The Dogs of Christmas (16 page)

“You’ve never had a dog before, so you’ve never gone through any of it,” Kerri continued.

“Okay, so we’ve established why I don’t know anything.”

She blinked at his tone. “I didn’t mean that, Josh. I was actually talking about saying good-bye to them. Because when you adopt a pet you know you’re headed for heartbreak, you know? Dogs are with us for such a short period of time. They are our best friends but we only have a decade, maybe a decade and a half, and then they’re gone. That’s what I meant. So losing them is just part of the deal, something you have to learn how to cope with. But listen, I really, really believe that one of the lessons they teach us by loving us so intensely while they
are
here is that we need to celebrate life while we have it, that yes, everything ends and we have to move on but that while we’re here we should make sure we don’t waste it, you know? I mean, my mom has been numb like half her life, what kind of existence is that?” Kerri’s eyes were moist, and she wiped at them hastily. “And when we lose them, when they do die, I honestly believe that the last thought on their minds is that they hope we get another dog.”

Kerri’s face was red and she took several deep breaths. Josh knew this was somehow an important moment for them, that they were supposed to be sharing something, but he searched inside and all he felt was a cool remoteness. He couldn’t get past the fact that she was essentially arguing he should give up the puppies.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Josh finally responded.

“I guess I’m just saying you can’t keep them because, well, you
can’t.
No one can, not for as long as we’d like to. So the thing to do is to understand that what dogs give us is always just a brief period of time of being with us, which has to be good enough because it’s all there is. So we need to celebrate it while we can, and then move on. That’s the lesson of the dogs, that it’s important to both live in the moment and then go on to the next wonderful thing.”

“Is this a speech you give to people? Like, foster dog parents, when they take in dogs but can’t give them back?”

“Maybe a little,” Kerri admitted with a small smile.

“It’s pretty good.”

“Thanks. Plus, I usually say that the main reason I work at the shelter is for the animals, but that there’s something about the joy you can give people when you bring them together with their new dog. Animals are so confused at the shelter, and then they’re so grateful when they are given a forever home. I want you to experience that.”

“But that’s not what happened, here. I didn’t volunteer for this. The puppies were put in a box in my truck,” he argued.

“Right, but Josh, six dogs? Come on. One puppy is a lot of work; I can’t even imagine what it would be like with a whole litter. Isn’t it enough that you’ll have Lucy?”

“No,” he said shortly. Lucy looked up at her name, then set her head back down, intently watching Josh. It was as if the dog knew what was going on inside him.

“Then keep one. Two dogs is a handful, but fine,” Kerri reasoned. “You’ll have the mommy and a little one.”

“And break up the family? How about I just pick a favorite, the way my mom took my sister with her when she moved, but not me? And then Dad tells me he’s secretly engaged to some woman in London. Like that?” Josh retorted bitterly.

Kerri half lifted her arms, as if she were coming over to embrace him, but she didn’t move. “I didn’t know any of that.”

“Okay, so, now you know.” Josh looked away.

“So what are you going to do? They won’t let you keep more than three dogs; that’s the rule.”

“I don’t know,” Josh admitted. The question made him tired.

Kerri stood. “Right, then.”

“Okay.”

He followed her out to her car. Lucy raced out as if she’d never been in the front yard before, her tail wagging, nose down to the frozen ground.

“So,” Kerri sighed. Josh sensed a barrier between them, a gap he’d be wise not to bridge, so he halted a few steps from her when she turned. “Merry Christmas, Josh.”

“Merry Christmas,” he repeated woodenly.

“Don’t … don’t call me, okay? I get you, I understand why you’re the way you are, but it’s not good for me to be around you.” Tears were unexpectedly spilling down her cheeks.

“Kerri.”

“No. I mean it. Good-bye, Josh.”

Kerri slipped into her car and Josh stood and watched her drive away. Lucy came up to him with a stick in her mouth, dropping it at his feet like a gift, clearly hoping to cheer him up.

Josh went into the house, knowing that for the next several days, maybe even for weeks or months, he’d carry the same empty weight that had settled on his heart after Amanda left, the sense that someone who belonged there was not with him any longer.

