Keep Her Forever

by Maria Jackson

  “Oh my gosh, Heidi, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ve been checking on her, but…”

  “That’s the best kind of excuse you can give me?” I forced my breathing to slow. It wasn’t the end of the world. Stray dogs gave birth without any humans around all the time, and even domesticated dogs generally only needed a little help. Working together was more important than being pissed at Topaz. “Never mind. Just come here and look. The first water sac is about to come out.”

  I could feel Topaz’s hesitation as she came up to my side. She peeked into the box, seeing what I was seeing. I didn’t want to look at her face, knowing that it would only be torture, but I glanced long enough to see how her brow furrowed.

  “But that was happening earlier,” she said. “You’re saying that’s a water sac? I didn’t know. I thought things just looked like that down there.”

  I let out a huff. “Fine. Whatever.” Maybe she had been paying attention and just didn’t know what she was looking for. I softened toward her a tiny bit more.

  Not enough to forgive her for last night, though. She’d hurt me. And if I asked her about that, I suspected her excuses would be similar. She’d never done this before. She didn’t know what she was doing.

  As if that made up for making out with me and then pulling away as if I were toxic. I couldn’t deal with picturing it. Forcing that whole topic out of my mind, I watched Diamond’s quiet struggle.

  The beagle was shivering heavily, her tongue lolling out as she panted. She seemed uneasy, and I couldn’t blame her. This would’ve been terrifying enough for a creature who knew what was happening and why. For Diamond, it must have been completely incomprehensible. There wasn’t much I could do to comfort her. All I could do was get her through this.

  A moment passed. I asked Topaz to get me some clean towels in a laundry hamper. She did it in silence. At least she was acting better now. I couldn’t handle looking at her.

  She was still my assistant in this birth, though, and after a few long minutes, I spoke to her quietly. “She’s going to be ready soon.”

  “Okay,” she said equally quietly. Her voice was completely grave—I’d never heard her that serious before. “Everything is happening as expected?”

  I let out a breath. Even now, almost hating her, I adored the way she worried about this poor dog. “Everything seems fine to me,” I said. “If anything bad happens, we’ll call Dr. Colwin.”

  “Okay. Tell me what to do. I’m here for you.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to calm down my voice. “And I’m sorry for yelling at you so much earlier. That wasn’t helpful.”

  “It’s okay,” Topaz said. “I deserved it. I shouldn’t have left her alone. I screwed up, and I know it.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I should’ve been clear about what I wanted from you.”

  Now we were practically fighting over who should be more apologetic. Just as I was beginning to feel some sympathy for Topaz again, Diamond let out a soft, muffled noise. She looked completely confused, maybe even in pain.

  I dropped to my knees in front of the whelping box. “Diamond!”

  The water sac emerged, small and slimy. I stroked Diamond’s head as she passed it, telling her what a good girl she was the whole time.

  Topaz followed my lead, taking Diamond’s paw and squeezing it. “Such a brave girl,” she told her. “Such a wonderful doggy.”

  It felt almost like we were parents watching a child come into the world. The moment was so intense that I was almost overwhelmed. My heart expanded as I saw that tiny being in the dark, translucent sac.

  Diamond instinctively bent her head to the sac and licked it, breaking out the puppy. Then she cleaned the puppy and chewed through her umbilical cord.

  The puppy wasn’t more than a couple of inches from head to foot, with teensy paws and closed eyes. It was practically unrecognizable as a dog.

  “It looks like a little rat,” Topaz said wonderingly. “An adorable one, though.”

  “I know.” I’d just noticed something else. “She doesn’t look much like Diamond, does she?”

  The puppy nudged its way up to Diamond’s teats. It was crazy how Diamond automatically knew how to nurse and the puppy knew how to suckle.

  “You mean the colors? I guess not. The puppy’s all one shade, kind of beige.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I wonder what breed the father was. Coming from the street, he could have been anything. These puppies might end up looking nothing like Diamond.”

