The Story of Us (11 page)

It was late February, a beautiful day, and we were piled into the Bermuda Honda, listening to music. We were so happy with puppy excitement, and our mother was singing along with the radio and Ben was eating Red Vines. I don’t think my mother had ever even taken a trip like this by herself before. She had to keep looking at the map. It was a prove-something-to-yourself trip, and the radio was up and we were flying high.

Everything was going fine—we were on the other side of the pass, pulling off onto the Wenatchee Highway, about to head toward the breeder’s house, when suddenly there was a bad smell. A really bad burning smell and then smoke—huge barreling plumes of smoke—rising from the hood of the Bermuda Honda.

Mom pulled over.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,
she said. Her face had gone as white as an egg.

Mom?
I said. Ben had turned silent. We were sitting on a dirt road next to a gas station and endless orchards of apples, miles from home. No cell phone—this was before Mom could afford one. And what would these car repairs cost? Add that to the list of worries. The smoke kept pouring out, and Mom’s stunned face watched as the Bermuda Honda died one of its nine lives.

Mom put her head down on her arms on the steering wheel. I was scared. Again. I thought she might cry. Every bit of new-life joy was gone, and there was only fear once more. And defeat. Utter defeat. In the car, before it broke down, there had been this feeling. I wouldn’t repeat this to anyone but you, because it’s disloyal to my father, who is still my father. But there was this glee that maybe in the end the good guys could win, this rising feeling in the heart. And then the smoke, and the defeat, and the sense that
anything
could happen, bad things that my mother couldn’t handle after all, and suddenly I realized that the simple, naïve ideas of good guys and bad guys and
things turning out the way they should was probably over for me forever.

Mom?
I said again. I was really getting scared. No one knew where we were. No one even knew we’d left.

I looked at Ben, and he looked at me.

But Mom lifted her head.
Okay,
she said.
Okay
. It sounded like a plan, or at least like a plan was on its way.

The gas station right there, right off that exit, it sat there like a 76 station gift from God dropped down from the heavens. But a gift without the needed batteries—it was closed. But, yeah, there was a phone booth, and Mom got out and walked toward it, but before she’d even gotten five paces, a Wenatchee County Water and Sewer truck pulled up. A kind-eyed young guy was driving, a guy who used the word “Ma’am” and who had a radio in his car. If God is up there directing this great big human play, I guess sometimes I don’t understand him. I want to love him, but he makes it hard, honestly. Sure, there is beauty and love and planets, but as a father he can shove you down from behind
one minute and then pick you up the next minute and dust off your knees. It’s hard to keep up with what you’re supposed to be learning, is all I’m saying.

So we were on the ground and then back up, and the kind man called a tow truck. He delivered us to the only person we “knew” in the area, the breeder, who my mother had talked to on the phone for all of five minutes back home.

The breeder and his wife were expecting us. He was a gruff man in a plaid wool shirt who had a barrel chest and smelled like cigarettes. Our road angel in his tan county uniform made sure we were all right and then drove off. I was worried again, really, to see him go. He seemed like safety. At that house, with its smell of something cat and the sound of a football game playing in another room, Mom made another call. She shut her eyes for a moment before she dialed. A prayer, I’m guessing. She’s not a churchgoing sort, as you know, but she believes there are reasons for things. I said a prayer of my own. Jon Jakes hadn’t moved in yet; he was out of the picture then, out, in, in, out, dealing with his own divorce. My prayer—I was hoping it wasn’t my father’s number she was calling. Please. Anything, but not that.

Then the breeder went out to his barn, came back, and set a tiny puppy on their green shag rug. A tiny, trembling black puppy with a white spot on her back and a tail with its tip dipped in white. The last of the litter, a puppy who slept outside. A vulnerable little someone who tried to hide under their television stand.
We would’ve made her into a hunting dog if no one wanted her,
the breeder said.

I’d expected to feel bad, taking a puppy from the family she knew. I’d readied myself for some sort of guilt. But the living room had paneling and a TV tray set up with an ashtray and a
TV Guide
on it, and the last of someone’s sandwich. A hunting dog. A puppy who had to sleep in the cold. We picked her up, our Jupiter. We took her from that strange home and the strange family she knew, to become one of us.

Our mother decided not to wait in that place. We got a ride from the breeder’s wife into town. We waited at a restaurant with a lawn in front. We had a leash and a water bowl, and we tried to get the tiny, shaking dog to drink.

And then the sky turned dark. It did. It began to snow. Yes,
snow
. It was a beautiful blue-skies day
back at home, with no chance of bad weather, and now this. White flakes coming down, down—some sign that things indeed could get worse, and then worse again. We stood in the restaurant looking out the windows. Tiny Jupiter was zipped up into Ben’s sweatshirt.

And then the truck arrived.

“I have never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life,” Mom said.

“Get in, munchkins,” Grandpa Shine said, opening the truck door. “Who’s the new member of the Shine family?”

The last thing you want when you’re trying to be big and brave is to be rescued. But thank God we are rescued when we need it. And that day was a whole entire day of rescue. We thought about Jupiter living outside, the snow, that strange smoky house, that gruff breeder. That small baby, a hunting dog. We thought we’d rescued her. But when we finally got home, the three of us plus one more, it felt like something huge had shifted. We’d created a new family, moved on from the old one by bringing in a little somebody, who was
scampering around our wood floors and cracking us up, biting our fingers with sharp teeth, looking so small beside her huge bowls now set on a colorful place mat on our kitchen floor.

