“What are the chances you could come and pick her up tonight?”
“Tonight? Yeah, I can do that. You want me to come now?”
“Yeah. I mean, I can have her ready by the time you get here.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
Not twenty minutes later, Luke was ringing the doorbell. Kyle was there almost immediately, inviting him in.
It was no wonder Kyle couldn’t handle having a dog. The place was like a museum, impeccably clean, with the appearance of a staged model home. Luke mused that if Kyle was really keen on having a pet, maybe a goldfish would be best. Then again, maybe not even that.
Luke reached out for a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Kyle.”
They had a short conversation consisting of small talk and Kyle’s instructions on Lucy’s eating schedule and portions. Luke listened politely while simultaneously processing how ridiculous it was. All of it.
Poor Kyle. The whole situation was nerve racking enough. But add to it that this incredibly gorgeous man was now standing in his living room and it was almost too much.
“Oh hell, give me just a minute.”
He left Luke standing in the living room and shot off to his bedroom. He entered, closed the door behind him, inhaled deeply, and counseled himself to calm down. Then he proceeded to his bathroom and pulled a pill bottle from the medicine cabinet.
It was going to be a Xanax night. He cupped his hand under the faucet and scooped the water into his mouth to swallow the pill. Then another scoop to splash his face. After patting his face with a towel, he took another deep breath and headed for the guest bedroom.
This was not the normal routine. Lucy had just started to settle in before the doorbell rang. It wasn’t a TV night. And now Kyle was in the room. He moved toward her and got down on his knees as he spoke to her. “I love you, Lucy. You’re a good girl. And now you’re going to have a really good home.”
He lifted the kennel and carried it to the living room, placing it at Luke’s feet. He then excused himself to the kitchen to retrieve Lucy’s food. Luke only half listened this time as Kyle explained again how much food Lucy was given at each meal. He stooped to the floor to talk to her.
“Hi Lucy. Hi sweet girl.”
She didn’t offer much response. In fact, if anything, she backed up into the kennel to make some distance between them. Luke turned to Kyle.
“Can she come out?”
“I’d rather she didn’t, actually, unless you want to take her outside.”
“Okay. No worries. We’ll be fine.”
In all the years of counseling, group counseling and therapy sessions, Luke had seen a lot and met a lot of people with varying degrees of mental and emotional challenges. He felt all at once sorry for Kyle. He wanted to offer some advice, offer a hug, offer some scrap of some help of some kind. At the same time, he was aware that anything he said could be interpreted as presumptuous. In the end, he kept it simple. The men shook hands again.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Luke smiled into Kyle’s face and patted him on the shoulder before lifting the kennel and Lucy’s food.
Kyle couldn’t respond. He didn’t trust himself to be able hold in the burst of emotion that wanted out. With one simple sentence, Luke had reached in, seemingly read every single solitary self-loathing thought he’d ever had and given him the best piece of advice anyone had ever offered.
He could only nod as tears came up and washed over. Then he placed his hand over his mouth, as he tried to hold in the threatening sobs.
Luke stepped outside with Lucy and heard the door close behind him. He carried her toward his SUV and spoke under his breath. “Wow. Just wow.”
It was dark outside. There was no way he was taking her out of the kennel here. But he also didn’t want their first interactions to be at his place with Sandra and the kids. The unpredictability of that made him uneasy. He wanted the assurance of a smooth introduction.
He opened both rear passenger doors and placed the kennel on one side, facing in. Then he walked around and got in on the opposite side. He opened the kennel door but made no move to coax her out. Instead, he simply started to speak. He told her about her new home and how she would never have to sleep in her kennel again. He talked about football. He talked about his parents. He spoke to her as if she could understand every word.
After a while, he reached into the kennel and stroked the top of her head, while continuing to talk to her. And that’s when everything changed.
Driven by its sense of smell, this characteristic resides in a beagle’s very being. A beagle senses a whiff of flesh carried by a breeze as a shark detects a drop of blood in the sea. This extraordinary talent has made them coveted for their hunting and tracking skills since nearly the Fifth Century.
For this noble breed, it is both a blessing and a curse. Their drive to follow their nose is more compelling than any drug Luke had ever used. It excites them and ignites them. Sometimes it breaks their hearts. And was perfectly reasonable that a beagle having had its heart already profoundly broken could have it broken yet again. This was such a time. The large hands upon her now were the hands of a soul known to her. The scent of him conjured up the anguish of that undeniable attachment.
Lucy dug in deeper, smelled more deeply, confirmed what she knew was true with every single beat of her racing heart. She didn’t need an ounce of coaxing then to exit the crate. Luke could sense her changing mood and pulled his hand away. It was then that Lucy came forward, any degree of fear clearly overridden by something substantially more primal.
Luke was finally able to get a full look at her. The poor little dear. He knew what beagles looked like, were supposed to look like. Lucy was underfed and significantly so. Instinctively, he reached for the plastic container holding her food.
