“What's his name?”
“Her name is Missy.”
“She's kinda funny lookin’, ain't she?”
“Not really, she's a basset hound.”
He peered in the doorway. “Can she run? Shortest legs I ever seen.”
“Would your parents mind if you came in our backyard?”
“Nah, Dad's at work.”
“Who's taking care of you?”
Surely this boy isn't a htchkey kid, not as young as he looks.
He shrugged. “My sister. She's bossy.” He reached a tentative hand to pat Missy and received a drooly kiss for his effort.
“She likes you.”
Whats the best way to handle this?
The boy knelt and Missy made quick work of cleaning his face. He giggled, laid his cheek against her ear, both arms around the dog's neck.
“What's your name?”
“Thomas.” Missy wriggled from nose to tail, her nails clicking on the tile of the entryway.
“Where do you live, Thomas?”
“Over there.” He pointed to a house three doors down on the opposite side of the street.
She'd seen a U-Haul rental truck in the drive a few days earlier and meant to bake something and take it over but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Like she hadn't gotten around to lots of things lately.
“How about if Missy and I walk you home and ask your sister if it is all right for you to play in our backyard.”
“She won't care none.”
“Just the same, I'll get Missy's leash.” She reached inside the coat closet and lifted the blue nylon leash from the hook. Once she'd snapped it to Missy's collar, she closed the door behind her and smiled at Thomas. “How old are you?” beven.
“Second grade?”
“When school starts. You think I could hold the leash?”
“Watch how I do it and then you may.” She folded most of the leash in her right hand and, as Missy took her place at Kit's left knee, held the leash in her left hand at a heel position. “Missy knows to walk on the left side like this.”
“Did you teach her that?”
“Ah, no, my daughter Amber did. Missy was her dog.” Together they stepped off the porch and down the three wide wood steps to the brick walk, which led to the maple-lined street named after the trees.
“So how come Amber let Missy live with you?” He looked up, questions in his blue eyes.
Oh, Lord, how do I answer all these questions? I dont do questions anymore.
“How do you like your new house?”
“Okay” Thomas hung back a trifle as they started up the three concrete steps to his yard. Overgrown junipers formed a spiky green mat on either side of the steps. Missy's nose twitched, and she turned her head to catch a whiff of whatever lived in the evergreens.
“Do you have a dog?”
Thomas shook his head, his chin drawing closer to his chest. All Kit could see was the button on the top of his blue hat.
Why doesnt he want to go home? Whan going on here?
When she started toward the front door, he motioned her to take the concrete walk around to the back.
“You wait here, okay?” His eyes beseeched her to agree.
“Of course.” Kit sat on one of the green plastic lawn chairs, Missy plopping down at her feet.
Thomas crossed the silvered redwood deck and opened the sliding glass door.
Kit leaned back in the chair, letting the slanting sun bathe her face in golden warmth. Strange how comforting the sun felt, not like the gloom in her house that felt cold and…
Trying to prevent the intense introspection that always brought on tears, she opened her eyes to study the backyard. Like many of the others in Jefferson City, Washington, situated halfway between Tacoma and Mount Rainier, or “out in the boonies” as her son Ryan used to say, the permanently white-crowned mountain sat like a sentinel on the southeastern horizon. Towering Douglas fir trees flanked the peak, looking like deep green, near-to-black velvet from this distance.
June in Jefferson City held the sparkle of the finest diamond.
Except for the fifteenth.
It's only another day
, she reminded herself.
The same twenty-four hours as any other day. Even if you cry all day, which you arerit doing, it will still turn into the sixteenth at midnight and the worst will be over
“Please, God, let it be over.”
Missy raised her head from the ground and bumped against Kit's knee.
“Yes, I know, you'd rather walk than lie here. Let's give the kid a minute, and then perhaps he'll play ball with you.” At the word “ball,” the dog's ears rose and her tail brushed the grass. Her head swiveled to see the deck as a teenage girl followed Thomas outside. Straight hair, badly in need of a trim, swung from a center part, partially obscuring her thin face. She tucked one side behind her ear.
“Thomas said you live a couple of houses up on the other side of the street. If you don't mind him playing with your dog, he can go.”
