A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [116]
“Yeah, well, I hope you’re happy, leaving me alone, listening to that fucking dog, when I can’t even eat, I’m so sick, I can’t keep anything down. Not even crackers.” Her little round face twisted into a sour contortion of self-pity and anger.
“It’s okay, Ma. Here, I got you some Dew.” Jada set the bags down. She twisted off the cap. Her mother cringed as if even the sight of it were repulsive.
“I need matches and nobody’ll give me any. That’s all I wanted,” she whined as if Jada had accused her of something.
“I don’t have any,” he said. He had yet to look at Jada.
“Yes, you do!” Marvella’s beady eyes narrowed in amusement at his discomfort. “You just don’t wanna give me any.”
“He doesn’t smoke, Ma. C’mon, there’s some. I’ll get’em for you.”
“Yeah, well, you should’ve told me before,” Marvella complained as Jada picked up her bag to take her home. “And then he wouldn’ta got out.”
Jada stopped. “You mean Leonardo?”
Marvella nodded with a sob. “I was looking for matches. You must’ve left the door open. I didn’t even see it. And now he’s gone.”
“Are you sure? Did you look for him?”
“I been out here all this time, what do you think? I been calling and calling. Leonardo!” she wailed suddenly, teetering with the effort. “Leonardo! Leonardo!”
“Did you see him?” Jada asked Gordon.
“No.”
“Come on, Ma. Quick, I gotta go look. I gotta find him,” she said, almost pulling her mother across the street.
Gordon went right to the garage. He lifted the key from the rusty nail and put it in his pocket. Delores thought he should feel some responsibility toward the girl, but what she provoked most in him was fear. There was no keeping her out. She was like the stinkweed he was always pulling up. It left a terrible smell in his hands, and no matter what he did, vinegar, WeedRout, hacking at the roots, it always came back. Halfway down the driveway he stopped. He could hear whimpering. He looked in his backyard and under his steps, following the sound to the property line. Here the bushes hadn’t been cut back from the other side in years, the thickness almost impenetrable, especially for someone his size. Now the whimpering grew frantic. He knelt down and peered in. The dog looked back with an entreating yip. The rope from his collar was so snarled in brambles that he could barely move. Gordon tried to loosen the rope, but it was too tangled. He got his rose pruner from the garage and cut the rope on the first try. “C’mon, boy. C’mon,” he coaxed, straining to grab the rope end, but he needn’t have worried. The dog wiggled straight out into his hands. He carried him across the street.
“Jada’s not here,” Marvella called through the open window.
“I found your dog. I have him here,” he called back.
“He’s not mine. I don’t have a dog.”
“It’s Leonardo,” he called, stooping at the window. Seeing her hazy form on the couch, he straightened immediately. Crack. She was trying to light it so she could smoke it through a straw in the side of a soda bottle. “Your daughter’s dog. I have him right here.”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t want him!” She waved him away. “You can have him. He’s yours.”
“No, I can’t. I don’t want a dog. I’ll just leave him, then. Out here.”
The adjacent door opened then and Inez came out onto the porch with her four-year-old granddaughter, who laughed and reached up to let the dog lick her fingers. Her grandmother spoke sharply in Spanish and the girl’s hands flew behind her back.
Marvella had opened her door at the same time. She looked at the dog a moment, puzzled, as if she didn’t recognize it. “Can’t you just take him someplace?” she whined. “Please? Or keep him, I don’t care.”
“No. I can’t. I can’t do that,” he said, struggling as the dog yipped and strained to get to Marvella.
“He doesn’t want your dog,” Inez snapped. “He’s yours. You want to get rid of him, you go do it.”
“Shut up!” Marvella cried. “Just shut the—”
“No!” Inez growled, pointing to the child curled around her legs.
Marvella cringed from the warning. “Oh shit,” she said, taking the squealing dog from him. “Like I really