Lucy was immediately on alert. The only thing that could divert her pounding heart at his moment was the contents of that container. She looked at it and to Luke, for the first time, right into his eyes. To the food and back again to him, her eyes spoke, “Feed me. Feed me. Feed me.”
Luke opened the lid and retrieved a handful of kibble. Lucy was up now, her back straight, ready to pounce on it. And that’s exactly what she did. She lunged for the treasure in Luke’s hand and sent it hurtling throughout the car.
Of all the traits a beagle possesses, self control is nearly absent where food is involved. Lucy had the anticipation of immediate rebuke, as this scenario was not unlike her usual morning ritual. She slunk down on the seat and waited for his response.
His reaction was not what she had grown to expect. Instead, Luke could not withhold a burst of laugher, a deep chuckle felt from his belly and up. As it traveled, it loosened places forgotten and bunched up with tension. He laughed and laughed and Lucy did not know what to do. It went on and on.
He held his stomach, the muscles now sore but refusing to cease their constriction. As he laughed, he mentally cried out for mercy for the pain in his belly to stop, but that only made it worse. When the act of such intense laughter brought on tears, it was only fuel for the fire.
Lucy had presented a gift to her new master without the slightest intention or agenda. And this great truth was not lost on Luke. Throughout his life, he’d been presented with pretty smiles and flirting gestures all designed to claim his attention. Very few had fully understood that what Luke loved most was a person being nothing but themselves. Lucy’s demonstration of just this quality was a refreshing and unexpected comedic event.
At last, he contained himself, wiped his eyes repeatedly and turned to the task at hand. For a moment he was slightly disappointed at his decision to not take her immediately home. This was just the sort of thing that would have broken the ice, made everybody laugh. But it was too late now. He couldn’t make her wait after such a tease.
Lucy did not have the solid body of a healthy beagle. Her legs were thin, her ribs obvious. He would see to it that she was nourished properly, but it certainly wasn’t going to happen at
one feeding. It would be tough to satiate her in her current state. Instead, he pinched a single morsel of food from the container and moved it toward her.
She understood immediately that she would have to be gentle in order to retrieve it from his fingers. And that’s what she did. Very slowly and with intention, she accepted the offering. And after every little taste, Luke gave her a scratch on the head.
They went like this for the longest time, Lucy sitting at attention with absolute concentration A quarter cup became a half a cup, three-quarters, a whole cup. She would have eaten more of course.
But that was only part of what Luke wanted to give her. To feel the sense of wellbeing from a full belly, but also to feel the contentment of calm. She didn’t display any anxiety when the last of the food was offered and taken, but only continued to welcome his affection as he stroked her and spoke to her.
She did not take her eyes off of him and he continued to talk as he moved from the passenger seat, opened the door behind her and pulled the crate from the car. A latch was lifted to the rear and the kennel was placed where she could no longer see it. The sound of his voice did not stop as he made his way to the driver’s seat. He went on talking to her all the way home.
CHAPTER TEN
It was past dinner when Luke arrived home. He’d missed plenty of meals, but hadn’t let Sandra know he’d be late this time. It was an oversight he knew he’d be sorry for later. He pulled up to the house as the one way conversation continued.
“Here we are, Lucy. Time to meet the family.”
He exited the vehicle, leaving his things for now. He wanted to be able to carry her in. He scooped her up and stroked her as he headed for the door.
He rang the doorbell, hoping that Molly would peek through the living room window, as she often did when someone was at the door. As luck would have it, the strategy worked. Molly rushed to the window and pulled the curtain aside. When she saw Luke with Lucy in his arms, she squealed and giggled before yelling, “We got a dog! We got a dog!”
She perched on her tiptoes and unlatched the lock.
“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Mom, come here!”
Luke walked in and bent a knee, still holding Lucy.
“Her name is Lucy. What do you think?”
“I love her! I love her!”
Lucy was not accustomed to car rides or children or having so much attention or even being out of her kennel for that matter. She didn’t know what to think about the mini human before her. Molly reached out immediately.
“I saw on TV that you’re supposed to let a dog smell your hand.”
Luke smiled. “That’s right. Good job.”
“She’ll like the way my hand smells. I just had a strawberry bubble bath.”
Lucy sniffed her hand on cue and gave it a tentative lick, as though she was afraid to elicit anything but the tiniest response. This child’s energy was like the pinging of a thousand pieces of kibble against the floor. Lucy knew that too much excitement could lead to a good scolding followed by a long, confined timeout and she didn’t want to get something started.
“Awe, she likes me!”
“Yes, she does. Of course she does.”
Luke gave Molly a hug and released Lucy from his arms. Lucy remained friendly, but didn’t move away from him. There was a comfort in being in the space around him. She was just getting used to it and she didn’t want it to stop.
But it wasn’t up to her. From down the hallway came Sandra, who could see from a distance exactly what was taking place. As she walked toward the three of them, she fought to suppress her first reaction, which was to release a chain of pretty inappropriate words all spoken at a decibel equal to their intensity. She took a deep breath. She didn’t want Molly to see her that way.
