A Dog Called Jack

by Ivy Pembroke

  “Yeah,” Sam said, exhaling in frustration. “You could have not said anything about reading about Jack online.”

  Libby said after a moment, “Right, but I didn’t know—”

  “I know you didn’t know, but everything was going pretty well until you had to go and mention that.”

  “Okay,” Libby said. “First, let’s dial back the tone. Second, this whole thing here was not my fault.”

  “I’m not saying it’s your fault,” Sam said, “I’m just saying that if you hadn’t said that—”

  “That does seem,” remarked Libby evenly, “like you’re saying it’s my fault, and still with that tone, so this doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a productive conversation, and I think I should say good night.” She said it in a clipped tone of voice, plainly displeased, and although she did call to Teddy, “Bye, Teddy, see you in school!” when she left the house it could be something said to be related to “storming.”

  Sam huffed in frustration.

  “Well,” remarked Ellen. “You handled that very poorly.”

  “I am aware,” Sam sighed. “I am adding it to the list of things I handled poorly today, on Teddy’s Thanksgiving. I maybe ruined my neighbors’ relationships with each other, ruined my relationship with Libby, and ruined the turkey. I am declaring this Thanksgiving to be canceled.”

  Ellen stood in the doorway, Sophie and Evie behind her, and watched him, then said, “You should probably go after her.”

  Sam laughed humorlessly. “No. She’s right. It wouldn’t be productive right now. I need a second.”

  “Okay,” Ellen allowed. “Maybe not.” And then she walked over to him and hugged him. Because that was the kind of thing Ellen was always able to do: give him a hug, even when he was radiating the opposite of embraceability. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she whispered, and then kissed his cheek. “Let’s go, girls. Say bye.”

  “Bye, Uncle Sam,” they chorused, unusually reserved in the face of the absolute disaster of Sam’s Thanksgiving.

  “Bye, girls,” Sam made himself say, and listened to them leave, and then swore again as he turned back to the turkey.

  Teddy said in a small voice from the doorway, “Dad?”

  Sam took a deep breath and then forced himself to sound as jovial as possible. “Well. The turkey is a lost cause but maybe we can salvage some pumpkin pie for dinner.”

  Teddy, after a moment, came up to him and gave him a hug. Sometimes you’re a lot like your Aunt Ellen, thought Sam, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. Or maybe your mum, as it occurred to him, because the times of Sara’s hugs were so distant now.

  “I had a good Thanksgiving, Dad,” said Teddy against him.

  Sam was startled into a chuckle. “Oh, Teddy, it was rubbish and you can say it.”

  “A lot happened,” Teddy allowed, “but it’s still not as bad as it was. Still things are better than they were. We have a lot to be thankful for, and everything else is going to work out. Isn’t that what you said, when we were moving here? That things would work out, and so far they have, and I’m sure they’ll keep doing it. Everyone’ll make up. They won’t stay angry. That would be stupid. That’s not how it is here. It’s turned out really good here, Dad.” Teddy looked up at his father.

  And there, in his eyes: no dubiousness or skepticism. Now Teddy was looking at him with eyes that shone with trust and adoration, one of those moments when Sam fully understood what it meant to be a dad. Because in the midst of everything else, Teddy, underneath it all, had a steady belief in Sam’s ability to fix things. Even when he was fighting against, struggling with Sam’s vision of things, Teddy really had no choice but to trust him. Sam, in spite of everything, could do no wrong in Teddy’s eyes; much as Teddy might doubt, it was impossible for him to truly believe that Sam could lead him wrong. Given any other choice of any other person, Teddy would turn to Sam and follow his lead. And maybe that would fade eventually—Sam’s level of influence in Teddy’s life—but it was there now, and Sam felt a fierce responsibility for it.

  Sam cleared his throat past the choked sensation and said, “I’m glad, Teddy. I’m so glad. That’s all I want. That’s really all I want.”

  “Me, too.” Teddy beamed. “For things to be good for us.”

  For us, Sam thought, when he had been thinking, For you. I want things to be good for you.