Kit stood. “Is that all? Don't you even want to know my name?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.” Fingers hooked the hair back again. “He better be home in an hour or so.”
“No, I don't.” Thomas stopped his forward motion toward the dog.
She glared down at him. “Yes, you do.” Each word came out clipped and hissed. “Or you can stay home.”
“Aw'right.”
“I'm Kit Cooper and I'll make sure he comes home on time. He'll be doing
me
a favor, besides Missy. If she doesn't get more exercise, she'll get fat.”
Why are you talking so muchi You can see she's already tuned you out, just as if she's turned on a radio to blast other sound to infinity.
“Can I hold the leash?” Thomas looked up, his blue
eyes
pleading.
“Sure you can.” Kit handed him the loop and watched as he carefully mimicked what she had done, then turned and walked down back around the house. Missy waited until Kit said, “Heel,” then, tail in the air, picked up her broad feet and skipped in rhythm alongside the boy. Kit shot another look to the deck and saw that the sister had disappeared inside. Kit shrugged and followed her new friend back out to the street.
“Now, you walk good, Missy, you hear?” Thomas ordered. “Don't you go chasing no cats or nothing.”
Kit let them into the backyard, showed Thomas Missy's box of toys, and went on in the house, only to stop and watch out the window. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend it was Ryan out there with Skip, the basset they'd had before Missy. Ryan throwing the ball, Ryan tumbling in the grass with a dog, him laughing, the dog barking in the bass tones of a hound. Amber coming around the corner to join the fun. Amber and Ryan playing keep-away from the short-legged dog that could still jump to catch the ball and then, ears flying, keep it away from them. The phones ringing broke into her reverie.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Speak of the angels, I was just thinking about you. I have a little boy playing out in the yard with Missy.”
“Where did you find him?”
“He showed up at my door asking if I had kids. His family moved into the Snyder place. So how are you?”
“Not good, how about you?” His voice clogged for part of a moment.
“Cried some earlier. Thomas's coming by helped.”
“Mom, sometimes I miss her so much I…”
Want to hit something? Scream? Curse?
“I know.”
Oh, how I know.
Ryan, two years younger than Amber, thought his big sister could do no wrong. She had been the person he loved most to tease in this world, one who gave as good as she got. Now Ryan was in college at Washington State University in Pullman, the last one to leave the nest. His sigh matched her own.
“What's Dad doing?”
“I…ah, he hasn't called yet today, still on that last consulting job.”
“When's he comin home?”
Oh, please stop asking questions I can't answer.
“Not sure.”
Than right. Not sure, not even sure where he is.
“So nobody's with you?” His voice went up a couple of notes on the last word.
“No, I have Missy and now Thomas.”
“You know what I mean.”
She could hear music in the background. Ryan always needed music on when he studied. Amber liked everything quiet. That used to be one of their bones of contention.
“I thought Jennifer would come home, or Dad.”
Me, too, but no such luck.
“Jennifer didn't dare ask for time off right after starting a new job like that.” Jennifer had graduated from college in mid-May and started her new accounting position the first of June. “So how is everything else?”
“Cool. Thanks for letting me stay on for summer school. You rattling around that big house?”
If you only knew.
Kit could feel tears burning at the back of her nose and eyes. “Yeah, well, maybe I'll take in boarders.” She listened. “Hang on, someone's at the door.” Laying the receiver down, she headed for the front door and found a young woman hiding behind an arrangement of mixed flowers in vivid pinks, reds, and whites with yellow mums in a milk glass bowl.
“Flowers for Kit Cooper.”
“Thank you.” Kit reached for the vase and inhaled the spicy aroma of carnations.
“Make sure you add water.”
“Thanks, I will.” She closed the door with her foot and crossed to set the arrangement on the coffee table. Taking the card from the pronged plastic holder, she headed back to the phone, opening the card as she went.
“Jennifer sent me flowers,” she told Ryan. “And in a milk glass bowl. You know how much I love milk glass.”
“Good old Jen. What kind?”