The rest of November passed with gray clouds matching Josh’s mood. He took Lucy for a few walks, he played with the puppies, he watched Christmas movies. He fell behind in his online coursework. He let dishes pile up in the kitchen, he ignored texts from Wayne. He registered without feeling when the dates crossed into December.

He was sitting at his computer one morning when a conference request popped open on his screen. He accepted it and found himself looking at one of his former teammates on the Blascoe project, a friend who always went by his last name, Quincy. He looked an awful lot like Josh—same short black hair and dark eyes, though Quincy was a lot heavier, having been, in his own words, “In and out of In and Out Burger too many times.”

“You hear?” Quincy greeted.

“No, I’m completely out of the loop. What’s up?”

“Client
hates
the interface now. There’s like six levels of nested menus.” Quincy grinned.

“Seriously?” If Blascoe was going to claim that everything was Josh’s fault, the damage to his reputation could take a long time to repair.

“You know Blascoe. He keeps adding crap. I swear he lies awake nights thinking of ways to screw everything up. So we had this big crisis meeting and, get this, Suni says, ‘We need Josh Michaels.’”

Suni Ohayashi was the number-two person on the project. Josh searched inside himself and yes, it was there—a petty sense of vindication.

“And Blascoe looks at Suni and says, he says”—Quincy dropped his chin and did a passable impression of Blascoe’s flat, gruff voice—“‘Not an option.’”

Josh nodded. “Huh.”

“What did you do to piss off the Blascotoid?”

Josh shrugged. “I wish I knew. Did you see the report I uploaded?”

Quincy shook his head. “No, it wiped when Blascoe delisted you from the project.”

“Might have saved everyone some grief.”

“I get exactly what you’re saying. Maybe, though, with Suni pushing him Blascoe will ask you back.”

“Not going to count on that.”

“Yeah.” Quincy grunted. “You got anything else going on?”

“No. Time of year, not much happening.”

“You okay? I mean with not working. How’re you doing with all that?” Quincy’s expression was pained, as if worried Josh was going to start discussing
feelings
or something.

Josh caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The puppies had decided they needed to roll up the living room rug. They had seized a corner of it and were all tugging in different directions, growling at each other.

“You know, things are great,” Josh replied without irony.

A few days later a huge SUV bounced up his driveway, springs sagging. Josh went to the window and recognized the driver as one of the dads from the ice rink, and when the back door popped open, one of the hockey boys and the little girl ice dancer tumbled out.

“Could we see the puppies?” the little girl asked. She looked as if she’d spent the morning being tuned up at the cuteness factory, with light brown curls, huge brown eyes, and cheeks red from the cold and her excitement. Her brother, a few years older and twice as big, was going to be as huge as the father—both were large, fleshy males, plenty of muscle on the dad, while the boy’s bulk was mostly unrealized potential that needed a few years of athletics to shape up.

Josh could not have refused that little girl if she were there asking to burn down his house. He brought the puppies out and when they spotted the children they went from sleep to manic energy in just seconds.

The girl’s name was Juliet and the boy was Chuck. The father was Matt. The man’s hands were rough and chapped when he and Josh shook, but his smile was a blazing white against his leathery skin, like a cowboy hired to smile in a TV commercial.

The puppies played and tumbled, Cody following Rufus’s lead and seizing Chuck’s mitten in his little mouth and shaking it with tiny growls. Chuck dropped a rubber ball on the ground and Sophie pounced on it joyously, running off with it. For Sophie, the best thing about new toys was that they were new.

The puppies loved the children—no worries about socializing these little guys—but it was Lola, though, who seemed most smitten with Juliet, climbing in the little girl’s lap and licking her into giggles.

“All Juliet’s been talking about is the brown dog with the short ears,” Matt said after refusing an offer of coffee. Josh knew what was coming. “Was thinking maybe you’d let me buy her. Time we had a dog and, well, when Juliet sets her mind to something…” Matt gave him a rueful grin, those white teeth of his nearly blinding Josh.

“I don’t know,” Josh said uncomfortably.

