.

Mario’s eyes shifted to me, but only for a moment, as his fingers wandered down to her skirt, shifting it downward.

I growled louder.

“Shut the dog in the bathroom, Ariella,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t like how he’s looking at me. Besides, what we do is none of his goddamn business.”

“He’s okay, Mario. Just leave him alone.”

“Fine. I’ll do it.” Shoving her onto the couch, Mario came at me.

But there was no way I was going to let that mean bastard separate me from her. Not if she was in danger.

As his hand came down, I jumped up and sank my teeth into the meat between his thumb and first finger. And I held on, clamping my jaw tighter. I wanted to hurt him, just like he’d hurt Ariella.

Pummeling my ribs with the fist of his free hand, he yelled at Ariella to get me off of him, but she just stood there, lost in shock. With each blow to my chest, it became harder and harder to breathe. My jaws were tiring, too, and my feet sliding on the smooth tile floor as he jerked his arm back. I needed to adjust my bite. So I let go of his hand, ducked low, and bit him in the calf.

Dumb move on my part. Because it was just enough time for him to grab a skillet off the counter and swing it at my head.

I staggered backward, my head ringing, then stumbled and fell.

I saw two of everything, then three, four ...

From a distance, I heard Ariella screeching, “No, Mario! No!”

A belt went around my muzzle. I felt myself lifted up.

The next thing I was aware of was being in the back of Mario’s sports car, music banging around me and rattling my bones, the car bumping over a rough road, and then ...

A rush of warm air. Sunlight bathing me. Growing stronger. Hotter. Brighter.

The smell of crushed grass. Lilacs.

Birds ... singing.

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H
annah saw dogs everywhere. On TV, in magazine ads, sitting on porches as her family drove to town, and walking down the road with ladies in high heels. She even saw them in the shapes of the clouds and random patterns of the bathroom floor tiles. There was nothing she wanted more than to have a dog and the day she got one would surely be the best day of her life.

Since coming home, a strange thing had happened to her. Not ‘strange’ as in bad. Just new and different. Too much of anything still overwhelmed her, but when it came to animals, she felt a new relationship to them. A connection, although she couldn’t quite put her finger on why that was so. Except that sometimes she thought she heard them speak to her. Not that they said words out loud. But whatever they were thinking, she heard it in her head, as if their thoughts were hers, too.

She wasn’t entirely sure she liked that.

And so, Hannah ignored the voices, turning her face away when she heard them, busying herself with other important matters, like cutting out all the pictures of dogs she could find in her mommy’s magazines and pasting them to a piece of cardboard she’d ripped from the box their new dishwasher had come in.

“Hannah.” Jenn knelt beside her, admiring the collage she’d created out of dog pictures. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Hannah flipped through a magazine she’d already looked through twice, just in case she’d missed a picture. There was an ad with kittens in it, but she didn’t want a cat. They were too snooty. Even the barn cats.

“Kindergarten starts this fall for you. They’re having sign-ups over at Faderville Elementary, where your Gramma Lise used to teach. It’s a nice school, with a big playground and lots of other kids. Maybe some of them could be your friends? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

No, Hannah hadn’t missed anything. There were no more dog pictures. She could cut out things a dog might like, like food or toys or a little kid’s swimming pool, but that wasn’t the same. It was cheating. Still, she’d been through the whole stack of magazines and didn’t have nearly enough to fill up her big cardboard square. This just wouldn’t do. Maybe if her daddy brought the newspaper in, there’d be something in there?

“Hannah, are you listening to me?” Jenn sat back on her bottom and blew out a puff of air. “No, of course you’re not.” Gently, she took Hannah’s chin in her fingers and turned her daughter’s face toward her. “We need to go to the school. Mrs. Watley wants to talk to you. She’ll ask you some questions, simple things like counting and ABCs. Stuff you already know. You need to answer her, okay?”

Why was her mommy interrupting her to talk about school? “Maura goes to school,” she said, trying to get her mother back on track.

“I know. And you will, too, next year, sweetie. Isn’t that exciting?”

She scrunched her mouth up to show her disapproval. “Nope.”

“Oh, now, don’t be such a sourpuss. Bet you’ll make a lot of new friends.”

Gripping the glue bottle tightly, Hannah stared blankly at her. This was getting frustrating. She only needed one friend — a dog. Besides, she didn’t particularly like other children. They didn’t understand her, just like she didn’t understand them. Anyway, what was the point of going to school when you could learn things at home?

“Oh, Hannah, look.” Jenn pointed at the white glob of glue pooling on the floor in front of Hannah. “Can you help me clean this mess up? We don’t want anyone stepping in it and getting stuck now, do we?”

Hannah hated cleaning up, but she did it anyway. Because more than she disliked cleaning up, she didn’t like her mommy getting upset with her. So she tore a few paper towels from the roll, swiped it through the gooey puddle, then threw it in the trash and went outside.

“You’re not done, Hannah,” her mother said.

But Hannah was already on her way down the front steps, looking for her daddy to see if he had the newspaper yet.

Down the road by her Gramma’s house, a low silver car stopped, music booming from inside. A man got out, laid something in the ditch, then got back in his car and sped away.
How strange
, she thought, but quickly forgot about it when she saw her daddy out on the lawnmower, going back and forth, making long symmetrical stripes across the yard.

