by Rick R. Reed
How could he take Hamburger away from Dee?
How could he let his boy go?
Mac wanted to cry. He couldn’t look back at the couple as he led them up the steps to the big front porch. “Why don’t you guys take a seat?” He gestured toward the aluminum glider and two folding chairs set up on the broad porch. “I’ll go get Hamburger.”
The couple did as he asked, and Mac headed inside, his head hung low. He let himself entertain a vision of simply grabbing Hamburger and his harness and leash and heading right out the back door. The pair of them could go on the lam, heading south to Portland or west to Spokane, even north up to British Columbia, to hide out, to live happily ever after. Did Canada have extradition laws for dogs? He’d maybe ask Clara.
It all seemed too much, and Mac dropped down on the wooden stairs in the entryway and placed his head in his hands. He figured there’d be plenty of tears to come, but right now his eyes burned, and there was a lump in his throat roughly the size of an orange.
He stiffened when he heard the click-click-click of Hamburger’s toenails on the hardwood. He lifted his head to look up to see the dog, his dog, coming toward him, mouth open and panting in what looked like a smile.
“Hamburger! Puppy, come!” And the dog rushed toward him, nuzzling Mac’s face and painting it quickly with a semigloss coat of canine saliva. Smelly, disgusting, foul were all words Mac could use to describe the dog’s spit, but he wouldn’t trade these kisses for anything. Because they might be the last….
The floor creaked as Dee came into the entryway from the kitchen.
“Mac? You okay?”
He could only shake his head. “Not so much, Dee. Not so much.”
She came and sat down beside him. “What’s wrong?” She leaned to her left to peer out the picture window in the living room. “Who are those people out there?”
“Remember the guy I told you about? The one from the park the other day?”
“Uh-oh,” Dee said. “That’s him? And his wife? Girlfriend?”
“Lawyer, or so she claims.” Mac drew in a great trembling breath.
Dee put her arm around Mac, and it made him feel small, like a little boy again. She squeezed his shoulders. “They’ve come to take him back, haven’t they?”
Mac turned to look at her and saw the tears standing in her eyes. It almost made him break down, but he managed somehow to hold it together. “I guess. They said they just wanted to see him. The woman, Clara, says she’ll be able to tell for sure.” Mac sighed. “But I already know.” He couldn’t bear looking at Hamburger, so he kept his gaze intent on Dee. “What am I gonna do?”
She squeezed his shoulder again. “The right thing. I know you. That’s what you’ll do.”
Hamburger stood up from where he lay at their feet and went into his downward-dog pose as he stretched. He gave himself a good shake and then looked at Mac, as though saying “It’s time to go outside, buddy.”
Mac stood and tried to make himself feel nothing, as though he were an actor on a stage going through the motions, hitting his marks. Take a few steps downstage, grab Hamburger’s harness and leash off the hook by the door. Turn. Walk back to Hamburger. Squat. Put the leash and harness on the dog. Listen as he gives out a single raspy woof and wonder how long you’ll get to hear that sound.
Stand up. Go to the door. Pause as Dee says something.
“I hope she sees that they’re wrong. I’ve grown rather fond of the pooch since he moved in with us. Damn it.”
“I know you have, Dee.” Mac turned to see the old woman hurrying up the stairs. Maybe they could get another dog.
But another dog would not be Hamburger.
Mac reluctantly pulled the door open and headed out onto the porch with Hamburger trailing behind him.
At first Hamburger didn’t notice the people seated on the glider and strained for the wide front steps that led down to the lawn. Mac looked at Clara and Flynn, hoping his breaking heart wasn’t obvious on his face. “Give us a sec,” he said.
Hamburger rushed down the steps and immediately lifted a leg on the shrub at the bottom of the stairs. He turned to look at Mac as if to ask if they should go clockwise or counterclockwise around the lake this afternoon.
And then he spotted Flynn and Clara, who had both stood up and were standing at the railing.
