Noelle

by Greg Kincaid

  After Todd left, Elle began pacing about the cage, barking for Todd to come set her free, until she eventually wore herself out, plopped down, and rested her head on her oversize forepaws, beleaguered, and took a nice nap.

  When Doc Pelot came by for his daily rounds, Hayley warned him about Elle. She was a fun dog. A nice dog. Certainly an affectionate dog that deserved a good home. But Elle was not now and would never be a service dog. Not every human is cut out to be a heart surgeon. Not every dog can be a service dog. Hayley was frustrated by the obvious waste of time, and she said as much to Doc. “Why is he so committed to this dog?”

  Doc Pelot tried to explain. “Hayley, if you think about it long and hard, I’m sure you’ll understand.”

  When she thought about it, she thought she did understand. If not for Todd, where else would Elle go? She shook her head calmly but just said, “You’re right. Thank you. I’ll try to be more patient.”

  On her second day of work with Todd, Elle found a new, different, and exciting way to be a nuisance. From deep in her hound roots, she let go a soulful howl, her head tilted back. “Awooo! Awooo!” At first it was funny, the way her distinctive howl managed to float above the din of shelter noise—bowls clanking, dogs yapping, and people talking—but Elle’s doggy opera was only fun for a few bars. After an hour it got old—even for people who were accustomed to dogs barking all day long.

  Todd rushed back to the cage and stared at her. She wagged her tail, apparently quite proud of herself for fetching him on command. Todd put his hands on his hips. “Can you be quiet?” She seemed content, so he turned to walk off.

  When he was about fifteen yards away, Elle tilted her head back again. “Awooo! Awooo!”

  Todd turned around and pointed his finger at her. With a very firm voice, he said, “No! Elle. I mean it. No.”

  He tried to walk away again, but Elle was very resourceful. People thought that Todd was a great dog trainer. Elle was a brilliant human trainer.

  Todd stomped back to the cage. “Elle, no! You can’t do this.”

  Yes I can. “Awooo!”

  “That’s it!”

  Todd opened the kennel door. “Elle, if you can’t stay quiet, you’ll have to go outside. You can have one of the dog runs all to yourself. I’ve got to have an important conversation with my mother, and part of it’s about you!”

  He deposited Elle in an empty run and had been back inside for about five minutes when it began again. “Awooo!”

  In the end Todd couldn’t stand it anymore. He went outside, picked her up, and allowed her to snuggle in next to him. “Are you happy now?”

  Her tail was whipping back and forth with joy. She was.

  Once inside, Hayley petted the little dog’s head. “Todd, I’m not sure Elle is going to work out as a shelter service dog. It was a good idea, though. Maybe another dog?”

  Todd had a look on his face that mirrored the sinking feeling in his heart, as if he’d just flunked another algebra final. “Yes, you’re right. She’s not doing so well. I’ve never had a dog I couldn’t train. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

  Hayley felt sorry for him, but still, she had to be honest. “There must be something better for her. You just haven’t found it yet.”

  —

  The call from Todd earlier that same day had cemented Mary Ann’s concerns. Twice George and Mary Ann had called to suggest that they should drop by and see Todd’s new apartment, and twice he’d put them off. Now he was calling her at work, during her lunch break. “Mom, I need to talk to you and Dad about something. Something important.”

  “We can come over,” Mary Ann suggested, seeing another opening.

  “Um, can I come out to the farm after work? Around five? I’ll have Elle with me. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. Do you want to stay for dinner? We have leftovers in the freezer from Thanksgiving.”

  He hesitated. “Maybe not.”

  “That’s fine, Todd. We’ll just talk, then.”

  “You might be disappointed.”

  She thought that was a strange thing for him to say. She hadn’t heard him use that word before in quite that way. “Todd, we’re seldom disappointed in you. But even if we are, we’ll get over it.”