  “I never thought about that,” Topaz said. She seemed as amazed by the process as I was.

  I got on my knees again, putting my weight on my heels. Now that we could relax a bit, I was a lot more aware of Topaz’s proximity to me. I swallowed, the events of last night flooding my mind again.

  Don’t think about that now. There’ll be plenty of time to obsess over her once the puppies are out. There are still five to come, so let’s focus on that.

  The first placenta emerged. Diamond blinked at it, then opened her mouth and took a nibble.

  “Ew!” Topaz said. “Is she eating her poop?”

  I raised an eyebrow, unsure of whether or not she was joking. When I saw she was completely serious, I just shook my head. It really was a good thing I’d made it home in time. I hated to think what would’ve happened if she’d been in charge of this all by herself.

  “That’s the placenta,” I told her. “It’s healthy for her to eat one or two of them.”

  “The… placenta?” Topaz looked horrified, which actually made me feel a little better. The way her lips pulled back and her nostrils flared was hilarious.

  Of course, I was still completely turned on by her, too. That didn’t stop just because she was making a funny face.

  “When’s the next one going to come?” she asked.

  Damn, it was so cute when she asked me questions like that. I loved how she respected my expertise in this area.

  No, it was not cute. She kissed me and then claimed to be straight. Nothing about her was cute.

  “Could be fifteen minutes, could be two hours,” I said. “Let’s keep watching her and see what happens.”

  She nodded. “Sounds like it might be a while if there’s six of them in total. Should we take shifts? I don’t know if you have anything else you need to do today.”

  “No way. I’m not leaving her side, even if it takes all night.”

  I wasn’t the least bit surprised when she said, “Same here.”

  We did stand up and stretch, though. Kneeling on the floor had made my joints stiff, and I assumed Topaz felt the same. As she leaned from side to side, arms in the air, I caught a glimpse of her stomach—flat but ever-so-slightly soft.

  But she was straight, at least according to her. I wasn’t supposed to look at her like that.

  The puppies came at their own pace. We were quiet, focusing on each birth as it happened, then focusing on getting them to eat. At some point Topaz flicked the light on, and I realized the sun had gone down.

  Sometime after the fifth puppy had come out, I poured us each a glass of water. Topaz took a long drink, sitting by the table, her chair positioned so she could see down into the whelping box.

  “I’m sorry about last night, by the way,” she said.

  She sounded sincere about it, but also casual—as if it had just occurred to her that she should say something about it. I wondered what she’d think if she knew I’d been dreaming about that moment all day, obsessing over it.

  Surely she must’ve had an idea. No one could make out with their friend and then forget about it.

  “It’s okay,” I said, lying through my teeth. I tried to sound as nonchalant as she did when I continued, “So, why’d you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kiss me,” I said.

  She pushed her chair back an inch. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

  I folded my arms. “How do you accidentally make ou
t with someone? I have a hard time believing you forget how it happened.”

  “I don’t forget anything,” she insisted, getting to her feet and moving in front of me. “We were standing right here. I… I lost my balance and my lips landed on yours. Then you kept kissing me until I pulled away.”

  “That’s not true at all, and you know it. We were standing right here, like this—you got that part right. It was no accident, though, and you didn’t jump straight to the kissing. First you put your hand on my shoulder.” I placed her hand there again, trying to jog her memory. “Then you pecked me on the lips. I’ll admit I took it from there, but you made the first move, and it wasn’t by accident.”

  Even as my speech went on, she didn’t move her hand. It sat there, teasing me with its warmth. I wanted that hand to do things to me, to run all over my body and stroke me until I screamed.

  I couldn’t be the only one feeling this. Lust didn’t work like that. I’d figured that out in my dating life, as limited as it may have been.

  I stared into Topaz’s eyes, and she stared right back at me. Her expression wasn’t warm or cold, it was… confused? I longed to lean forward and close the gap between us. I already knew exactly how good those lips felt. But as long as she was going to deny what we could have, I’d hold myself back.

