The Lost - J. D. Robb [71]
Sam and I smiled at each other, and I felt the world shift a fraction. Go back to normal. I was definitely home.
I stroked Benny’s dear, bumpy back, comforting him. Lovely for him to get his mom back, sure, but how terribly, terribly sad to lose his dog. “We’ll get another one, sweetheart,” was on the tip of my tongue when he suddenly sat up straight and said, “Mom! We got a dog!”
“Oh, baby, I’m so—”
“She’s a girl—Sonoma—she’s really good, and smart, she can shake hands and open doors and everything. We ran over her! But then we saved her and now she’s ours. You’ll like her, Mom, she’s really, really good.”
I looked at Sam in alarm. Didn’t Benny know?
Sam made a wry face. “Well, I don’t know how good she is, but she’s definitely our dog. She’s out in the car. Maybe they’ll let you see her later, tomorrow or—”
“Sonoma’s in the car? Sonoma is here?”
“Yeah.” Sam looked at me strangely again. “She’s a mess right now, though, been in the river, got some scrapes and bruises—”
“Monica said she saved her! Monica said she jumped in and got her by the shirt! Then she almost drowned, but she ended up on a rock and now she’s okay except a bump on her head. Monica said we should take her to the vet.”
“Don’t spay her,” I said. In case I wasn’t home by Tuesday.
They both looked at me strangely.
“I mean, if you were going to, you know. Just hold off till we talk about it, is all. ’Kay?”
“Sure,” said Sam. He looked bewildered. “No problem.”
“So we can keep her?” Benny asked in a very soft voice, also garbled because of the two fingers he had in his mouth. As if he didn’t really want me to hear. As if no answer would equal permission.
The fact that he was worried at all just killed me. “Hey, are you kidding? Of course we can keep her. She’s our dog.”
At least.
I couldn’t wait to meet her.
After
“Crap!” Sam makes a graceful grab for his jack of spades, but the river is too swift. The card floats away before he can catch it.
“I was wondering when that would happen,” I rouse myself to say. He’s been doing flawless fancy shuffling for five minutes straight. Something had to give.
“You said crap.”
“I was provoked.”
“Crap, crap, crap, crap—”
“Benny. Stifle.”
My son cackles and goes back to pitching a rubber ball to Sonoma in the shallows. Underhand lobs, up high and right into her mouth. Being in the river was supposed to add a new layer of difficulty, but they perfected this game a long time ago.
So here we are, back where we started. Looking at us, if you didn’t know, you’d think we were the same Summer family as before, just a year older and with a dog. You’d be right, except for all the ways in which you’d be wrong.
“What time are they coming tomorrow?” Sam asks, stashing his deck of cards in his pocket.
“Two-i sh. Which means two on the dot,” I say in the middle of a wide-m outhed yawn. Time for my nap. I love naps.
That’s a difference—old Laurie would’ve suspected some horrible health crisis if she’d ever wanted anything so pointless and wasteful as a nap.
Another difference is my friendship with Miss Punctuality: Monica Carr. She and the twins are coming down to the cabin for the afternoon tomorrow. Sam will take the boys fishing or hiking while Monica and I sit in chairs in the river—like now—and talk and talk, and then we’ll all go in and eat whatever delicious but healthful meal she’s prepared ahead and brought down with her. I won’t feel an ounce of resentment. I’ll notice all the ways in which she’s a better mother, friend, and general human being than I am, but instead of feeling cynical or superior, I’ll just be grateful. That she likes me as much as I like her.
She’ll probably bring her new camera and take lots of pictures. She never told old Laurie her secret ambition was to be a nature photographer—Why would she? I wouldn’t have been interested anyway—but she was afraid to try.