Matt sensed something, so he didn’t push it. The two men sat in the living room for an hour, watching the children and the puppies play. Chuck rolled around on the floor and let the puppies climb on him like Lilliputians mounting an assault on Gulliver, but for Juliet there was only Lola; the two of them focused completely on each other. When Lola fell asleep in Juliet’s arms, it was as an infant, all four limbs pointed slackly up in the air. The expression on Juliet’s face was pure bliss.

She handed Lola over without protest, though, when Matt said it was time to go. Josh got the sense that in their family, when the father spoke, the kids did what they were told.

Matt handed Josh a card with a phone number. It said that Matt was a mechanic. “Case you change your mind. Merry Christmas,” Matt the mechanic said.

As the SUV drove away, Juliet waved to Josh, smiling. Maybe she was dying of disappointment inside, but her face betrayed nothing but gratitude that she’d had a short time with Lola. Celebrating, and then moving on, Kerri would probably point out if she were standing there. The lesson of the dogs.

When he called the shelter Kerri couldn’t come to the phone. Josh left a message. When he called the shelter again and it rolled to voice mail even though it was during operating hours—he pictured Kerri working there by herself, seeing the caller ID, and deciding not to answer.

The window of the shelter was decorated with amateurish but charming paintings of snowmen and holly. Josh peered inside but there was no one at the counter. He opened the door and the same bell jangled.

Kerri’s face dropped when she came out of the back room. “Josh,” she said. He hated the way his name sounded coming out of her mouth, like it gave her a bad taste.

“Hi, Kerri.”

They looked at each other for a moment. She shrugged uncomfortably.

“There’s this little girl named Juliet. I want her family to have Lola. You said you guys would handle the adoption.”

SIXTEEN

Kerri stared at him for a long moment, her face troubled.
What?
Josh wanted to shout at her.
What else do you want me to do?

“I’m sorting through some stuff that was donated, would you be willing to help?” Kerri inquired, diffusing the tension a little. Josh nodded mutely and followed her to a back room, where several cardboard boxes gaped open. Kerri told him where to put things: canned food, bagged food, pet toys, “just new toys, not the ones that are chewed and disgusting that people think we’d want.” Josh bent down into a box and pulled out what looked like a football uniform for a Chihuahua, complete with shoulder pads and a helmet. “Right, not that, either,” Kerri said.

Josh tossed the uniform in the discard pile. He liked that they were doing this simple task and not talking about anything of substance, though as the silence stretched on, he found himself glancing over at Kerri, who was wearing her tight jeans, her brown hair spilling forward as she read the ingredients on a bag of dog food. She eventually decided the food was acceptable.

“So tell me, what changed your mind?” she asked as she put the bag on a shelf.

“A little girl came over.”

“And? That’s it?”

“Just seeing them together. It’s like what you said in your speech about adopting dogs.”

“You’re telling me I was right,” Kerri teased mildly.

“I’m trying
not
to tell you you were right.”

“Ahh. Such a guy.”

“Plus, well, maybe this seems silly, but it’s what Lola wants.”

Kerri smiled at him. “And whatever Lola wants,” she agreed meaningfully.

“Huh?”

“You don’t know it? It’s a song.” Kerri sang a few verses, waiting for him to get it.

“Um,
My Fair Lady
?”

“
My Fair Lady!
” Kerri laughed. “No,
Damn Yankees.
You so live in a cabin in the mountains.”

“Well at least I knew it was a movie.”

That made her smile. “The song has been stuck in my head ever since you named her Lola.”

“I’ve been singing ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.’”

That one actually got her to laugh. “Anyway…” Kerri said. “Look, the puppies are technically your dogs, but there’s a process we do here to make sure adopters will make good dog owners. This time of year, a lot of people give dogs as gifts, which we like because it makes room in the shelters, but hate because some people think raising puppies is easy.”

Josh nodded. “Yeah, some people can be like that.”

“Uh-huh,” Kerri dead-panned. “So is it fine with you if these people do an application? I want to make sure all of your puppies wind up in a good home.”

“Sure,” Josh agreed, not addressing the “all of your puppies” statement. Kneeling, he reached into a box of what looked like six-inch dried snake skins, but were stiff and hard. “What are these?”