Heaven Sent Rain (27 page)

“So if I take yellow and mix with white it will look more like their color?”

“Yes. And then if you want some darker, you add Payne’s gray like this. You can use this to show shadows. Like, see where there is shadow between the front legs and the chest?”

Together they mixed and made samples. Jonah grinned at Garret. “This is fun!”

“Glad you think so. One of the neat things is that if you paint something and you don’t like it, you can paint over it until you get it the way you want. And you can make it look three-dimensional this way. Here, let me show you on a box.” He quickly drew a box shape showing the front, the top, and the side, then painted the top light, the front medium, and the side dark. “This is how you show shapes and shadows.” Using brush and paint, he made a round ball.

Jonah stared at it, picked up his brush, and did the same. “It looks round.”

“You did well. Keep plenty of paint on your brush.”

Jonah played with the shapes awhile, then turned his attention to the easel and studied it. He painted the dog a medium yellow. He added dark in the shadowed areas and light on the top of the dog’s head. “Ah, no.” He looked to Garret. “How can I erase it?”

“What did I say before?”

“Paint over it.”

Garret grinned. “Hey, I want something to drink. What would you like?”

“Orange soda?”

“I have that. Wrap your brush in this and we’ll go get the drinks.”

Jonah followed him out and pointed at the kitchen clock. “It’s past five.”

“Oh my gosh, I was having so much fun I didn’t watch the clock. We better get our brushes cleaned up. We’ll have to finish those paintings another time.”

“Next Saturday?”

“If you like. Maybe even sooner.” He handed Jonah a cold can. “We can drink and clean up at the same time.” He dropped his brushes into soapy water. Jonah was good at copying actions. He was also good at understanding why they did what they did. Garret showed him how to hang the brushes to dry.

Jonah took a swig of his drink as he stood in front of his easel. “This is better ’n’ crayons.”

“Glad you think so. But we might try the colored markers sometime, too.”

Garret led Jonah out to the SUV and opened the rear door. “Should we stop for pizza for supper?”

The boy hopped in. “Sure. Can I call Dinah?”

Garret handed him the phone as he got in. “Just say ‘Call Dinah.’” He twisted the ignition.

“‘Call Dinah.’ Hey! It’s doing it. That’s so cool!” He chatted a moment, hung up, and handed the phone back over Garret’s shoulder. “She says pizza is fine.”

When Jonah became quiet after that, Garret looked in the rearview mirror to see if he had fallen asleep. Jonah looked at Garret’s reflection looking at him. “Teacher said at Sunday School that if I believe in Jesus, I get to go to heaven. Like Mommy did, huh?”

“Yes, that’s what the Bible says.”

“Dr. G, I really want to see my Mommy again. I want to be with her.”

“Ah, Jonah, how I wish you could be, too.”

“When I die I get to be with Mommy, right?”

“That’s right. But that will be a long time away.”

The kid lapsed back into thought.

Now what to talk about? Garret asked, “What did you do at Grandma Trudy’s yesterday?”

“I drew the picture for Judge Henny and started one for Mr. Jensen. And she made cookies, so I helped her.” He paused. “But I miss school. How come I have to stay out so long?”

“Sorry, Sport, but those are the rules. Having a knife at school is way against the law.”

“I won’t do it again.”

“Good.”

T
his is overkill.
Three
kinds of pizza.” Dinah had relaxed considerably since they had settled themselves at her kitchen table, the pizzas in front of them. She transferred another ham-and-pineapple slice from the box to her plate.

Garret chose an Italian sausage. “In the next couple days, I’d like to X-ray Mutt, see what’s going on in there. Very short visit; step in, do it, step out. You don’t even have to meet with a vet. Jason or someone can snap the pictures and we’ll call you later.”

Jonah was still working on his three-cheese special. “Can I see the pictures? Please?”

“This early in her pregnancy; the puppies’ bones are not really calcified, and they don’t show up well on an X-ray. Little gray blobby things, not real puppies. We could do an ultrasound, but that’s very expensive. Not worth the cost. But sure, Sport. If you want to see blobs, I can email the X-rays to Dinah for you.”