He gave out a series of barks that sounded to Flynn like yodeling. His tail went into overdrive, wagging so fast it blurred. There was no doubt—Hamburger was happy to see them. No, happy was too weak a word. He was overjoyed. He yanked Mac back up the porch steps.
Flynn was on his knees in an instant, his nose buried in Hamburger’s scruff while the dog panted with delight. Clara stood by, watching and smiling. Mac supposed she knew a happy reunion when she saw one.
She must have noticed Mac watching, because their eyes met above Flynn and Hamburger. She nodded. “It’s him.” She mouthed the words.
Mac wondered how two words could be so devastating. How a pair of simple, one-syllable words could knock the light out of your day—and your life.
“No,” Mac uttered involuntarily.
He plopped down on the porch, legs in front of him, and let go of the leash. Hamburger was up on his hind legs now, pushing Flynn over, and Flynn was laughing. Clara stooped down to give the dog a belly rub.
It all stopped quite suddenly. Mac figured Hamburger noticed him lying there on his back, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He barked once and wandered back over to Mac to lick the salty wetness from his face.
“Are you crying?” Clara asked. The businesslike attorney persona was gone, replaced by concern.
Mac sat up and wiped at his eyes. He didn’t answer. He pushed Hamburger away.
He looked at Flynn, who had stood and was nervously wiping his hands on the legs of his shorts. “You okay?”
Mac thought of the times when he was a little boy and the magic a few tears and maybe a couple of hiccupping sobs could work on his mother, or later his grandma, getting him just about anything he wanted.
The tears today weren’t those kind of tears. He knew—and didn’t blame Flynn for it—that Flynn wouldn’t take pity on him and say something like “Oh, you’re hurting. Please—keep the dog. I can’t bear to see a grown man cry.”
No, these were simply tears of grief, of knowing when the end of something was up and realizing there was no choice but acceptance, hard as it was. Mac stood. He tried to make himself stoic. He held his muscles stiff so they wouldn’t see him trembling, although he was shaking inside. He drew in a deep breath so they wouldn’t hear him sob. He cast his gaze away from them and from Hamburger, who was pawing at his leg, tail wagging and, Mac supposed, wondering why his master was suddenly ignoring him. He hoped he could keep the tears at bay. He was embarrassed that he’d shed even a few in front of them.
“Just take him,” he barely managed to get out. He looked away, at the mailbox next to the front door, noticing how the black paint was beginning to flake from its aluminum surface. “Fast,” he whispered.
He turned away. From Clara and Flynn. From Hamburger. He crossed his arms across his chest and faced the wall.
But he didn’t hear anything. No footsteps walking away. No click of Hamburger’s nails on the wooden surface of the porch. No laughter and talk of triumph. How good it was to have “Barley” back again.
There was only silence. Mac felt a warm breeze wash over him. And he had that peculiar prickly sensation one sometimes gets at the back of one’s neck when he realizes someone is staring at him.
Slowly he turned to meet their gazes. Clara looked like she was about to cry. And Flynn? There had been something resolute and determined about him when he had first confronted Mac that morning. That was all gone. He was chewing his lower lip, and his blue eyes were bright.
“This is a hell of a thing,” he said at last, very softly.
Hamburger obviously didn’t agree, because he walked away from the humans and then trotted down the st
eps. He found a patch of alluring sun on the grass, curled once, and lay down in it. Mac couldn’t help it. He grinned.
“I’m gonna miss the little guy.” Again, he felt he had to steel himself for just a few more minutes. He clenched both his fists and his teeth. Once they were gone, he could release the onslaught of emotions simmering inside, just below the surface. He would barricade himself in his room and cry as he hadn’t done since he was a little boy.
