Safe from Harm (9781101619629) (18 page)

But I was also devastated.

Jo turned around at last, but now I was the one who couldn't look at her. I sat down at the table and rubbed my fingers together. Mr. Wiggles came to me. I picked him up and stroked his fat back. He felt like a seal pup. His coat was short and silky. He grunted with pleasure.

“Dad?”

“Yes, Jo.”

“Are you mad at me? I was afraid you'd be mad at me.”

“I'm not mad at you.”

“And I was afraid it would hurt your feelings.”

I opened my mouth to tell her my feelings weren't hurt. I closed it again. I was hurting. Something was hurting.

“Ahh, Jo. We're talking about a matter of conscience here. How other people feel about the decisions we make . . . that has to come second. I . . . I mean . . . I'd like it if we could talk this over together. If you could tell me why you . . .”

I stood up. I needed some air.

“I'm going to take the dogs to the levee. They need a walk.”

When I passed Annie to gather the leashes from the backdoor hook, she squeezed my arm and briefly leaned her cheek on my shoulder. I patted her back but didn't pause. All three dogs pressed against my legs, having seen the leashes and knowing it meant a walk.

“Dad?” Jo's voice was small and tremulous.

“It's all right, baby. I just want some time. It's a lot to think about.” I opened the back door.

“Do you still love me, Dad?”

I went back in the kitchen and bent down to hug her.

“With all my heart,” I said into her hair. “Always and forever.”

•   •   •

Our house backs up to the levee, so we can go straight out the back gate and onto the levee without going near a street. The pugs looooved the levee and Baby Bear acted like landed gentry showing his properties off to the local dirt-scratchers. The levee was raised ten or fifteen feet to keep flood waters out of our neighborhood (there's another neighborhood on the other side of the levee—don't know what happens to them in a flood—maybe the same guys who told
us
the levee would protect
us
told
them
the levee would protect
them
); and is flanked by residential backyards. We had it pretty much to ourselves this afternoon. I let the dogs off their leashes. Mr. Wiggles lagged behind with me, never speeding up past an amble, but Tommy was off like a rocket the second he was free of his leash. He ran circles around Baby Bear and then raced down the levee, making a
huh, huh
breathing sound that I think was supposed to make it sound like he was going faster than he was. That pug was supplying his own sound effects.

On this long stretch, Baby Bear caught up with Tommy easily. In one stride Baby Bear could cover four times the distance Tommy could. As soon as Baby Bear caught up to Tommy, Tommy would turn on a dime and race back, tongue and ears streaming back, as joyous a creature as God has ever created. Baby Bear was still trying to figure out the rules to the game, but he was a player.

Late October is a good time to live on the Gulf Coast. It was cool and sunny. I lifted my face up to the sun and took in a big breath.

Okay. So Jo was studying to become a Catholic.

Out here in the cool air, watching the dogs play, my throat started to loosen up. My mind stilled enough for some rational thought to get into it.

I wasn't raised to believe that everybody who didn't understand God exactly like me was going to Hell. Father Nat Fontana, the priest at Saint Lawrence, is a friend of mine, a good man and a devout Christian and . . .

Why was this so painful? Twenty minutes ago, I'd been on tenterhooks thinking my own girl might actually be selling drugs. Might have contributed to the death of another man's daughter. Well, she wasn't selling drugs. She was becoming a Catholic. That's good news, right? Right?

Right?

So why was my heart sore when everything in my head told me I should be rejoicing? In this day and age, when our children are turning away from the faith of their fathers by the
droves
, in our own overmoneyed, overindulged, self-invested suburb of Houston, Texas, I had a child who was so serious about her faith that she was undergoing the very taxing process of becoming a Catholic as an adult.

What I should have been doing right then was giving praise, on my
knees
, that my daughter was alive, healthy, and in a committed relationship with her Lord.

I mean, as far as I knew.

As far as you can know another person's heart.

This was no small undertaking Jo had started.