  Sam said, “Tell you what. Why don’t I help you finish trimming the tree?”

  Teddy nodded, and Sam followed him and forced himself to focus on the ornaments instead of the rest of the disasters of the day: Pen sharing everyone’s secrets on the Internet, Diya and Anna angry that their children were involved, Max being less than truthful with Arthur about the baby, the disastrously burnt turkey . . . and Sam unjustifiably taking everything out on poor Libby, who would probably never speak to him again.

  He forced himself to open the box Libby had brought and left behind her when she’d stormed out, which turned out to hold a lovely gingerbread house ornament.

  “Put it on the tree,” Teddy said brightly. “Then when you make up with Miss Quinn and you have her come over here, she can see it.”

  So easy, Sam thought. It was just that easy for Teddy. When you make up with Miss Quinn. No “if” about it.

  Sam hung it on the tree and let Teddy pull more ornaments out of the boxes, and he told Teddy stories about all of the ornaments, until Teddy was giggling helplessly over all of them, and he finally lifted Teddy up to put the star on the top of the tree, as the final touch.

  “Ta-da!” proclaimed Sam, and they took a step back to look at the twinkling tree.

  And, actually, although it had been an incredibly terrible day in many respects, there was a Christmas tree Sam had just got to decorate with his son, and it did make things seem better.

  “You know what’s left?” said Teddy.

  “What’s left?” asked Sam.

  “Bob’s Santa hat.” Teddy held it up.

  Sam laughed. “Bob’s Santa hat. Let’s go put it on him.”

  It was crisply cold outside, and oddly dark. The street had been growing cheerful with Christmas lights but no one had any turned on, including Max and Arthur, which Sam thought was a terrible sign. He wondered if he should go over to try and apologize, or if that would make everything much worse. And, because he couldn’t decide what he should do, he ended up deciding to focus on Teddy, as he positioned the Santa hat onto Bob.

  “It’s officially Christmas!” said Teddy.

  Sam looked at the flamingo with the Santa hat and tried to drum up Christmas cheer.

  * * *

  Jack walked down the dark and silent street, and no one called to him, and no one came running, and no one offered him any dinners at all. Jack scratched at all the regular doors, and all he heard was shouting that sent him skittering backward, or an oppressive silence that made him flatten his ears.

  Sam let Jack in and sat with him on the couch and said, “What a day,” and stroked at his fur and seemed generally so sad that Jack spent a little while just resting his head on Sam’s knee, because Sam seemed like he needed it.

  Sam remarked, “Thanks. I probably need the company. You know, it’s odd, but I think I’d actually begun to get used to the idea of . . . not being alone. There was a feeling of . . . that maybe fresh starts did exist. And maybe they were ginger.” Sam sighed heavily. “Or maybe not? Who knows?”

  Jack didn’t, so Jack just wagged his tail and hoped that was enough.

  Chapter 15

  When you find a street full of people who really seem to want to care about each other, cherish that.

  Emilia had locked herself in her drum room, but she wasn’t playing. Anna had made herself a cup of chamomile tea and was determinedly not speaking to anyone.

  Marcel said, “So you’re just going to sulk?”

  “I’m not sulking,” Anna retorted. “It would be sulking if it wasn’t justified. And it is definitely justified.”

  “Anna.�
�� Marcel had the gall to sigh. “You’re overreacting.”

  Anna lifted her eyebrows. “Overreacting?”

  “She isn’t getting married.”

  “Yet,” Anna said. “She isn’t getting married yet. That’s the next step.”

  “They’re just kids.”

  “So were we. And I can’t believe you would keep me in the dark about this. I can’t believe you would know and not—”

  “You’re hard on her, Anna,” Marcel said, sounding frustrated. “And I know that it comes out of love, because you want nothing but the best for her, but you can be hard on her, and so I promised her that I would—”

  “I’m not hard on her, I just don’t spoil her.”

  Marcel just looked at her, as if that assertion was too ridiculous to even rebut.

