The Dog Year (22 page)

“Well, aren't you a good girl!” Claire said. Candy posed, her craggy feet forever in the first position of a prima ballerina, her ears hanging halfway to the ground. “My God, I have met the mate of my soul. Where do I sign?”

“You gals done good,” she said a little later, after she'd signed the papers Marilyn had handed her. “I've been thinking about a dog, especially after seeing Ron with Coltrane, but I just haven't had the energy to go find one.”

“What's going on with the group?” Sara asked her. “Do they miss us?”

Lucy glanced at Sara, feeling a clutch in her chest.
Us?

“You will have to attend a meeting for yourself. I will not kiss and tell.” Claire pulled her hat a little farther down and said, “Seriously, ladies. When is that going to happen?”

Lucy looked at her feet, and Sara followed Claire's gaze beyond the fencing of the exercise area. A brisk wind hit Lucy in the face and she turned. “That's the dog park over there,” she said, so she didn't have to answer the question.

“I'm all of a sudden very tired, ladies,” Claire said. “If you don't mind, I'm gonna pass on lunch. Candy and I are going for a nap.” Squinting into the sun, she watched a large black dog romp around beyond the gates of the Humane Society. “You know, Kimmy needs a dog, too. Let's get her here. Maybe if she falls in love with one, she'll turn her attentions away from that son-of-a-bitch father of hers. And maybe you two will be able to focus on yourselves.”

*   *   *

“That was a good idea getting Claire and Candy together,” Lucy said to Sara, as she turned the Subaru into her cul-de-sac.

Across the street, her neighbors loaded skis into an overhead container on the top of their van. The husband stretched to get them in place around luggage and boots. He grew testy as the wife stood pointing and giving instructions. Two of the children were outside chasing each other in zigzags across the frosted lawn. When the little girl tripped, her brother stood over her with a stick and proceeded to Taser her to tears.

Sara watched Lucy as Lucy watched the family. “That what you wanted?” she asked.

“Yep. All of it.”

“You've got a lot of pictures of your husband in your room. He wore really ugly glasses.”

Lucy nodded. “He did. Super ugly.”

“You two looked happy in that picture by your bed.”

“We were happy.”

Sara nodded and brushed a lock of her Goth hair away from her forehead. “My dad loved my mom, but she was a loser. Then my dad became a loser, too. People say I look just like she did.” She sat up, rubbed her arm. “I'm better, you know. Lots better. You want me outta here?”

In the driveway, the exhaust from the car's engine rose, obliterating the rear view of the family across the street. “My husband used to chew candy in bed. Hard candy. Anise. Sometimes he'd fall asleep without brushing his teeth. He also took forever to pay our bills. I had to take that job from him because he'd rack up late fees; it drove me nuts. He never got the mail out of the mailbox. He had terrible road rage, too. Awful. He was an only child and thought one child was enough. We fought about that.” She thought for a moment. “We weren't perfect. I just like to remember it all as if it was.”

Sara placed her hand on the car door lever. Flipped it once. Turned her face away from Lucy's.

Lucy said, “I'd like you to stay as long as you want.”

“Think you'll feel better about yourself, living with a homeless girl?”

“Maybe a month ago, I felt a little like that.”

“Win the hater over, and you won't have to hate yourself so much.”

If it was benevolence Lucy had been feeling, sitting with this bitter acorn of a girl, she wasn't feeling it anymore. The heaviness of the truth settled in her chest. She nodded. “Maybe so.” Lucy snapped off the engine. “You can drop the tough-girl act. I've seen you with Claire. With dogs. With me.”

“People think I live on my own because I'm antisocial. That's what the counselors call it. Whatever.” She shoved her hood back, yanked the wool hat off her head. “It's just that I fucking hate liars. I can spot a lie before it hits the air. My foster parents, my dad.” She shook her head. “Mark gets it. He says I'm an idealist. I expect stuff. That's why I like dogs. They never lie. Dogs and kids. If you're boring them, they yawn. If they hate you, they bite.”

“Well, that's what we got here. Two dogs, a cat, and a thief. Stay a while and there'll be a kid, too.”

I
n the shower, Lucy let the water run over her shoulders onto her breasts. Now in her third month, they were larger than she had expected. It was one thing to make your living attending to the health of other women's breasts and another thing to see your own morph into someone else's food source.

Her hands ran across her belly. There was a swelling, a tiny tightness. Snapping off the shower, she stepped out of the tub, grabbed her T-shirt, and wiped the steam off the mirror. Tig had told her that women didn't always get a cancer diagnosis in time because they didn't want to face the hard realities of a body that didn't fit the ideal of what they saw in magazines. They didn't touch or look at themselves. But Lucy would not be that woman. She took a quick, hard survey in the mirror, lights on. Then she shut the lights off, looked again, and got dressed.

In the hall, Sara stood in her winter gear with both dogs leashed. “I'm taking them for a walk this morning. Oh, and I won't be back for a while. There's coffee.”

