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Lloyd was used to being outplayed by his sister. “I’ll give it a trial run, but I do not appreciate being saddled with the responsibility. You always were high-handed.”
“Yes,” she said. “With Mother gone and Dad a functional but basically hopeless drunk, I had to be. Now how about the scramble?”
“All right.”
“Has she peed on the rug yet?”
“No.”
“She will.” Beth actually sounded pleased with the idea. “What are you going to name her?”
If I name her she’s mine, Lloyd thought, only he suspected she was his already, and had been from that first tentative lick. The way that Marian had been his from the first kiss. Another stupid comparison, but could you control how your mind sorted things? No more than you could control your dreams.
“Laurie.”
“Why Laurie?”
“I don’t know. It just came to me.”
“Well,” she said, “that’s all right.”
Laurie followed them into the kitchen. Waddling.
2
Lloyd papered the white shag carpet with puppy pads and set up the playpen in his bedroom (pinching his fingers in the process), then went into his study, fired up his computer, and began reading an article titled So You Have a New Puppy! Halfway through it, he became aware that Laurie was sitting beside his shoe, looking up at him. He decided to feed her and found a puddle of pee in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, not six inches from the nearest puppy pad. He picked Laurie up, set her down next to the pee, and said, “Not here.” He then put her down on the pristine pad. “Here.”
She looked at him, then did her puppy-waddle back into the kitchen, where she lay down by the stove with her snout on one paw, watching him. Lloyd grabbed a handful of paper towels. He had an idea he was going to be using a lot of them in the next week or so.
Once the puddle was cleaned up (a very small one, there was that), he put a quarter-cup of puppy chow—the recommended dosage, according to So You Have a New Puppy!—in a cereal bowl and mixed it with yogurt. The puppy tucked in willingly enough. While he was watching her eat, his phone rang. It was Beth, calling from a rest area somewhere in the wilds of Alligator Alley.
“You should take her to a vet,” she said. “I forgot to tell you that.”
“I know, Bethie.” It was in So You Have a New Puppy!
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken, another trait he knew well. “She’ll need vitamins, I think, and heartworm medicine for sure, plus something for fleas and ticks—I think it’s a pill they eat with their food. Also, she’ll need to be fixed. Spayed, you know, but probably not for a couple of months.”
“Yes,” he said. “If I keep her.”
Laurie had finished eating and wandered away toward the living room. With a full belly, her waddle was more pronounced. To Lloyd, she looked a little drunk.
“Remember to walk her.”
“Right.” Every four hours, according to So You Have a New Puppy! Which was ridiculous. He had no intention of getting up at two in the morning to take his uninvited guest outside.
Mind reading was another of his sister’s specialties. “You’re probably thinking that getting up in the middle of the night is going to be a hassle.”
“It crossed my mind.”
She ignored this, as only Bethie could. “But if you’re telling the truth about having insomnia since Marian died, I really don’t think it will be a hardship.”
“That’s very understanding and caring of you.”
“See how it goes, that’s all I’m saying. Give the little girl a chance.” She paused. “I worry about you, Lloyd. I worked in an insurance company for almost forty years, and I can tell you that men your age run a much greater risk of disease after a spouse dies. And death, of course.”
To this he said nothing.
“Will you?”