  Anna frowned. “I think we should go back to not talking,” she announced, and then was distracted by lights flashing outside on the street. She glanced at the window, and then said in surprise, “There’s an ambulance out there.”

  * * *

  Pari was sitting silently in her bedroom, feeling dramatically, poorly done by. She was supposed to be helping Teddy decorate his Christmas tree. And celebrating Thanksgiving, which she’d never got to do before in her life. And convincing Miss Quinn to let them use Jack in the school play, which Miss Quinn had seemed almost convinced to do, until everything had fallen apart.

  And then she had had to be dragged home where Mum and Dad and Sai had managed to have a ridiculously long and boring row over the stupid Sai-dating-Emilia thing. Pari had never understood why the Sai-dating-Emilia thing was such a big thing. When she said it was stupid now, basically everyone told her she was too little to understand what was going on, which was extra stupid, because she understood lots of things, and she was tired of being treated like she didn’t.

  She could have run away again, but that had been cold and she didn’t feel like being cold, so Pari had gone up to hide in her room and now Mum and Dad and Sai had all gone quiet, after much slamming of doors.

  Pari sat in her window and pulled her knees into her chest and thought how everything was just so stupid, no one had even turned any of their Christmas lights on. It was basically the world’s most boring street that she lived on.

  And that was when the ambulance turned down it.

  * * *

  Max, after explaining, let the silence stretch for as long as he could bear. This was a trait of Arthur’s, that he wouldn’t immediately react to something that had upset him. Max thought Arthur thought this was a hallmark of how civilized he was, that he wouldn’t react in a flash of anger, but Max would much have preferred a flash of anger over long-term silent treatment, and it was honestly one of Max’s least favorite things about Arthur and made all quarrels between them much worse, in Max’s opinion.

  Arthur was unloading the dishwasher in the kitchen but he’d been doing that for so long that Max was fairly sure he’d loaded it back up and was now unloading it again. Max sat in the lounge and looked out the window at the dark street. He should really go out and turn the Christmas lights on, but he didn’t feel right about it.

  He sighed and called, “When do you think you’re going to talk to me about this?”

  “Sorry,” Arthur called back. “Are you feeling angry that I’m not handling your betrayal well enough?”

  Max sighed and rubbed his eyes and thought this was why he hated the silent treatment thing, because he found it impossible to confront.

  Arthur appeared back in the lounge and said, “Were you going to tell me at all? Or were you just going to let the baby opportunity lapse?”

  “Of course I was going to tell you,” said Max. “After the weekend. I’d decided I’d just let us have this one last weekend—”

  “Before ruining our lives with a baby?”

  “Before ruining our lives with the possibility of a baby that you would go and fall in love with and then I would have to clean up all of the pieces of our broken hearts, again.”

  “First of all—” said Arthur, and then cut himself off.

  “First of all?” prompted Max, who would much rather they have this out than lapse back into silence.

  Arthur said, “There’s an ambulance out there.”

  * * *

  Pen was trying not to feel sorry for herself. She wasn’t really achieving it.

  “I think I’ve really messed everything up,” she confided to Chester, who looked like he swam a little more mournfully than usual out of deference to her mood. “Am I a terrible person? I don’t want to be a terrible person. I want to be a better person. But it was so stupid of me. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it and yet I . . . went ahead and did it anyway, and that’s probably the definition of a terrible person. I’m a terrible person. Probably everyone on this street hates me and they’d be totally right to do that.” Pen fell silent, watching Chester swim around and around his bowl, and wished she could go back in time and never start the blog. Why had she done it?

  Filled with self-loathing, she went online and deleted the blog, all of it, top to bottom. And replaced it with a single entry.

  When you find a street full of people who really seem to want to care about each other, cherish that.

  Pen turned from the computer to look at Chester. “You don’t hate me, do you?”

  Chester was silent on the matter, but Chester seemed to want to turn his back on her, so maybe Chester hated her, too. Damn it. Even her goldfish hated her. That was how terrible a person she was.