*   *   *

Lucy entered the kitchen, and there sat Mark, his hands around a steaming mug. Lucy shook her head. “My God, that girl's a sneak.”

“Don't blame Sara. This was my idea.”

“Too much longer, and I'd have convinced myself that I'd gotten spontaneously pregnant.”

“Immaculate conception, huh?”

She rolled her eyes. “I think we both know there's nothing immaculate about me.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired, a little nauseous at times, bored, sad, embarrassed.”

Mark nodded, sipped his coffee. Lucy added, “Occasionally, when I'm not paying attention, I feel, I don't know . . . expectant. Which sometimes leads to an almost, but not quite, feeling of eagerness.” At the sink, she filled a glass of water.

“Sara showed me the baby's room. It's really nice.”

“I've kind of taken it over. I figure it's only fair. The baby has taken over me.”

He turned away from her. “I've tried to stay out of your way in all this.”

“I know,” Lucy said. “You've been really understanding.”

“No, Lucy. I haven't. I've been really, really angry.”

Lucy turned from the sink, considering whether to move so that she could see his expression or leave the room. Her mind flooded her with images: Mark with his arm around Sara after she'd injured her wrist; playing with Bella at the Humane Society; driving her to the hospital. She walked over to him and saw a face filled with fatigue and sadness. But no anger. She sat down at the table, right across from him. “And now?”

“I just want to talk, even though I'm not always the best at it.”

Lucy nodded. She waited, and after a long moment she said, “Okay.”

“Now that I'm here, I don't know what to say.”

Lucy frowned. “Look, I get it. You're a bachelor. A kid isn't in your plans. I can do this myself. I have enough money.” Mark started to speak, but Lucy interrupted him. “It's okay. We can work something out. But I don't really need anything, honestly. The truth is that I've always been kind of a loner.”

He seemed to change right in front of her eyes. His body seemed to grow larger, his face flushed. “Maybe this was too soon for me to talk.” He stood, letting the chair hit the wall as he moved toward the front door. Then he whirled around. “You make people who might want to be in your life feel like shit, you know that?”

“Mark. I'm just saying that I get it.”

“You don't know me. You just think you do. You see a cop with an alcohol problem who lives alone. You think now that I have a dog and a social cause in Sara, I can sit around alone and get older.”

“I don't think . . .”

“I'm not that kid from high school. I don't date, but not because I wouldn't like to. I'm trying to connect with people. I'm just not good at it. That's not the same as not wanting it.” Lucy could see how frustrated he was; watching him was like watching a fly try to get out of a spider's web. “I'm trying to see if there's anything more than this baby between us.” She saw a wing break free.

“I know you're a good person, Mark.” She walked to the front door and stood in front of him. Took a deep breath. “The truth is that I don't
want
to think there might be something between us and then have it not be true.” Mark opened his mouth but she stopped him. “And if there
is
something, and I lose it, I can't afford to fall apart. I'm going to have a baby. I've got to figure out how to get back to work again. Learn how to be a parent.”

“I'm not going anywhere, Luce.”

“I do a lot of shopping online these days.” She stopped, not explaining the obvious reasons for this, that entering a brick-and-mortar store could lead to larceny. “There are these decorative metal signs that you can hang above cribs.
BELIEVE. DANCE. DREAM BIG
.
I like the idea. You know, a piece of advice, for daily reference. But it's a big responsibility, that piece of advice. Do I want an optimistic rah-rah, go-team theme when I know that any day you might wake up, and it might be your last day on Earth?”

“Lucy . . .”

“No, wait. Wouldn't it be better to have less dash-able dreams? Maybe a dream that would straddle
GO FOR THE GOLD
and
BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE
? Isn't that the kind of advice that leads to so much credit-card debt, heart disease, and home foreclosure? People thinking, well, shit, if I might die tomorrow I want a bigger house?”

“What would you suggest, Lucy? What would have helped you?”

“Nothing lasts forever. How about that?
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
.”

Mark looked at her standing there, looked at her earnest expression. He saw the girl with braces from high school, the one who followed every direction on every assignment, quiz, and final exam she'd ever taken, because she had dreamed big.

“I think,” he began, “that if you include an antidepressant in her milk, she might be able to handle life with that hanging over her bed. Or maybe try something that takes a slightly gentler approach?”

She looked into his eyes, hopeful. The answer to life was hanging on the tip of his tongue. She nodded, expectant.

“Stop and smell the roses,” he offered.

“That's what you've got for me? Stop and smell the roses?”

“It's exactly the same message. Appreciate what you've got, Egypt. You've got me.”

“Do I?”

“Nothing lasts forever, it's true. But I'm standing here. Right now. Trying to work this out.”

Lucy backed away. “So are we going to date? Get married? Move in together? We don't know each other very well, after all. Besides, I don't know if I ever want any of those things again.”

“I have those reservations, too. Believe me. Do we have to name what we have?”

“I think we do, yes. We have to call it something. I don't really work well without categories, frameworks.”

“We could call it helping. How about that? Just helping.”

