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“I’m grieving, Beth.” She was the only person to whom he could state his situation so baldly.
“I know that.” Bottles rattled in the open fridge. He could see her shadow on the wall as she bent and rearranged. She really is a stork, he thought, a human stork, and she’ll probably live forever. “A grieving person needs something to occupy his mind. Something to take care of. That was what I thought when I saw that sign. It’s not a case of who wants a dog, it’s a case of who needs a dog. That’s you. Jesus Christ, this fridge is a mold farm. A science experiment. I am so grossed out.”
The puppy got to her feet, took a tentative step toward Lloyd, then changed her mind (assuming she had one) and sat down again.
“Keep her yourself.”
“Absolutely not. Jim’s allergic.”
“Bethie, you have two cats. He’s not allergic to them?”
“Yes. He is. And the cats are enough. If that’s the way you feel, I’ll just take that puppy to the animal shelter in Pompano Beach. They give them three weeks before they euthanize them. She’s a good-looking little thing with that smoky fur. Someone may take her before her time is up.”
Lloyd rolled his eyes, even though she couldn’t see him do it. He had often done the same thing at the age of eight, when Beth told him that if he didn’t clean up his room, she’d give him five on his bottom with her badminton racket. Some things never changed.
“Pack your bags,” he said, “we’re going on one of Beth Young’s all-expenses-paid guilt trips.”
She shut the fridge and came back into the living room. The puppy glanced at her, then resumed her inspection of Lloyd. “I’m going to Publix, where I expect to spend well over a hundred dollars. I’ll bring you the checkout tape and you can reimburse me.”
“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Why don’t you get to know the defenseless puppy you’re going to send to the gas chamber?” She bent to pat the top of the puppy’s head. “Look at those hopeful eyes.”
What Lloyd saw in those amber eyes was only evaluation.
“What am I supposed to do if she pees on the shag? Marian had this installed just before she got sick.”
Beth pointed to the toy-sized leash on the hassock. “Take her out. Introduce her to Marian’s overgrown flowerbeds. And by the way, that carpet is filthy.”
She grabbed her purse and headed for the door, thin legs scissoring in their old self-important way.
“A pet is the absolute worst present you can give someone,” Lloyd said. “I read that on the Internet.”
“Where everything is true, I suppose.”
She paused to look back at him. The harsh September light of Florida’s west coast fell on her face, showing the way her lipstick had bled into the little wrinkles around her mouth, and the way her lower lids had begun to sag away from her eyes, and the fragile clockspring of veins beating in the hollow of her temple. She would be seventy soon. His bouncing, opinionated, athletic, argumentative, take-no-prisoners sister was old. So was he. They were proof that life was basically a short dream on a summer afternoon. Only Bethie still had her husband, two grown children, and four grandchildren—nature’s nice multiplication. He’d had Marian, but Marian was gone and there were no children. Was he supposed to replace his wife with a mongrel puppy? The idea was as corny as a Hallmark card and just as unrealistic.
“I’m not keeping her.”
She gave him the same look she’d given him as a girl of thirteen, the one that said the badminton racket would soon make an appearance if he didn’t shape up. “You are at least until I get back from Publix. I have some other errands to run, too, and dogs die in hot cars. Especially little ones.”
She closed the door. Lloyd Sunderland, retired, six months a widower, these days not very interested in food (or any of life’s other pleasures), sat staring at this unwelcome visitor on his shag carpet. The dog stared back at him. “What are you looking at, foolish?” he asked.
The puppy got up and walked toward him. Waddled, actually, as if through high weeds. It sat down again by his left foot, looking up. Lloyd lowered his hand tentatively, expecting a nip. The dog licked him instead. He got the toy leash and attached it to the puppy’s small pink collar. “Come on. Let’s get you off the damn rug while there’s still time.”
He tugged the leash. The puppy only sat and looked at him. Lloyd sighed and picked her up. She licked his hand again. He carried her outside and put her down in the grass. It needed mowing, and she almost disappeared. Beth was right about the flowers, too. They looked awful, half of them as dead as Marian. This thought made him smile, although smiling at such a comparison made him feel like a bad person.
The dog’s waddle was even more pronounced in the grass. She went a dozen or so steps, then lowered her hind end and peed.
“Good, but I’m still not keeping you.”
Already suspecting that when Beth went back to Boca, the dog wouldn’t be with her. No, this unwanted visitor would be here with him, in his house half a mile from the drawbridge that connected the Key to the mainland. It wouldn’t work, he had never owned a dog in his life, but until he found someone who would take her, she might give him something to do besides watch TV or sit in front of his computer, playing solitaire and surfing sites that had seemed interesting when he first retired and now bored him to death.
When Beth returned almost two hours later, Lloyd was back in his easy chair and the puppy was back on the carpet, sleeping. His sister, whom he loved but who had irritated him his whole life, irritated him further today by coming back with a lot more than he had expected. She had a large bag of puppy chow (organic, of course) and a large container of plain yogurt (which, when added to the puppy’s food, was supposed to strengthen the cartilage in those radar dish ears). Beth also brought puppy pads, a dog bed, three chew toys (two of which squeaked annoyingly), and a child’s playpen. It would keep the puppy from wandering in the night, she said.
“Jesus, Bethie, how much did that playpen cost?”
“It was on sale at Target,” she said, dodging the question in a way he was familiar with. “No charge. My treat. And now that I’ve bought all this, do you still want me to take her back? If you do, you get to do the returns.”