Tell me, who was rescuing who?

And you, too, Janssen. I guess we had some traumatic bonding of our own. You arrived in our life when we were still shaky. Yeah, you say I was always strong, but inside I was small and trembling on green shag. But after that incident with my dad … Well, you put your arms around me, didn’t you? And then you kept them there. We still had to figure out how to walk the bridge over from kid sister to something else. Our future hadn’t really even arrived yet. But there you were. And I felt safe. And I’ve never stopped feeling safe, thanks to you.

Love always,

Cricket

After seeing that guy and that guitar, I gave up trying to rest. I went downstairs, where I found Mom and Dan sitting snug and close together on one of those plush couches. The living room was as inviting as the rest of the rooms—stone fireplace; those two-story-high windows; polished floors and thick rugs; those big, soft gray couches the color of the sea on a moody day. My mother and Dan had their bare feet up on the wood plank table, and Dan had his arm draped around her shoulder. Two glasses of red wine relaxed on the tabletop; it was a quiet moment, and I didn’t want to interrupt. But Dan spotted me, waved his arm for me to come over, and Mom patted the spot beside her.

“What’s this?” I said. I crooked my head toward Jupiter and Cruiser. Jupiter was lying on the big pillow that was Cruiser’s
bed, gazing serenely toward the windows and the sea, her chin on her paws. Cruiser was stretched out on the hard floor. His ears twitched with nerves and awareness. You had the feeling he’d be sleeping with one eye open tonight.

“The little old girl is the dominant one,” Mom said.

“Oh no. Look at him. Should we chase her off?”

“No,” Dan said. “Leave it. They’ve got their own rules. Man, if only people-rules were that straightforward.”

“Poor guy,” I said.

“But she’s telling him what she’ll tolerate, I guess,” Mom said. “She’s drawing the line.”

I leaned over Cruiser, scruffed his head. He leaned on his side passively. “Are you the big dog?” I said. “Are you a giant woof? You’re not just a dog, you’re an adventure, right?” Oh, it was pathetic.

“But I gotta say,” Dan said, “that boy will take on the biggest, nastiest dog at the dog park. And look at him. Scared of the old lady. She’s whipping the big guy into shape.”

She did seem to have things handled.
There,
she seemed to say. No more of that crazy running around and jumping of the night before. No large dogs getting on Grandmas.

I sat down, sunk into that couch, which soaked me right up. “Rebecca sure can cook,” I said. I smelled something right then. Wine and mushrooms. Garlic. “You guys figure out all the wedding details?”

“We thought we’d take care of business right here in this room,” Mom said.

“Great,” I said.

Still.
Take care of business
. Didn’t it lack romance? Maybe in a worrying way? Then again, romance required throwing caution to the wind, and after Dad, after Jon Jakes and Vic Dennis, Mom clutched her caution like a mace can in a creepy parking lot. And why not? I mean, Dan Jax meant she’d gotten to her car safely, but what about something hiding in your own backseat? What about sudden ambush from ruthless bad guys hiding behind cement pillars? What about careening Audis or jealous bystanders waiting to key your perfect paint job?

“We were just thinking about those movies where there’s the last race to the church to stop the wedding before someone makes a mistake,” Mom said.

Wait. Had I heard that right? “What?” I said.

“Those movies,” she said. “The interrupted wedding scene. Someone always has to run to the church.”

“Stupid movies,” I said.
“Stupid.”

“I swear, how many films end like that?” Dan said. “I’m curious about the whole history of the thing. Like, what was the first movie that showed that scene? And then, why did it seem like such a great idea that now it’s a romantic comedy requirement? Do you need more wine, sweetie?”

“No, thanks,” Mom said.

Dan—his hair was out of his ponytail, so it was wild all over the place, and I noticed that his watch had stopped at ten fifteen. He was such an innocent. A puppy. When Mom left Jon Jakes and Vic Dennis, we—Ben and me—we wanted to
clap and cheer. Balloons should have fallen from the sky. I’m sure even Jupiter celebrated with us. She never liked either of them.
She
wasn’t herself with them either. But this time, with Dan Jax? If it turned out there
were
jealous bystanders wishing to wreck this, or, even worse, something in her own backseat, I think my heart would break.

Mom spun the stem of her glass in thought. “The scene resonates, that’s why. Too many people watch those and wish
they’d
had someone run in and save them.”

“But think of all the other bad choices people make that would resonate,” Dan said. “All kinds of scenes where people should get stopped at the last minute from making a huge mistake. Someone runs in right before you’re signing papers on some disaster house …”

“Packing up to leave for the wrong college …,” I said.

“Buying a used car,” Mom said.

“Picture it,” Dan said. “Used car lot. Flags blowing. Piece of shit car with the keys dangling from the ignition.”

“Our heroine, about to shake hands with the used-car guy with the receding hairline and gaudy college ring …,” Mom said.

“The hero runs in …”

Mom took a last sip of wine. “But it’s always the weddings,” she said.

I heard the front door open and then Grandpa Shine’s booming voice.

“Anybody home?”

“We’re in here,” Mom called.

“You hit a typhoon out there?” Dan asked. George’s once-crisp shirt was crinkled and shoved in at an angle into his pants. Grandpa Shine’s forehead glistened with sweat, and the underarms of his polo were ringed with wet circles.