  Mary Ann was hazarding a prediction: Todd had seven dogs in his apartment. Management had found out, and now they wanted him gone. He should have just stayed out in the cabin where she and George could have helped him, kept an eye on his infamous Todd Projects, but he was determined to do things his way—live in town by himself. She was betting that even though he’d been in his apartment only a few weeks, some disaster already had befallen him. George was going to need to help him. Between Anna Claus plans, family holiday preparations, papers to grade, the school’s holiday concert she had to prepare for, and her daily concern for Hank Fisher and the Robinson family, there wasn’t enough time in her day. If she was right, George could help him move into the vacant cabin.

  After they said their good-byes, Mary Ann poured herself a cup of hot green tea and used the rest of her lunch hour to go online to search for patterns for Santa costumes, thankful that the teachers’ lounge was empty and no one could see what she was looking at on her laptop. The options were disappointing. Why should she be surprised? Most of the patterns were for men. Sure, there were a few for women, but they were a joke. Too provocative, too plain, or just downright ugly. The more she explored, the more anxious she became—there wasn’t much time to pull this look together, and there were some real decisions to be made. Santa Claus had a beard, but how about Anna Claus? No, she decided. She was not a woman playing a man. She was Anna Claus. A woman. Of course she shouldn’t have a beard. But without a beard, how could she hide her face?

  She researched the Santa outfit further. One source claimed that Santa wore red to symbolize his role as a rugged outdoorsman. That made sense: Santa was busy flying around in a sleigh in the dead of winter. The white symbolized love and generosity.

  The traditional portrayals of plump and jolly Mrs. Claus were dowdy and out of date, and her old-timey image merely signaled that she was Santa’s little woman. Mary Ann saw an opportunity. If no one knew what Anna Claus looked like, she could design her clothing as she saw fit. The more she thought about it, she wondered if the whole Santa story didn’t need a tune-up. She wasn’t sure it even made that much sense. Why set children up to believe that receiving things was at the root of their happiness? She shut the lid of her laptop. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure it was a good idea to totally rewrite Santa Claus either. It might cause a revolt. Maybe she just needed to continue the tradition, but with more of a feminine touch.

  One thought nagged at her—a thought that crosses most people’s minds. Hadn’t Christmas become commercialized into an exercise in self-indulgence? Was Santa partly to blame for letting things get out of hand? Was his message still the best message for children? If Anna Claus had a different message from Santa Claus, what would it be? Mary Ann could hear Santa asking, What do you want for Christmas? Maybe that was the wrong question. If so, what was the right question?

  She needed to be careful. Sure, everyone complained about how commercialized Christmas had become, but did that mean that people were willing to look at things differently?

  As soon as she was done at school that afternoon, Mary Ann headed straight for Hank’s house, not far from theirs. His own children didn’t live close by, so she’d promised to check in on him from time to time, after work and on weekends. He’d been their neighbor for most of her adult life, and with her own parents long gone she enjoyed this time with Hank. After forty-two years of being Santa, maybe he could shed some light on the Anna Claus versus Santa Claus quandary.

  Link squirmed about in the plastic chair while he and Abbey waited in the basement of the courthouse, in a drab classroom with a whiteboard in front and more plastic chairs scattered around. Slowly, others were filing in and taking their seats—other couples, mostly silent, also ordered into the
class for the same reasons. He wondered, Did these men feel like him? He felt like he was talking to a stranger, not his wife. He said, “I hate being here.”

  “Understood,” Abbey said. “But like it or not, it’s required.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s a court order. Remember?”

  Link snorted, unconvinced. “We didn’t need a parenting class when we decided to have children. Why do we need a parenting class now? Just because you decided to get a divorce?”

  Abbey was weary of his stubborn insistence that the divorce was all her fault. The class was designed for high-conflict families with children. Abbey was sure that the judge had ordered them to attend in large part because of Link’s choices, not hers. She should be the one complaining, not him. She was saddled with most of the parenting responsibilities and virtually all their financial needs. Still he complained. She breathed in and out slowly and waited for her anger to dissolve. Be matter-of-fact, she told herself. Businesslike. That’s what the course materials suggested.