But that was for later. “Please. Let’s not prolong this. I don’t think I can stand it.” Mac had to be honest with them, maybe even a little raw. It wasn’t, like his tears, an attempt to manipulate them or to get his way. He needed to be truthful. “I love him. And I know I was a jerk. And I’m sorry I lied.” He allowed himself a quick glance at Flynn. “Yeah. I knew. I just wanted to keep him so bad. Ever since he came up to me at the park, a stray, last winter, looking skinny and lost, I felt like we were two lost souls who’d found each other.” Mac shrugged. “He saved me as much as I saved him.” Mac looked away from Clara and Flynn. He rubbed a hand rapidly over his face. He breathed when he felt there was no air. “So maybe I wasn’t the best person, but I did it out of love. I did save him. I did it for Hamburger. Excuse me, Barley.”
The three of them stood for a long time in silence on the porch. On Green Lake Way, an ice cream truck went by playing “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
Flynn neared him, and Mac was surprised when the other man laid a hand on his shoulder.
“I know. I can understand how someone can fall hard for this dog. I did think you were a jerk, a liar, but I don’t anymore. I get it.”
He looked into Mac’s eyes. Mac wasn’t sure what Flynn was searching for.
“This is hard. I don’t want to take him away from you.”
And Mac’s heart leaped upward, into the dazzling sunlight above them. “Really?” he asked, his voice weak yet suffused with hope.
“Really. But he is mine. And I know you can understand how much I’ve missed him.”
And Mac’s hope plunged back down—perhaps into the mucky goose-shit layers at the bottom of Green Lake. Mac nodded. “Yeah, I know.” He sighed. “I have some toys and stuff inside. Let me go get ’em.” Mac turned and went in the door, letting the screen slam behind him.
Dee stood just inside, near the stairs. The grief written on her face was almost more than Mac could bear. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes were red around the rims and damp.
“You big softie,” he accused her.
She tried to smile and failed miserably. “You just gonna let them take him?” she asked, her voice broken and weak, like a little girl’s instead of a woman’s who would be celebrating her seventy-ninth birthday in a couple of months.
“What choice do I have, Dee?”
“Maybe there is a choice,” Dee said, tentative.
“What are you talking about?”
“Invite them in. I have an idea.”
“Oh, Dee, you are so sweet. But I just wanna get this over with. I wanna have a good cry in my room and then go over to Cap Hill and get myself good and shitfaced.”
“That won’t make you feel any better, Mac.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But at least I can forget for a couple of hours. And right now a little oblivion doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. Do you begrudge me that?”
Dee touched her gray hair, smoothing it back from her forehead. “I have an idea.”
“You said that.”
“Just go along with the old bat. Ask them to come in and have a glass of tea around the kitchen table. I want to run something by all of you.”
“Why?”
“Will you just do it?” Dee snapped. She turned away and went into the kitchen. He heard her open the refrigerator, the slap of it closing, her footsteps on the tile floor.
Mac shook his head. He knew it was pointless to try to argue with her. It always was. He returned to the front door, opened the screen, and leaned out. “Uh, my landlady would like to offer you guys a glass of iced tea.”
Clara looked at Flynn as though to say What now?
“Did I mention this wasn’t optional? She’s almost eighty and believes that’s earned her the right to never hear the word no again. Make it easy on yourselves. Just come in. Go along with her.” Mac opened the door wider. “Please.”
They followed him inside. Mac led them to the kitchen, his grief, for the moment, abated by wondering just what the “old bat” had up her sleeve.
Chapter 6
EVERYONE IN the kitchen was awkward, save for Barley. Flynn felt a twinge at the dog appearing to be so at home. He watched as Barley first took a long drink from his water bowl next to the refrigerator. Thirst slaked, Barley wandered over to a well-worn shearling cushion between two cabinets. He turned around on it a few times, farted, and then settled into a deep sleep, all within the space of about a minute and a half.
No one said anything. They all seemed pretty intent on watching the old lady at the kitchen counter, getting their tea ready. She poured the tea into tall glasses filled with ice, then garnished each one with a lemon wedge. Looking deathly serious, she set a glass before each of them and didn’t appear to hear their mumbled thanks.
She put a hand to her forehead. “Oh! We need something to go with this. Who’s up for cookies?”