“She has to be spayed.” Dinah lifted her coffee mug, looked in it a moment, and set it down again. “Can you do it now?”

Garret crossed over to the coffee maker and brought the pot. He poured for her and warmed up his. “It depends; another reason for the X-ray. There’s a cut-off point, so to speak, a point when the puppies are too far advanced in development for the operation to be safe for the mother. If they’re still as small as we think, yes. We can spay her now. Jonah, if she became pregnant the night she was chewed up, the puppies are still tiny. But if it happened before then—Did she ever get away from you before that night?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When? A long time? Days? Weeks? Can you remember?”

Jonah’s forehead puckered. “I’m thinking. Mommy was really sick one day and Mutt wouldn’t come back when I called her and so I went up to make sure Mommy was okay and Mutt came when I went back down. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Sport. You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you did everything right.”

“What’s a spade?” Jonah eyed the triple cheese but lifted out a ham-and-pineapple instead.

“To spay a female dog is to remove her reproductive organs so that she cannot have puppies.” Garret sounded casual, matter-of-fact.

Jonah narrowed his eyes. “But the puppies that are in there will be okay, right?”

“No. They are inside the reproductive organs, so they’d be removed with the reproductive organs.”

Here it came, as Dinah feared. Jonah dropped his pizza; he looked shocked. “But that would kill the puppies!”

Dinah spoke gently. “Well, yes, but…”

“We can’t kill her puppies!” Instantly, he teetered on the verge of another meltdown. How could this little boy flick the switch so instantaneously from calm to out of control?

Dinah said loudly, “Jonah, stop! Listen. If it means that much to you, we won’t.”

“You can’t kill her puppies!”

And Dinah borrowed a page from Garret. “Remember, we don’t want to upset Mutt, especially if she’s pregnant. We won’t do it, Jonah. We won’t spay her.”

“Promise?” He was yelling.

“Promise.” Dinah sank forward, her elbows on her white table and her head in her hands. “Puppies.”

Garret’s voice soothed the troubled waters further. “Might put it too close to the line anyway. If she’s gaining weight noticeably now, it would have started earlier. Are you prepared for a litter of puppies?”

“No. Of course not. How could I ever handle puppies here?”

He grimaced. “I guess puppies and an all-white condo don’t go together well.”

“You see what happened to my sofa in there.” She felt near tears. “Puppies.”

“Your kitchen is small, but you have enough room here to put up a collapsible fence. They sell them at the pet supply places. It would be for about ten weeks, until you can wean them and find them new homes.”

“But we’ll keep the puppies!” Jonah nearly shouted. “We can’t give her children away. Her children would all lose their mommy!”

Garret looked at Dinah and Dinah looked at Garret, an
aha!
moment.
Think, Dinah!

Garret spoke first. “Ever hear of ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched’? Well, that’s what we’re doing. We don’t know how many puppies there are, and we don’t even know if she has any. The time to think about these things is after the puppies are born; if there really are puppies in her and she’s not just getting fat from lack of exercise.”

The silence lay heavy. Another grotesque thought jumped into Dinah’s mind. Jonah obviously understood that babies came from inside mommies, at least in regard to dogs. But sooner or later his education in such things was going to have to be expanded. And it was his brand-new guardian who would have to do the expanding. This time she could not fall back on the nice sterile considerations of the biochemistry of reproduction. It was going to get rough.

Then Garret and Jonah got deep into a conversation about holidays, and Easter in eight days.

So far, she had kept forgetting about getting an Easter basket for Jonah. And jelly beans and a chocolate bunny and all. She remembered her own Easter baskets when she was a child. No chocolate bunnies. Only solid chocolate crosses, usually with a lily molded into them. No chicks. When she was twelve she’d petitioned her parents for marshmallow Peeps. She pointed out that chicks symbolize new birth—in fact, symbolize the resurrection—and to bolster her point, she went through a
Young’s Analytical
Concordance
to find all the scriptural references to chicks. None specifically supported her thesis, and no marshmallow Peeps ever appeared in her basket. Kind-hearted playmates shared theirs, but it wasn’t the same thing.