  Pen got up and went to her window, considering whether she ought to turn her Christmas lights on. The street looked incredibly dark from her vantage point. Her actions had even managed to destroy Christmas.

  And then the ambulance turned down the street.

  * * *

  Sam let Jack out without really thinking too hard about it. The street was still dark and quiet and suffocating and Sam thought maybe he ought to share Jack’s ability to comfort. Probably Mr. Hammersley would be waiting for him.

  Teddy came back downstairs from taking his shower and said, “So. Should we talk about your plan to make up with Miss Quinn?”

  And then Jack showed up at the door, barking and bouncing.

  “Oh,” Teddy said, letting the dog in. “We have a whole burnt turkey. Maybe we could give Jack the turkey. It would be like a Christmas gift to him.”

  “Maybe,” said Sam, but he wasn’t really paying attention, because Jack was still barking, and kept darting toward the door like he wanted to go back out. It was weird. Was Jack just going through a frantic phase? “What’s up, Jack?”

  “He’s being strange,” Teddy said, also watching Jack’s display now.

  “Yeah,” agreed Sam slowly.

  Jack literally began tugging at first Sam’s shirttails, and then Teddy’s, and then back to Sam’s, trying to tug them along. So they followed Jack, around the side of Mr. Hammersley’s house, to the back garden. Where Mr. Hammersley was sprawled in between the rosebushes, right by the outlet where his Christmas lights plugged in. And he was completely unconscious.

  Sam rushed to his side, leaning over him. Luckily, he was still breathing, but he was unresponsive.

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Teddy, sounding fearful.

  Sam looked up at him, even as he struggled to reach the mobile in his pocket to dial 999. “Nothing,” he lied, breathlessly and automatically. “Nothing. He’s fine. Take Jack into the house with you.”

  Teddy didn’t listen. He started to cry. “He’s all right, isn’t he? He’s going to be all right?”

  Sam said to him, “Yeah,” just as 999 connected, and then Sam said to the operator, “Ambulance, please.”

  * * *

  Sam tried to keep Teddy back, away from the medics as they worked, loading Mr. Hammersley onto a stretcher and then onto the ambulance. Teddy was silent as he watched, and he was clinging to Sam, and Sam wished he wouldn’t watch. Sara’s death had not been at all like this. Sara’s death
had been a long time coming and had happened almost calmly, as serenely as Sara had wanted it, and without Teddy having to witness.

  But Mr. Hammersley wasn’t dead, Sam reminded himself. He had still been breathing, and the medics were certainly behaving with a sense of purpose, so all must not be lost.

  “What happened? Can I help?”

  Sam realized it was Pen talking to him, and also realized that the rest of the street was outside, gathered in a tense, nervous knot, watching.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, because he didn’t.

  Pen said, “You should go in the ambulance with him.”

  Sam hesitated.

  “I’ll take Teddy and follow and meet you there,” Pen offered.

  “We all will,” added Arthur.

  There was a general murmur of assent from everyone else.

  Sam looked at Teddy.

  Who nodded firmly and said, “Go with him, Dad. We’ll meet you there.”

  Sam nodded back and kissed the top of his head and then climbed into the waiting ambulance.

  Chapter 16

  You are invited to this year’s Nativity play:

  Jesus and the Climate Change Manger!

  Friends and family welcome.

  Sam found a waiting room entirely full of his neighbors, as well as Teddy, all of whom looked at him expectantly.

  Sam gave a helpless little shrug. “They won’t tell me anything. He’s still alive, because they were working on him, but I don’t know anything more than that.”

  “They’ll come out and give us an update?” asked Diya.

  “Yeah, that’s what they said. But you don’t all need to stay here. That really isn’t—”

  “Of course we all need to stay here,” said Anna. “He’s part of our street, isn’t he? He’s one of ours.”

  Sam noticed Diya glance at Anna and then look away. Really, the levels of tension in the room were so much more than Sam could handle, but he understood why everyone also felt they needed to be there.

  “We should have brought Jack with us,” said Teddy. “Mr. Hammersley would have really liked to have Jack along.”