  “Our divorce is off on the wrong foot, Link. That’s why the judge ordered us here.” She couldn’t believe any divorce ever got off on the right foot, but Link was making things worse. The thought occurred to her that he truly didn’t know why they’d been ordered to attend the class. She’d bet he hadn’t bothered to read the course book. That would be like Link. Showing up but not really showing up. Appearing without participating. “Did you read the materials the court sent you?” Abbey asked. She continued, “They were good. It might help you to understand why we’re here. And what they want us to learn. That’s why they sent them to us—in advance. You know, to read.”

  “Sure. I looked at them. Being a divorced parent is difficult. If we don’t do your divorce right—the children could pay the price. That’s the gist of it.”

  “So you did read them?”

  Link hesitated. “I’ll finish them later.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t think so.”

  Link straightened up in the blue plastic chair and leaned closer to Abbey. “Why should I bother reading them? You’re going to do what you’re going to do. I don’t have much of a say in any of this. Do I?”

  She glared at him. Those ridiculously high cheekbones. The curly brown hair. The two-day beard. The ball cap pulled down casually. He was so handsome. What a waste of good skin. She reminded herself, again, Be matter-of-fact. Businesslike. Don’t let him hook you. “You had many choices, Link, over many years. You made some good ones, but there were too many bad ones. I’m sure I made my share, too. That’s why we’re here. It’s not my divorce. It’s not your divorce. It’s our divorce.” She never knew how much honesty he could handle. But there was little point in hoping for a better day.

  He looked at her blankly. She knew that look: I don’t want to hear it. Nag. Nag. Nag.

  She responded to him as if he’d said it out loud. “Link, don’t tell yourself that you’re the victim of some whim of mine. You may not have had much say in starting the divorce, but you had plenty to say about why we’re here. You’ve got to get past my filing the paperwork. You’ve been behaving like the marriage was over for years. We need to focus on one thing. Only one thing matters at this point: how this divorce affects our children.”

  “Do I have a say?”

  “Sure you do. Read the materials. They need us both, now more than ever.” She rested the blue three-ring divorce notebook on her lap. She had hole-punched and organized all the materials the court had sent her, underlining the important parts with a yellow highlighter. She turned to the chapter on the effects of divorce on children and handed him the binder.

  While he at least pretended to look it over, Abbey stared ahead, frustrated by his lack of effort on such an important issue. But she kept her composure and resolved not to lose her temper with him. Once she told the kids, something inside her had shifted—she felt stronger, more able to face whatever might lie ahead for herself and her children. Her heart was still broken—no doubt about that—but she understood she had to begin a new chapter, with or without Link.

  He looked up and shut the notebook. “You know, none of this matters when I can’t even see my kids when I want.”

  Abbey took the notebook from him. “And whose fault is that?” She knew he hated feeling as if he were being scolded, but what other tone could she take with him?

  Link was quiet for a few moments, and she could feel his mood changing. He looked at her, and she saw sadness displacing the anger. “Maybe I need the divorce to be your fault. It may not be fair of me, but I’m not ready to believe otherwise. Not yet.”

  When he could let his guard down and was vulnerable, honest with her, even for a moment, she remembered why she’d loved him. It wasn’t just his good looks. He could be insightful, kind, generous, honest, even forgiving. Lately, though, this was all too rare. Instead Link simply checked out, as if he were refusing to address the hard challenges in his life. Just drink beer and watch the game—that was easier. She tried to be equally vulnerable and open. “I feel like you despise me for being honest with you, Link—for expecting you to be responsible. Expecting you to be the man I know you can be.”

  He grunted, remembering the wonderful vacation his family had before he lost his job and lost his family. “No one told me that Disney World was only for a week.”

  “And we couldn’t even afford that!” It hurt to joke with him like this. Like things were normal. Things weren’t normal. Not even close. “Listen, Link, I’m sorry. I know you hate me for this. You have to trust me. I’m not being selfish. I truly think this is what’s best for all of us. Otherwise I would never put us through it. It wasn’t a healthy environment for any of us, particularly not for the children. It’s for your own good, too.”

