Chapter Sixty Piper
Chapter Sixty
Piper
The girls in the back of Piper’s SUV screamed with joy as she took the entrance to the parking lot a little too fast, sending gravel flying beneath her tires as she pulled up to the Potomac Pals pet shelter just off Fort Hunt Road.
After the . . . incident . . . with the man who wasn’t a locksmith, she’d checked Hawkeye Slaughter’s account on X.
That morning, he’d posted a grainy picture of her in uniform, taken from an online flyer for a self-defense class she’d taught at Georgetown.
He’d photoshopped antlers on top of her head.
The caption on the picture made her blood run cold. “Happy Hunting Season!”
She glanced at the dashboard. Just in time. The shelter closed in fifteen minutes.
“Mom. Can we get a little dog that I can carry inside my purse like Demi Moore and Paris Hilton?” Caitlin asked.
“No.” She shook her head emphatically. “We’re getting a big dog. The biggest dog we can find.”
They should have done this right after Scout died, but she and Brendan and the girls couldn’t bring themselves to get a new dog while still mourning the loss of their old one.
But that situation today . . . well, it would never have happened if Scout were alive.
His intimidating bark would have sent that man packing, mitigating Piper’s incredible stupidity in bringing him inside the house without asking for an ID, without determining that he was indeed a locksmith before inviting him into the home where her children lived.
She did not want to spend another night alone in that house without a barking dog as a living addition to the alarm system.
It had been a couple of months since they’ve volunteered at the shelter, but hopefully the fact that they’d fostered puppies in the past would allow them to take a dog home today. They’d already been through the background checks, the home visit, and the approval process.
“But I want a little dog,” Bella whined. “Like Toto.” She’d been the Tin Man in a children’s theater production of The Wizard of Oz last year and had developed a strange fixation with the old movie, even though she had to hide her face in a pillow each time the flying monkeys appeared.
“Big dogs are better,” Piper said. “Because if he’s really big you can . . . hook him up to your sled.”
Bella beamed at her mother in the rearview mirror, revealing the gap between her two front teeth. Piper averted her eyes, suddenly feeling guilty for raising Bella’s hopes of becoming a suburban dog musher.
Caitlin crossed her arms in the passenger seat beside her. “But after Scout died you said we weren’t getting another dog until we had demonstrated our ‘capacity for responsibility.’” She used her fingers to make indignant air quotes around the phrase.
Piper racked her brain for examples of responsible behavior in a home where children routinely left ice cream cartons sitting on the counter until the contents melted into dairy soup. But the girls would be terrified if they knew the real reason she suddenly wanted a new dog.
“We haven’t lost a single hairbrush all month,” Piper said, pulling into a parking spot.
“Bella found her missing Hello Kitty raincoat. Olivia put an entire plate in the dishwasher instead of the sink, without being asked. And you threw an empty Cheez-Its box into the garbage recently instead of leaving it in the pantry, like you normally do. And you all used the Target gift cards Grandma gave you for Christmas last year instead of losing them under your beds. You guys are beyond ready for a new dog.”
Caitlin pursed her lips and gave her mother a skeptical look. She wasn’t buying it.
“I think you miss having a dog,” she said in an accusing tone.
Piper repressed a deep sigh.
Sometimes the lies, deceit, and psyops involved in motherhood made her feel like a double agent. Pretending you didn’t care if your toddler wore shoes while desperately needing them to put their shoes on right now.
Pretending you enjoyed standing in subzero temperatures at a card table outside a grocery store with a pack of overexcited Girl Scouts selling Thin Mints when you’d rather be at home in sweatpants watching Bridgerton.
She manufactured a solemn expression and tried to pretend Caitlin had forced her into an honest admission about the real reason for this sudden trip to the pound.
“Okay. Fine. You’re right. It’s all about me, and I just really miss having a dog.
So let’s go inside and pick one out before I change my mind. ”
That did it. The girls catapulted out of the car and into the shelter. Soon they were sitting on the floor, where exuberant puppies attacked them with sloppy kisses.
She smiled for what felt like the first time all day. This was the right thing to do. And now that she was home on administrative leave, she’d have time to train a dog.
The girls needed this. She needed this. Plus, puppies added an extra layer of love to any home.
And since the Incident . . . since the death threats on X from Hawkeye Slaughter and the bloody notebook paper and the worms . . . since the bizarre thing that happened today . . . they needed the extra layer of protection too.
It took about ten minutes to identify Scout’s replacement, a light-brown mutt of no discernable breed with an outgoing but affectionate disposition and gigantic paws, suggesting he would eventually become enormous.
“What should we name him?” Piper asked as they drove home. After much fighting and three coin tosses, Bella provided the lap on which the puppy rode in his cardboard box.
“Travis,” Bella said dreamily.
“Travis?” Piper shot her daughter a puzzled look.
Bella nodded. “Because our dog is a boy, just like Taylor’s fee-onshay.”
Piper sighed. It was Taylor Swift all day, every day in her house. In fact, Olivia had only managed to memorize the multiplication tables by setting them to Taylor Swift songs. Piper couldn’t hear “Shake It Off” without automatically singing “In my mind six times four is twenty-four.”
So she could handle it if they wanted to name their dog after Taylor Swift’s football-player fiancé.
She’d sleep better at night if she had an actual NFL tight end guarding her home. But for now she’d have to make do with a guard puppy named after one.