  Being so close to her, staring at her like this, I could even see the uncertainty in her eyes. She wasn’t against this. She simply wasn’t sure.

  I could practically taste her lips on mine again. Her hand trembled on my shoulder, and I moved a fraction of an inch forward. My hand rose to grasp her by the nape. The downy hairs rose in goosebumps under my fingers.

  Before I had time to relax into the contact, a sound came from the whelping box. The moment between us shattered.

  Breathless, I dropped to my knees beside Diamond. Reaching in the top of the box, I stroked the fur on her head. She looked up at me anxiously.

  “You’re almost there,” I told her. “So close.”

  Topaz followed my lead, murmuring more encouraging words as if the dog could understand us. But even without knowing the meaning of her words, Diamond must have caught some of the intention behind them. I hoped so, anyway.

  A moment went by like that, both of us attentive only to her. Then Topaz pointed out something I hadn’t even noticed.

  “It’s been a couple minutes,” she said. “Nothing seems to be happening. Everything’s still okay?”

  I raised her haunches to take a better look, and my stomach began to churn. Diamond was still straining, her distress clear, but…

  “I know I’m being silly by worrying.” Topaz was at my side, in my peripheral vision. “Everything has been fine so far, so why would this be any different? You can tell me to shut up if you want. I’m probably making you more worried by being here.”

  Lifting a hand, I silenced her. “Topaz, the last puppy is stuck in the birth canal.”

  ELEVEN—TOPAZ

  I twisted my hands together, wishing I could do something other than be completely useless as Heidi paced around, thinking out loud about what she could do.

  “This has never happened to me before, but I’ve read about it. It’s not totally abnormal. It’s a problem, for sure, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything horrible. We can get through this if we stay calm and do the right thing. Calm… calm… stay calm.”

  It didn’t sound like she was convincing herself too well to do that. I stared down at Diamond and the puppies in their box. The five tiny rats suckled away without a care in the world. Meanwhile, their brother or sister was stuck up inside their mother.

  I shivered as I thought about it. Was the puppy the only one in danger, or could Diamond herself be at risk? I would die, absolutely die, if anything happened to that dog. And I wouldn’t be much better off if anything went wrong with her last puppy.

  “Tell me what to do,” I said urgently. My knuckles were white on the rim of the whelping box. “Anything, whatever it takes, I’ll do it. Just tell me how to help her!”

  “I’m thinking,” Heidi said, looking unfairly attractive as she stood tensely in front of the sink. Hard to believe that a few minutes earlier, my biggest concern was not wanting to admit my desire for her. That was so stupid, so juvenile. We were in the middle of a life-or-death situation now, and it was hard to remember why anything else ever mattered.

  “What are the options?” I asked. “Maybe I can help you decide what to do if you tell me what the options are.”

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” Heidi ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m trying to remember what they say about these situations. Nothing like this has ever gone wrong for me before. All the births I’ve experienced have been pretty easy.”

  “Stay there. I’ll go get my phone and Google it.”

  “No time for that. This is urgent now. I don’t want to wait a second longer than we have to. The thing is that we have to make the water sac slippery enough to get it out.”

  “Slippery?”

  “Yes.” Heidi dropped her chin to her chest and took in deep breaths. She seemed to be actually freaking out. “It needs to slide out. I just can’t think of what we could use.”

  “Would the Vaseline we used when we took her temperature work?”

  “It’s upstairs.”

  My eyes went from Heidi’s worried face to the sink behind her. “What about some dish soap?”

  “That’s brilliant!” Swinging around, she grabbed the container. “Let’s do this.”

  Could my idea really be that great? It was the first thing off the top of my head, and I knew nothing about dogs. “Are you sure we should be doing this? It seems so risky. What if the soap chemicals hurt the puppy?”