While she waited for him to finish, she sat down beneath her favorite tree and drew dog pictures in the dirt.

––––––––

—o00o—

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“H
annah, lunch is ready!” Jenn called from the kitchen window.

Hannah was almost done waiting. Her daddy had just put the tractor in the shed and was walking toward the mailbox. She’d wanted to get the newspaper herself, but she wasn’t allowed by the road. Besides, out by the mailbox was where the school bus picked Maura up and Hannah didn’t want a school bus to come and take her.

“Hannah?” Jenn stepped out the door, then said to her husband, “Hunter, bring her inside when you come in, will you? She’s been out there watching you mow the whole time. Who knows what’s on her mind?”

Smiling, Hunter waved at Jenn and went on down the lane. Hannah went to the picket fence, watching. This was as far as she was allowed to go. Her parents had said they’d put the fence up when she was little to keep her from running out onto the road. She didn’t remember ever doing that.

Hunter walked up to the mailbox and looked inside. He pulled the paper out, tucked it under his arm, and turned back toward the house. But before he started up the lane, he paused, looking down the road toward Gramma Lise’s. He began walking that way. A few steps later he broke into a jog.

Standing on the bottom board of the fence, Hannah waited, her impatience mounting. Grasping a picket, she swung her body side to side. She wondered why her daddy was running away with the newspaper that she needed. More than that, she wondered what he was running to. Gramma Lise and Grampa Brad were not walking down the road. Their sheep appeared to all be safe in their pasture. There was nothing there, as far as she could see.

After disappearing from view behind a clump of trees, Hunter reappeared briefly on the other side before bending down. He stayed there for much too long a time. Hannah swung side to side harder. She felt the nails of the board loosen, but she went on swinging. What was he doing?

Finally, he stood and started back. When he got to the other side of the trees, Hannah could see he had something big, fuzzy, and dark draped between his arms. He turned down their lane. The board popped loose. Hannah stopped swinging. She was too mesmerized by what she saw in her father’s arms to move.

A dog! He was bringing her dog to her!

She let go of the broken board and hopped down. Unable to contain her excitement, she jumped up and down, up and down, up and down.

“Hannah,” her mother began, “what are you —?”

But Jenn stopped cold as Hunter stepped through the gate. She pressed a hand to her chest. “Oh, no. Is he ...?”

“Still breathing,” Hunter made his way carefully up the steps. “Pulse is faint, but regular.”

Jenn held the door open for them. “I’ll get your bag out of the truck.”

“As soon as you do that, find Maura. Have her keep Hannah in check, will you?”

By then, Hannah had stopped jumping. Something was wrong with her new dog. Terribly, terribly wrong. His eyes were closed. He was sleeping, but the kind of sleep it was hard to wake up from. Like after her accident. And there was blood coming out of his nose.

She followed Hunter inside as he laid the dog on the kitchen table and then probed him gently all over. When Jenn came in and set his bag down, he took a light out and pried the dog’s eyelids open to shine it in his eyes. The dog moaned and tried to lift his head, but he wasn’t very strong.

“Did he get hit by a car?” Jenn said.

“I suppose it’s possible, but it looks more to me like someone hit him with something and dumped him by the road.”

“How awful. Who would do that to a dog? I hope the monster gets his due.” She stroked the top of the dog’s head. “They say animal abuse is the first sign of a serial violent offender.” Then, as if she suddenly remembered Hannah standing there, she said, “I’ll fetch Maura from her room.”

Hunter’s back was to Hannah. Without making a sound, she tiptoed to the table. For a while, she watched her daddy looking inside the dog’s mouth.

He glanced at her, smiling sadly. “I’m going to patch him up, okay? Then we have to figure out who he belongs to.”

Which seemed like such an odd thing to say, because he was their dog now. Whoever had left him like that didn’t want him very much.

Hannah stroked the dog’s head with gentle pets, like her daddy had taught her to do with Gramma’s baby lambs. The dog’s eyes opened a crack, as if he’d been waiting for a sign that she was there.

“I’m Hannah,” she said.

His breathing was faint, but she heard him like a faraway whisper:
Echo.

“I like that.”

“Like what, sweet pea?” Hunter asked.

“His name.”

“Oh.” Hunter blinked at her. “What is it?”

“Echo. His name is Echo. Like when you make a sound in the hills and it comes back to you.”

Taking out a syringe, Hunter filled it with liquid from a tiny bottle, then tapped at it to get the bubbles out. He explained to Hannah that this was to make the dog sleepy and not hurt so much, until he got better. “Have you seen him before?”

“Nope.”

“Then how do you know his name? He’s not wearing a tag.”

“Because he told me.”

Her daddy’s eyes said he didn’t believe her. Just like he didn’t believe her about the bird or the fish. But it was pretty obvious to her by then. Other people didn’t hear these things. Only Hannah did.

Jenn walked in with Maura.

“Who told you what, sweetie?” Jenn said.

Hannah pressed her lips together. Jenn and Hunter looked at each other. He leaned his head toward the hallway and her parents went and stood there together. They lowered their voices, but Hannah wasn’t deaf. She could still hear them.