“What if we painted above the baby's bed, H
ELP
I
S ON THE
W
AY
.”

“How about this?” Mark held his hands above the doorway and moved them with a flourish. “D
REAM
R
ESPONSIBLY
.”

“And then when she's a teen we can just change the letters to Drink Responsibly.” Lucy exhaled, and said with the no-nonsense tone of a farmer, certain the blight was coming, “Well, we'd better start getting to know each other, then. We're having a baby, and I definitely need some help.”

*   *   *

Later that afternoon, frenzied barking filled the front office at the Humane Society where Lucy stood filing paperwork and finishing up a dog adoption with a father and his son. She waited until the barking subsided and widened her eyes at the little boy.

“Whenever a dog gets adopted, he gets super excited. It's like a birthday party back there.”

“Is Buster gonna get cake?”

The father put his arm around his son's shoulder.

“We don't feed cake to dogs,” Lucy said, “but once he's home with you, you can bake him biscuits. We even have special recipes for dogs.” Lucy handed him a sheet of ideas for dog treats. “There are recipes with peanut butter, liver, and salmon.” The boy made a gagging sound and Lucy turned her attention to the father. “So when you come back later today for Buster, just show them the paperwork. I won't be here, but anyone else will be able to help you.”

“You don't live here?” The little boy looked distressed at the idea of Lucy not spending the night with the dogs.

“I just help out. Don't worry, Buster will be fine until you get back.” As the pair exited through the front doors, the son pulled his father along, eager to get back and pick up Buster, the dog no one thought would find a home. Scruffy, skittish, missing a front leg and a large patch of fur on his rump, he had worried the staff.

Marilyn smiled. “Just goes to show you that even ugly dogs can find a home.”

Lucy gathered her purse and nodded quietly. “I'm heading out. Should I tell Sara she's on for tomorrow?”

“She knows. I just talked to her. Your niece is really wonderful with the animals. And I always know I can count on her.”

Inwardly Lucy's heart did a little double-dutch.
Niece.
“She's tough on the outside, but a marshmallow on the inside.”

“You can tell her I've almost finished processing her application. She should be able to start working part-time next week. I'm glad we were able to accommodate her school schedule with evening and weekend shifts.”

“Great,” Lucy said in a first-I've-heard-of-it tone, and Marilyn tilted her head. Lucy scrambled to cover her inadvertent gaffe. “I was already thinking about how much I'll miss her around the house.”

“We try to support any young person considering veterinary medicine as a career.”

A light went on for Lucy and she said, “A vet. Yes.”

*   *   *

She stomped the snow off her boots as Little Dog and Larry, like tiny linebackers, blocked her entrance. “Hey, guys. Where's Sara? Go find Sara.” The dogs spun around and raced toward the interior of the house, scrambled back to Lucy, then disappeared again.

In stockinged feet, wiping her nose, it took her a moment to notice the lack of sound in the house. There were no empty glasses on the living room bookcase, or discarded blankets bundled on the floor. Lucy had gotten so used to Sara's presence, her habit of leaving a sketch pad next to the TV, an empty ice-cream bowl licked clean by the dogs, that the girl's absence was glaring. Lucy's old frenemy, anxiety, worked its way into her belly. She flashed on the hospital, Charles standing over her after the car accident. The look of hopelessness on his face. She thought of the scars on Sara's arms.

“Sara?” Both dogs came running and then skidded around the corner into the baby's room. “Sara?” she said it again, quietly, not wanting an answer unless it was a good one.

Lucy frowned and noiselessly rounded the doorway into the nursery. There, on a chair, wearing one of Richard's old, gray workout T-shirts, stood Sara. Ear buds were pressed into her ears, and Lucy's iPod was just visible in her back pocket.

Against the creamy walls of the baby's room Sara had measured, plotted, and lined in pencil a credo no one could argue with. With an artist's brush and the kind of due diligence worthy of Michelangelo, she was brushing periwinkle blue paint into the penciled outlines. Glancing over her shoulder, she said aloud, “The dogs said you were home.” When Lucy didn't respond, she added, “We can paint right over it if you don't like it.”

“No,” said Lucy, and there was reverence in her voice. “How did you know?”

“I talked to Mark. He's worse than you. Talk, talk, talk. He said you wanted
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
. And he said he thought it was too negative. But I said it's only negative if you look at it negatively. If your life sucks, nothing lasting forever is a good thing.”

“But you decided this was better?”

“Less confusing. Not up for interpretation.”

Lucy nodded. “I hear you're going back to high school, huh?”

“It's free. I gotta do something with my life.” Sara put the finishing touches on an
E
. She jumped off the chair and stood back, examining her work. “Last time I was in high school, I took a drafting class.”

Lucy rested her hand on the side of her stomach, feeling a tiny swell. “Brace yourself, Sara. I'm coming in for a hug.” Sara, still with her back to Lucy, didn't say a single negative thing. Lucy hugged her, and spoke out loud the words on the wall.

“
PEOPLE LOVE YOU.
”