Garret finished his coffee. “Almost seven. I have to go on call tonight. Urgent care. So I must leave. I would like to take you both along to Palm Sunday services tomorrow at our church. We do it up big—do the whole Easter week up big. Will you come?”

“Can we?” Jonah brightened. “Dinah, can we go?”

She had had enough trouble sitting through the church service with Grandma Trudy. But a fancy, self-proclaimed
big
service? “Thank you, but I don’t think so.” She glanced at Jonah’s crestfallen face. “If you wish, both of you, Jonah may go. I think he’d love to go.”

The boy glowed instantly.

Garret smiled. “Ready at ten tomorrow?”

“Sure!” Apparently, that settled that. Garret took his leave and Jonah went off to read before bedtime.

Puppies. She sighed to the depths of her soul.

The next morning Garret rang the bell at just before ten and Dinah buzzed him up.

“Sure you don’t want to go along?” Just by standing in her living room doorway Garret seemed to fill the room.

Dinah smiled. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m fine here. Thanks.”

Jonah came out of the bedroom beaming as if he’d just won a million dollars. He spread his arms. “Look. My Sunday clothes are new and they’re not too big. I don’t have to grow into anything.”

Dinah laughed. “And you look like a million dollars, too.”

“Be right back.” Jonah snatched Mutt’s leash off the hook by the back door and went out with his dog.

Dinah explained, “I could take Mutt out while you two go on to church, but for some reason, it’s very important to Jonah that he take her out. So…well…”

“If it’s important to a kid, it’s important.”

She nodded.

Silence.

He broke it. “Thanks for letting me take Jonah.”

“No problem. He’s delighted to go.”

“Are you certain you’d prefer to stay home? We have a special Palm Sunday service that I think you’d like.”

“No, really. Thank you anyway.”

Long silence.

She was the hostess, he the guest. She really ought to fill the thundering silence, but she couldn’t think of anything.

The silence was broken without her help as Mutt and Jonah burst in through the door.

Jonah hung up the leash. “We can go now.” All bubbly, he jogged out the front door.

Palm Sunday. When she was small, how Dinah had loved Palm Sunday. The story of a donkey colt carrying Jesus into Jerusalem. The prospect of a whole lot of chocolate and jelly beans seven days from then; the so-long-ago past and the too-long-to-wait-for future.

An Easter basket. While Jonah was off with Garret, she would get him an Easter basket. This was the perfect time. But where? She was not a shopper. She tried a couple likely stores at random and finally found one with a large selection of both baskets and candy.

She could purchase a basket already trimmed, or she could purchase a naked one, so to speak. She chose a large, graceful, pretty, bare-naked one. She picked out the shredded grass. Three packages; two didn’t look like they’d do it. And she paused, surprised by her feelings. This was fun! This was just plain delightful! She would not have guessed.

Now for the candy. Anything but crosses. Here was a dark chocolate rabbit that was almost too big for the basket. Almost doesn’t count; she laid it in her cart. Soft yellow marshmallow Peeps, the large box of them. Jelly beans, of course. Some mint patties. Peanut butter cups. Gummy bears. How she used to love gummy bears. She was going to take a bag of M&M’s, but no. They would just get lost in the grass. Some other time.

She surveyed the cart. There was too much candy here; it would not all fit in the basket. She chose a smaller untrimmed basket, a chocolate setting hen, and two more bags of grass. She would decorate both and give one to Grandma Trudy.

Eggs! Easter had to have colored eggs. She chose an egg-dyeing kit. She would have to ask Garret about paints that would be safe for use on eggshells. Those two artists would surely want to paint pictures on some of the eggs. Wait. Here was a colored-marker kit that promised safe ingredients. Into the cart it went.