In the Church of Christ, if you are willing to proclaim your Lord's name and take on His spirit in baptism, you're in. No tests. No classes. No creeds to memorize. Your authenticity of spirit—that's between you and God.

Not so in the Catholic Church. They require that you understand Catholic doctrine and be familiar with the liturgy. You'll be expected to participate in an intensive study of the Bible. There are a number of ceremonies to go through and services to offer. If you decide to become a Catholic as an adult, you need to be serious about it. I have a lot of respect for the process. That Jo had stuck it out, that was a real accomplishment. Especially since Jo has a reading disability—anything on the printed page—that's real work for her.

That was dedication.

I don't believe in churches keeping score—it's not about adding bodies to your roster, it's about bringing people into a relationship with Christ, the Lord God on high.

So why did I feel . . . what? What was I feeling?

Rejected. Something like that, anyway. Bigger than that.

My stomach was hurting. I had let us get farther down the levee than I'd planned. When it was time to turn back, Mr. Wiggles made it about halfway and stopped. I called to him and he sat down. I hollered and he lay down. He wouldn't budge. The old boy had had his walk and he was done. He didn't have any more walk left in him.

I went over and hefted him up. He was one solid dog. Those pugs look little, especially when contrasted with Baby Bear, but I don't ever carry Baby Bear. At 180 pounds, I
couldn't
carry Baby Bear. Mr. Wiggles was maybe 25 pounds—not all that much. But he got heavier each step I took. I had his back against my stomach, one arm under his haunches and another crossed in front of him to hold him close.

Soon we got to our back gate.

That's when Tommy stopped. I opened the gate with my elbow, my arms being full of fat, lazy pug, and Baby Bear obediently passed through. Tommy declined. He wasn't done playing. He didn't want to leave the levee. He wanted more romping and racing. And he was off the leash.

I tried to scoot Tommy in with the side of my sneaker, but he evaded the move and hunkered down, forequarters on the ground, butt in the air and that curly tail waving in a way meant to entice me to chase him. I tucked Mr. Wiggles under my arm like a football and made a grab at Tommy. I got nothing but air.

I'd had those dogs out for more than an hour. I'd given the spoiled furball a very generous walk and I was carrying his fat comrade and I was ready to go in. Not too much to ask.

Tommy did a sizzly figure eight and took up his play position again. I wasn't in the mood, and decided to just wedge the gate open and go into the house without him, figuring the porker would be crying to be let in within two minutes.

Annie Laurie was sitting in the family room all cool and comfy with her long, tan legs folded under her, reading Rebecca's theses on the care of pugs. She had a sheaf of already read pages in her left hand and a tree's worth in her right, her reading glasses perched on the end of her lovely nose. She put the papers down and came into my arms.

“Where's Jo?” I asked.

She said, “She's upstairs. I told her to have a lie-down. She didn't sleep all that well last night.”

“Is she all right?”

“She will be. Are you all right?” Annie Laurie had been raised in the Episcopalian church and had tried out several denominations before she met me. I knew she couldn't understand my anguish over Jo's decision to leave the Church of Christ, but she didn't call me a fool for feeling the way I did, she didn't try to reason me out of my feelings, and I was grateful for that.

“I will be. I don't want to talk about it right now. Let me have some time, okay?”

She pulled my head down and rolled her forehead against mine before she released me. “You were getting at something else, weren't you? You didn't know Jo was taking these classes. What was it you were worried about?”

That's when I finally got the chance to tell Annie about how Wanderley was investigating the possibility that Jo might have supplied the drugs that had killed Phoebe Pickersley—that Jo might have supplied them for a price.

It made her mad. She snatched up the pug papers and then slapped the papers down on the coffee table. “I can't believe you let him get away with spouting that garbage, Walker Wells. What's his number? I'm going to call that boy. Is he telling other people that bull? Because if he is, I'll call Daddy.” Annie Laurie's dad is a lawyer.

I pushed her back in her chair. “Do me a favor. Could you let me handle it? Calling in lawyers will only make it look like we have something to hide. And we don't. It threw me when Jo turned up with all that stuff, is all. It didn't help that she started acting like she'd been caught out in a Ponzi scheme. But I never believed Jo could be into something like that.”