  “The worst that could happen is that the puppy dies, and that’s what’s about to happen anyway. You can’t kill a dead dog, but we have to think about Diamond. She’s in trouble. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being aggressive here. That puppy is stuck, and it’s not going to come out on its own.”

  Heidi seemed confident as she brought the bottle to Diamond’s swollen opening. Squeezing out a good amount of soap, she got the opening all slippery. I wished I could do something to help, but I had the impression that I’d only get in the way.

  “I’m going to hook my finger under this puppy’s legs,” she said. “I’m trying to go in time with Diamond’s contractions.”

  The look on her face was incredible. Her eyes narrowed, focused on the task before her. Her lips pressed together, and she didn’t look away from the dog for an instant. I wasn’t going to let myself dwell on it now, but I memorized the scene, filing every detail away so I could look back on it later. She’d never looked so incredible—as well as smart and talented. She was such an incredible woman…

  As I looked at Heidi, her teeth sank into her bottom lip. “We might be in the clear.”

  The dish soap seemed to be doing the trick. I stared into the box, my heart thudding in my chest as the water sac slid out a tiny bit further, then a tiny bit more. At long last, the whole thing was out. I rubbed sweat from my forehead and tried to relax my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d become.

  Diamond nipped at the sac, seeming more anxious than she’d been with the first five puppies. She must have known something was wrong, and now her relief was obvious. She licked insistently, making sure that her last puppy was clean and safe.

  “It’s so small,” I breathed.

  Heidi nodded, letting out a long breath. “It’s a runt. Weird that the smallest puppy would be the one to get stuck. It’d usually be the biggest one. I guess Diamond was exhausted.”

  What I said to the runt in my mind was, You are an amazing, brave, miraculous little thing. You almost didn’t make it, but here you are. You being alive is a miracle.

  What I said out loud was, “I always wanted to have the runt of the litter.”

  “Let’s give Diamond some warm broth,” Heidi said.

  I was still hovering ov
er the runt, brushing her lightly with the very tip of my finger. “Could you make it for her?”

  By the time she’d heated up the dog food, I was still giving my full attention to the runt. She checked on the others, reporting back that they were all okay and nursing well.

  “This is amazing,” I said. “You’re amazing.”

  Heidi looked at me as if to make sure that I was talking to her. The hopefulness in her eyes was clear. I looked away. I’d been too obvious about how I felt. I needed to rein it in.

  Funny, though. For a second during that scare, I almost thought I might actually want to be with her. That I could get past what was holding me back.

  “I’m going to call Dr. Colwin,” Heidi muttered.

  She grabbed the landline and put the vet on speaker. After Heidi explained what had happened, he let out a gasp. “You two were such quick thinkers,” he said. “You absolutely did the right thing. Excellent job, ladies. Congratulations.”

  Heidi’s relief was as clear as day on her face “I was so scared,” she said. “I really thought it might not work out for us.”

  “I’m very happy it did,” Dr. Colwin said. “Bring those puppies in within a day or two. They’ll need to get a few things done. I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

  After hanging up, Heidi wiped sweat off her brow. She was still avoiding looking at me. Funny, we’d just been through the same thing, but she was so open about how she felt. Every emotion she was showing, I was feeling. I buried all of them instead of letting them out. Was this what I always did?

  “It’s over,” Heidi said, looking a bit stunned. “I think we can relax now.”

  I eased myself into a kitchen chair. I would’ve imagined I’d want to creep away from her at this point, especially after the moment last night… and the almost-moment tonight. After the terror of almost losing a puppy, I couldn’t get up the strength to leave. I needed company—specifically, hers.

  “I guess we need to name them now,” I said.

  Heidi nodded slowly, sinking into a chair as well and inching it forward so she could also peer into the whelping box. “A lot of them have beige fur. And look at this one’s ears, they’re pointy—nothing like beagle ears. I think I might’ve figured out what the daddy was.”