She purchased four dozen eggs. Fortunately, she read the instructions on the dye kit before leaving the store and picked up a bottle of white vinegar. Did an opened bottle of vinegar last from one Easter to the next? She had no idea. It didn’t matter.

And doughnuts. The baker was putting out trays of fresh doughnuts. Her particular favorites were maple bars, but she also boxed up some chocolates and some plains, for when the churchgoers returned.

She checked out, loaded the car, and arrived back home fifteen minutes before she could expect Garret and Jonah. She left the doughnuts on the table, separated out the eggs, dyes, and vinegar, and carefully tucked the rest under the sink behind cleaning supplies. Then she made herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. That heady rush of delight was still there, still making her heart sing. This new guardianship posed enormous tasks, enormous responsibilities, enormous woes. But, she realized for the first time, it also offered enormous joys.

Joy. Had she ever truly tasted joy? Rarely. Fleeting occasions. This occasion, putting together an Easter basket, would no doubt be fleeting, too. She would savor it.

She thought about all the places she had looked for joy. The church in which she grew up had bought an old bus and painted it white. Then in huge letters they named it “JOY BUS.” It was supposed to transport grown-ups who were otherwise housebound or did not drive. Most of all, it would bring in all the little children who otherwise could not attend Sunday School, whose parents for whatever reason did not go to church. There the children would learn about Jesus, accept Him, and bask in the joy of salvation ever after. Church membership dwindled. The remaining members could no longer afford the bus. No one else would buy it. The last she knew, it was rusting away amidst a tangle of brambles behind someone’s barn. So much for joy.

Even before first grade, Dinah had recited the words her parents told her to say, inviting Jesus into her heart. Had He ever accepted her invitation? Dinah had no idea, but she didn’t feel any joy in the whole situation. Being a Christian was too dire, too rigid, too demanding to allow joy a seat at the table. And when the only bright spots in her life died, joy departed forever.

She was the only girl in her small high school who excelled in math and science, but in rural Ohio, math and science were neither encouraged nor discouraged. No joy there. When she forwent marriage and family to earn her PhD in physiological chemistry, her parents disowned her. Girls could become nurses or teachers, maybe, until marriage. Then they were to serve their husband and children for the rest of their lives. That was how it was done. No joy there.

And now these burdens of a child, a dog (puppies! sigh), a company being harassed, a comfortable lifestyle being destroyed—what little happiness she had felt was under attack on all sides.

Mutt leaped up out of a sound sleep and ran to the door barking. The door burst open. Jonah bounded in waving a palm frond. The whole frond. In Dinah’s church one palm frond served everyone in the congregation, each of whom had been allowed a single coarse, scratchy leaflet. Garret entered behind him.

Jonah crowed, “They even had a real donkey! We got to ride on him. They are really uncomfortable, Dinah. Really bony. It was so cool!”

Dinah realized she was watching unbridled joy. And her heart ached with—with envy! She envied a seven-year-old tortured, storm-tossed orphan.

Garret laid a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Got a job for you, Sport. Take Mutt here down to the bus stop and wait for Grandma Trudy to get home. You can give her your palm frond, like we talked about.”

“Yeah!” Jonah leashed up his dog and disappeared out the door.

Dinah stood up. “I detect a whirlwind just went through. May I get you a cup of coffee? And here are some fresh doughnuts.” She opened the box on the table.

“Thank you. Sure.” He sat down across from her chair. “Maple bars!” He pulled a white paper napkin from the holder on the table. “I have the day off. I was hoping Jonah might come to my house so we can finish the paintings we started. And you are welcome, too, of course.”

“Don’t kitties ever get sick on Palm Sunday?”

He grinned, an engaging, infectious grin. Obviously, he was just as ebullient in his own way as Jonah was. “Jason is holding down the fort today. He is Jewish. He gets Saturday off and doesn’t mind working Sundays. Reformed Jew, he says, because sometimes he works Saturdays when we need him. We’re hiring on some more help soon, and then we won’t need him at all on Saturday.”