“You let James say it.” Annie can be very old-school Texas about the honor of her family.

I said, “I did not. I punched him out and stuffed him in the trunk of his car.”

She tried to kick my leg but I stepped out of reach. She pointed to the sheaf of papers on the table. “We're going to be sorry you let those pugs eat chili beans.”

“You think so?” I filled the water bowls and Baby Bear and Mr. Wiggles lapped gratefully.

“Rebecca specifically warns against beans of any kind. I think we have sown the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.”

I laughed.

Annie took her glasses off and nodded. “You should read this thing. These two pugs have some peculiarities we need to keep in mind. Who was Rebecca meeting in Galveston?”

“I dunno. It came up suddenly. She really wanted to go.” I drank some ice water and wiped my face on my sleeve. Annie looked past me, frowning.

“Where's the other one?”

“The other what?”

Annie unfolded her legs and came into the kitchen, searching the floor. “The other
pug
, Bear, where's Tommy?”

Oh.

“He's right outside the door,” I said, opening the back door to an empty doormat. I stuck my head outside the door. “Tommy?”

Annie pushed past me. “Tommy boy, come here, baby! Bear, why on earth did you leave that dog outside?”

I said, “He wouldn't come in—I tried to get him to come in and he got all coy with me.”

Annie was searching the bushes. “And you didn't have him on the leash?”

“We were on the levee! Where was he going to go?” I'd made it to the back gate, where I'd last seen the little stinker. He was nowhere in sight. “Tommy!” I called. You know what? I didn't need this right now. I didn't.

“In the instructions Rebecca left you, she specifically says not to take Tommy off the leash unless he's in a fenced yard. She says he gets wild with freedom and it's hard to get him to obey. Just so you know.”

Annie went back into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder that she'd get something. I kept yelling Tommy's name, worrying about the pug. We have owls in Sugar Land. Big ones. I think an owl could . . .

Annie came out holding a cocktail sauce cup full of peanut butter. This is one of Baby Bear's favorite treats. She got on her knees on the lawn, facing the back gate and crooned. “Oh, Tommy boy, come see what I have for you!” To me she said, “Move, Bear, don't block the gate. He may not want to have anything to do with you after you locked him out.”

“I didn't lock him out. He wouldn't come in. I left the gate open. I was just teaching him a lesson.” I moved out onto the levee and called for him. Man. It didn't look good. Oh, please, God, help me find that dog, Rebecca will die if anything happens to that dog . . .

Annie yelled, “I've got him!”

And I said thank you.

Tommy, with enormous self-restraint—or a pathological determination to make a point—ignored the cup of peanut butter and walked into the kitchen. I think he was trying to do dignified, but when you're twenty-five pounds of curly-tailed, bug-eyed corpulence, dignified ain't going to happen. I told him so and Tommy suddenly stopped in his tracks and started to choke to death.

It was the worst asthma attack I'd ever heard in my life. His eyes bulged nearly out of his skull and he struggled desperately for breath. I yelled for Annie to call 911 and dropped to my knees, already feeling guilty and now ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for Rebecca's baby and give the chinless wonder CPR. I was trying to get a finger on his tongue to hold it down when Annie stopped me.

That woman laughed out loud, put a hand out before (thank you very much) my lips touched pug lips, and stroked Tommy's throat. Within seconds, Tommy's breathing eased, his eyeballs returned to their sockets, and he let Annie know that he'd give that peanut butter a try now. She was still laughing her head off while she made more servings of peanut butter for Mr. Wiggles and Baby Bear.

“You want to tell me what the heck that was?” I asked.

Another giggle. “Tommy just had a pharyngeal gag reflex.”

I grunted. “And what's that when it's at home?” I was still on the floor, watching for signs of relapse.

Annie set the three cups of peanut butter down in front of two very impatient dogs and one grateful one. The well-behaved dog was Baby Bear.
We
don't spoil our dog.