Chapter 54
chapter fifty-four
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: complacent
I jogged down the back steps, a beer in one hand and a bottle of cider in the other. "I saw this at the store today," I said as I joined Audrey on the grass. "Give it a try. See if you like it."
She studied the label while Percy tried to keep up with Bagel's after-dinner zoomies. Judging by the number of times Percy fell to the ground laughing, I'd say he wasn't doing a great job of it.
"This is good," she said, sampling the cider. "Thank you."
I tapped my bottle to hers. "Anytime, princess."
We sipped our drinks and watched Percy and Bagel as the sun slid into the horizon.
Audrey's neighborhood was quiet though around this time in the evening, we often heard neighbors cooking on their grills or gathered on screened-in porches.
There were always families out for strolls, pool-wet kids on bikes and scooters, and teenagers cackling with laughter and shouting at each other as they made their way to the local hangout spots.
This was a good place. It wasn't dripping in the kind of cloying sameness that had kept me away from smaller cities and towns.
And it wasn't nearly as buttoned-up and impersonal as the townhouse community we called home in Alexandria.
I didn't know Audrey's neighbors beyond waving when folks drove by but I didn't doubt that if I knocked on a door and asked to borrow a socket wrench, someone would want to help me out.
"I think Bagel's going to need a walk this evening," Audrey said.
"They haven't tired each other out yet," I said.
"Not at all," she mused. She set the cider down and turned my wrist to glance at my watch. "We should go soon. It's going to get buggy."
I leaned in and brushed a kiss over her lips before pushing to my feet. "All right. You get the kids, I'll get the leash and bug spray."
"Are we really doing that? The Bagel is our child thing? Because I have to tell you I've fostered a lot of dogs and cats, and while I loved them all dearly, I always knew they'd be moving on to other homes. They weren't my fur babies."
I drummed a finger on my belt. "Bagel can't move on to another home." She glanced up at me with Are we having this conversation now? eyes. And no, we weren't having this conversation now because I didn't know how the fuck to have it. All I could say was, "Don't tell me you don't love this dog too."
"What's not to love?" she asked. "He goes out of his way to ignore both of us.
He intermittently forgets how to walk on a leash and hides under benches at the dog park.
He strongly distrusts other dogs though mostly because he doesn't know what they are.
And he's imprinted on Percy. Or maybe it's the other way around.
All I know is he's a total weirdo just like the rest of us. Of course, I love him."
"Look, my son tells everyone he meets that this dog is his brother," I said. "If I can roll with that, you can too."
She stood, brushing grass from the back of her shorts. "I mean, sure."
"I can hear the judgment in your tone."
"I hope you do," she said, laughing.
"You should hope our dog son doesn't hear it." She inclined her head and scraped a gaze over me. When I couldn't take it anymore, I barked, "What?"
"I'm just trying to imagine what the people in our high school class would say if they could see their Padrino now."
I rolled my eyes. "They can get fucked. All of 'em."
"Yeah, agreed, but the real question is whether they'd still be afraid of you if they knew you cooked ground beef or chicken special for Bagel every night."
"He doesn't like regular dog food, Audrey. What do you want me to do? Watch him stare at his bowl?"
"Go get the bug spray," she said, giving my shoulder a hard shove. "We'll meet you out front."
I went back inside, our beer and cider bottles in hand. I left them to drain in the sink and started the dishwasher as I heard Audrey call, "Who wants to go for a walk?"
I towel-dried my hands and pocketed two types of bug spray since Audrey's skin hated the brand that Percy liked, courtesy of the frog on the bottle.
With the leash draped around my neck, I checked the locks on the back and side doors—old New England homes had so many fucking doors—and let myself out through the front.
Audrey watched while Percy tried to climb the cherry blossom tree and Bagel rolled in the grass nearby.
As far as we could tell, the thought of running away hadn't crossed Bagel's mind.
Even if another dog walked by, he'd go on minding his own business.
We knew that theory could collapse at any moment, which was why I was quick to clip the leash to his collar.
Percy gave up on the tree, landing on the grass in a heap. "Can I hold him?" he signed, a hand grasping for the leash.
"Not until you're properly weaponized against ticks and mosquitoes," I said.
Percy met me on the walkway, his arms outstretched in the optimal bug spray application pose. Audrey wandered down to the street, busy snapping dead blooms off the dense masses of flower bushes bordering the yard.
"I'll take care of that tomorrow," I said to her.
"You don't have to," she said, still focused on her flowers.
"I like this. These hydrangeas were the first things I planted when I moved in.
I didn't know if they'd make it. I couldn't figure out whether this qualified as full sun or partial sun, and I had no idea what the soil or drainage was like.
This makes me happy. And sometimes I just like putting on an audiobook and dissociating with my garden. "
There were a lot of missed opportunities in my life. A lot of times when one thing could've happened but something else did, and I couldn't change any of that. I just had to watch those moments drift by and try not to let myself be angry about it.
I'd always kicked myself for not tracking down Audrey immediately after her divorce. The only reason for following those filings had been to know precisely when she was free of him. But it struck me now that I'd needed to miss that opportunity. Not the time for us.
Moving across the country, settling into this house and planting these bushes—that was what she'd needed then.
Not me and all the resentment I'd carried around like a vestigial organ.
She needed the teacher friends who became her second family.
She needed to bake bread and take on foster dogs and be herself—perhaps for the first time ever—without anyone getting in the way.
Even me.
When I was finished with Percy, I walked back to the door to leave the bug spray bottles on the steps, saying, "Go ahead and grab Bagel now."
I wiped the residual bug spray on my calves and turned back in time to watch Percy racing down the walkway, Bagel galloping after him. Percy laughed, his head thrown back and his cheeks red, and I saw the instant the toe of his sneaker connected with an uneven edge of concrete.
Time slowed down to small, fractional parts and all I could see was the forward motion of his body and the handful of steps ahead of him. I yelled something, I was certain I did, but it didn't matter because he was already pitching forward. And then everything happened within a blink of an eye.
He tumbled down the stairs, his head connecting with the concrete at least once before rolling to a nauseating stop on the sidewalk.
He sat up quickly—thank fucking god—but blood gushed down his face.
Audrey was there, gathering him up and keeping his hands from his head, but she couldn't hide the blood from him.
When he saw it on his shirt, on his glasses, on the sidewalk, he looked up at me and let out a deep, shattering scream.