  He touched her knee, gently, instinctively. Out of habit. “My AA sponsor—he’s an old guy—tells me that ‘making amends’ is one of the hardest parts. It’s one of the twelve steps. I forget which number.”

  Abbey cracked a smile. “It could keep you busy.” She was surprised—and very pleased—he was doing something about his drinking. “When did you start AA?”

  “Three weeks sober.”

  She picked up his hand and removed it from her knee. “So when do you start making those amends?”

  “I forget. It’s still down the road.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  He looked her straight in the eyes. For the first time in several months, there was a small bit of peace that came to the surface. “He says that our marriage is like the canary at the bottom of my mine shaft. When it fell over dead, starved of oxygen, that was a serious warning sign. Time for me to come up for air. Make some changes. For him it was a heart attack. For me a divorce.”

  “Saying you’ll quit drinking and doing it for three weeks—”

  “I know it doesn’t mean I’m out of the woods. It’s one day at a time. One step at a time.”

  “Link, I’m sorry you’ve put yourself in this hole. I really am.”

  “I’d like to get out of it. With you, I mean. Is it too late?”

  Her eyes watered. Tears came. She slowly shook her head. She whispered, “Link. I’m sorry. We’re done. Humpty Dumpty.”

  Pushed to the edge of his composure, he turned away from Abbey and pretended to survey the other parents in the class. Was it the same for them? One partner failed and the other couldn’t forgive? He shut his eyes, folded his arms, and leaned back in the chair, escaping.

  He tried to put words to how he felt. It seemed like he’d been in some awful auto accident. But it wasn’t his red Ford F-150 that had been totaled. It was his life. Pieces of him were strewn up and down the freeway like mile markers. Link’s torso, there it is at mile marker 42. Looks like an arm there somewhere on the shoulder. He felt all split to pieces. It seemed obvious: he’d wrecked his life beyond repair. And in doing so he’d wrecked the lives of the woman he loved and his children, too. He was totaled. No longer drivable.

  He
felt tears well. He was caught. As much as he resented Abbey now, he needed her. He opened his eyes and tried again to reconnect. “How are the kids?”

  “They miss you, Link.”

  It wasn’t what she said but the way she said it. Her tone seemed accusatory, as if she were trying to signal that he’d blown his relationship with the kids as well. Of course she was right, which made it even worse. Angry Link decided to come to Sad Link’s rescue, rejoin the conversation. He straightened up in the chair, readying himself for a fight. He wouldn’t allow her to humiliate him. “Seeing them is such a hassle. I hate it. It’s not worth it.”

  Abbey had no idea where this sudden change of attitude came from. She tried to bring him back down. “You’re wrong, Link. Of course it’s worth it. They need you. Now more than ever.” She looked at the man she’d once loved, now morose, bitter, and broken. “You need them, too.”

  He rolled his eyes in disgust. “If that’s true, then why did you take them away from me?”

  “Link, I didn’t take them—”

  He cut her off. “Fine. Lift the order for supervised visitation. I’m not hanging out in the basement of the Baptist church with two social workers watching me like a hawk.” His anger elevated even further. “They write everything I say in a notebook. It’s awful.” He shook his head defiantly. “You try it, Abbey. Just once. See if you like visiting your own children. Parents shouldn’t visit their children.”

  Abbey refused to be bullied by him, and her tone grew sharp. “I wasn’t drunk on the sofa when the kids were with me. I didn’t get a DUI with Emmy and Keenan in the car. Or get arrested in front of our children.” She fought the urge to yell her lungs out, right there in front of a roomful of other parents. She could never forgive him for the DUI, because he’d put her children at risk. Frightening them like that. There was plenty Link had done to her. She could let go of those things. But not for what he’d done to Keenan and Emily. “I don’t feel sorry for you. Take some responsibility for your behaviors. Make some changes. Grow up.”