At the mention of the word “cookie,” Barley lifted his head and sniffed. He hasn’t changed much. Clara also shifted into anticipatory mode, Flynn thought with an inner chuckle.
As Dee busied herself filling a shallow bowl with gingersnaps from a box, Barley returned to his dreams.
Dee brought the cookies, along with a sugar dispenser and a half quart of milk, over to the table and set them down. “Please, help yourselves. If you want something more, I can make you a sandwich. I have olive loaf and swiss cheese.”
Predictably, Clara piped up and requested a sandwich. “With mustard, please. Dijon, if you have it.”
Flynn glared at her, telepathically sending the thought Why are you prolonging this?
She ignored him.
They all waited silently while Dee made Clara’s sandwich and plated it with a pickle spear on the side.
“I like a girl who isn’t shy about eating.” Dee set the plate before Clara. “You could teach these boys a thing or two. Both of them are too skinny.”
Clara thanked Dee and bit into her sandwich. “This is great. Thank you.”
At last Dee sat down with them. She took a moment to look at each of them in turn, and Flynn noticed how dark the old woman’s eyes were. There was very little differentiation between her irises and pupils.
“I know you’re probably all wondering what the crazy old lady is up to,” Dee began. She held up her hand. “Please. Don’t deny it.” She breathed out and laughed a little. With her finger she picked up a crumb of gingersnap off the table and put it into her mouth. “I wanted to talk to you all a little bit about—
“Wait. Before I get into that, I want to tell you something about myself. Believe it or not, I was not always the sweet old lady you see here before you today. Twenty, thirty years ago, I was kindly referred to as a firecracker or ‘life of the party.’ I was unkindly referred to as a drunk or a ‘girl who couldn’t say no.’” Dee laughed. “I swear I can hear your thoughts, and you can hardly believe me.
“But it’s true. The reason I’m telling you this is that because of my wild and wanton ways, I ruined a marriage to a very nice man who forgave me many, many times for many, many transgressions.
“Until he couldn’t anymore.” Dee shook her head. “I couldn’t blame him. Even I thought he should have stopped forgiving around the second or third time, but he had more patience than I do.
“I was sorry to see him go. We had what you call an amicable divorce. I got this house.”
Dee grinned and took a look around the bright yellow kitchen as though seeing it for the first time. And then her features went dark, almost like a cloud passed over them. She frowned,
and Flynn thought the expression in her eyes was far away, as though she was trying to stuff pain deep down inside.
Dee took a sip of her iced tea and in a voice barely above a whisper said, “He got our two kids.
“Yes, boys and girls, I was also a mother. Not a very good one. Not what anyone would ever refer to as doting or, at my worst, even present, but I was a mother.” She looked away from them and then back. “And while I will never win any mother-of-the-year awards, I did love my kids. Do love them. Frank’s an actuary in Phoenix, and my darling Claire lives down in San Francisco and does social work there for the city.”
Flynn could tell, in Dee’s pause, she was thinking about her children, seeing them in her mind’s eye. Pleasure and pain intermingled on the woman’s careworn face.
“The point of all this, if you were wondering if I had one, is that eventually my ex and I worked out an amicable agreement for raising those kids.” She looked at Flynn and then at Mac. “Although the court awarded Mr. Weeda sole custody with me having weekend visitation, we eventually came to our own terms. And do you know what those terms were?”
She took a moment, Flynn supposed, to give him or Mac a chance to respond.
“Joint custody,” she said at last.
“We realized, me especially, that kids need both parents. Even when the parents don’t need each other anymore. So we shared ’em. What worked for us was one week on and one week off. Mr. Weeda lived a couple blocks over, on Ravenna Boulevard, so it was easy to exchange them, and nobody had any school worries because we all lived in the same district.
“It worked. The kids got love. Me? Coming so close to losing them, I cleaned up my act. I haven’t had anything stronger than this”—she lifted her glass, almost as though in a toast—“in a very, very long time. I’m not going to specify just how many years, no sir!” She laughed. “I think you can see the point of my story.”