“What did you do, Luke?”
It was said with a tone of surprise without revealing her anger.
This was actually not a bad way for this to be going down. Molly was already in love. And say what you might about their arguments, he and Sandra never engaged in front of the children. This was Lucy’s best shot at staying and he was going to see that it went well.
“There was a flyer at work. Lucy was in a bad situation at home and needed a place to go right away. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I know we’ve always talked about it and the timing just seemed right. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
He was trying to string his words together in a way that wouldn’t be confusing to Molly and would hopefully make sense to Sandra. At the word, “surprise,” he made it a point to look to Molly. Her grin widened.
“It’s the best surprise, isn’t it mommy?”
Aha. Luke knew it was a gotcha moment. There was the slightest twinge of guilt at putting her on the spot, but at the same time, he’d always known that if it were to ever happen, it’d be like this. Why? Because every discussion about getting a dog always had, and ever would end with, “We’ll see.” He was bothered by that. “We’ll see,” was something you told a child, not a grown man.
Sandra was a wonderful mother. He admired her for that. But she sometimes had difficulty transitioning from this role. It was another sore spot in their relationship. He had a mother and wasn’t interested in having a second one.
Like most relationships, things were different in the beginning. Sometimes you evolved together and sometimes the evolution of a relationship revealed qualities in a partner that had been easily ignored in the beginning.
Sandra was one of the few people in his life that had not made immediate assumptions about him based on his looks. Like so many beautiful women, he’d been placed squarely in a very specific category. He was eye candy. He was a sexual person, because a beautiful person must be a sexual person.
He could only be mildly intelligent, obviously. Society had determined that if you were that attractive, the very cells of your gorgeous body must certainly be sapping whatever intellect might be present in your brain.
No, he was not brilliant in a scholarly way. He didn’t do particularly well in school. But he got through college and pursued a career that fulfilled him. What might have been a mediocre accomplishment to some, was monumental to him.
He was convinced that as time went on, his wife was having some regrets about the educational level of the man she chose. It came out in just these little, “We’ll see,” moments. In each instance, another layer of resentment was laid within him, which led to all sorts of unintended consequences. While she had her regrets, so did he.
Sandra was the eldest of three siblings. She had an analytical mind. She was an executive. She loved her job. Perhaps she let too much of her professional life spill into the everyday interactions with her family. Perhaps this one was one of the reasons for the growing wedge between she and her husband.
Their love life was in a slump. As in most relationships, the absence of the physical act itself was only a symptom of deeper problems. Sandra assumed her husband was less and less attracted to her as the months passed. It was not the case, at least not in the way she interpreted it. He was attracted to her physically. It was the damaged mental connection that kept him from pursuing her in the bedroom as often or with as much passion as they once shared. The tragedy was that Sandra was pushing him ever away while at the same time feeling a profound rejection herself.
She had made him love her originally, because she loved what made him tick, wanted him to talk about it, wanted to hear about it. But as she quickly climbed the ladder to greater success in her own career, there was a part of her that felt her husband should have greater aspirations as well. That part of her wanted to bring a different type of man to the professional functions she was required to attend. Walking in with a high school football coach had lost its novelty.
“She can stay, right mom? Lucy can stay?”
Sandra took note of Molly’s state of mind. Might as well have given her a bowl of jelly beans for dinner. She was bouncing.
“Yeah baby, she can stay. Why don’t you go and get her a bowl of w
ater? I bet she’s thirsty.”
Molly looked to Luke.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea.” We’ll be waiting for you right here.
Molly stood up and spun in her pink slippers, skidding off to the kitchen.
Luke was still on his knees next to Lucy. Sandra’s hands moved to her hips. “I thought we agreed they weren’t ready.”
Luke was calm. Ironically, that was one of the things that drove her crazy. He never lost his cool, despite the words that might come out of his mouth. He was always steady. The yelling in the house came mostly from Sandra, partly because she just couldn’t help it and partly because she was just so pissed that he was always so damn cool.
“No, we didn’t agree. I said they were ready. You still think they’re not ready? Are you kidding?”
“Well, they’re too young to take care of dog. And what does that mean? Means I’ll be the one stuck with it. I don’t need anything more on my plate right now, Luke. You know that.”
“The kids are certainly old enough to take care of a dog. And I’m home more often than you. I’ll teach them.”
The pitch was about to rise when Molly came back in with a bowl of water that spilled over in little puddles as she walked.
“Good job, sweetie.” He smiled and helped Molly place the bowl on the floor.
Lucy looked to the water and to Molly, but she didn’t drink. She could feel a little something in the air. The tension made her uneasy. She backed up toward Luke and sat down.
“I guess she’s not thirsty right now,” he smiled to Molly again.
Nathan was getting out of the bath. There was something going on and he needed to know what it was. He was still learning to dry himself completely and his pajamas stuck to his wet skin as he moved to button up as quick as he could. When he finished, he looked down to see that he was off by one buttonhole all the way up. He didn’t bother to make any adjustments as he rushed out and sprinted out the door.