“Carnations, mums, and some others.” Kit read the card aloud. “Dear Mom and Dad, just to tell you how much I love you and how I wish I could make this day easier for you.” Kits voice broke halfway through, and she had to gulp to finish. “All my love, Jennifer.”
“That's Jen. You think she likes Dallas?”
Kit finished wiping her eyes with a tissue. She'd learned to keep boxes of tissues handy at all times, including a pull-out packet in her pocket.
“Mom?”
“Yes, I'm all right, Ryan.”
“I should have come home.” That was her Ryan, the tenderhearted one.
“No, I'll get through this. If I was too bad, I'd go out to Teza's and have a cup of tea.” Her aunt Teza had bandaged many of her owies in life, many more than her own mother had. Teza had stood by when Kit's mother died of cancer and then when Amber followed in her grandmother's footsteps.
Aunt Teza could fix anything.
Except a daughter dying.
“I better get going, talk to you later.”
“Thank you, dear.” She sniffed again and sighed. “I love you, son. Take care of yourself.” Her nose was so plugged she had to breathe through her mouth. She knew he was crying too. Hanging up the phone, she leaned her forehead against the refrigerator, trying to drive the memories out of her mind. Amber lying in the hospital, fighting to live, Amber weeping when all her hair fell out, Amber telling a joke and laughing so hard she would forget the punch line or at least not be able to get it out around the giggles.
God, why? You didrit need her near as much as I do. And now Mark isrit here either. Bring him home this evening, please.
The tears calmed enough that she could hear a small boys laughter and the barking dog. She glanced at the clock.
About time to send him home so his sister wouldn't get angry with him.
She checked the freezer. No Popsicles or ice-cream bars. She knew the cookie jar was empty. Were there no snacks here a small boy would enjoy?
She checked the pantry.
Same song second verse, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.
One of the old songs she'd taught the kids when they were little. She could hear them all singing on the car rides to anywhere over an hour.
She found a bag of chips on the shelf, poured some into a Baggie, and clamped the big bag closed again. Like a Greek bearing gifts, she wandered out to the backyard and called. “Thomas, time to go home.”
“Aw, so soon?” He flopped back on the grass. Missy planted her ponderous paws on his chest and stared down into his face.
“Sorry. I have a treat for you. And one for Missy, too. You can give it to her.” Kit sat down on the steps.
“Get off, dog.” He pushed her off and Missy leaped back at him.
“Missy, puppy treats.” At the familiar call, the dog charged across the grass, leaving a giggling boy behind to get on his feet and stagger after her, straightening his hat so the bill hung to the right. Grass greened the front of a T-shirt that had never met Tide and could use a few stitches here and there. Kit thought about the sewing machine sitting at the ready in her sewing room. She could sew that up in a minute, but then what would Thomas's mother think? Nosy neighbor? Interfering old woman?
Missy reached up to rest her front paws on Kit's thigh and looked into her face, tail wagging expectantly.
Kit handed the snack to Thomas. “Here, you give her this.”
“Hey, Missy.” The puppy treat was gone with a gulp. “She didn't even chew it.”
“I know. She never does with those small ones.”
Thomas scuffed the toe of his tennis shoe on the stairs before looking at her from under lashes long enough to make every girl in the neighborhood envious. “Can I come back?”
“Of course you may, perhaps tomorrow.” She handed him the bag of chips. “Thanks for giving Missy her exercise. She'll sleep well tonight.”
He held the bag aloft. “Thanks for the chips.”
She watched him trudge out the gate. “Watch out for cars on the street.”
The look he threw over his shoulder told quite clearly what he thought ofthat advice.
Yeah, well, once a mother, always a mother.
The ringing phone brought her to her feet. “Come on, dog, dinnertime.” She caught the phone just as the answering machine clicked in.
“Just a minute till that runs out.” One of these days she would need to learn how to shut the stupid thing off, but like other technological beasts, it, too, would most likely best her. She'd ask Ryan to fix it when he came home. Or Mark.
“There now. Hello again.”
“Kit?”
Who eke aid you think it would be? And ifyoure calling, you arent
on your way home. So much for God answering my prayers today. Not that Iphn on praying anymore anyway.
That last bit had just slipped out.