Love at First Bark

by Debbie Burns

  Thankfully, there was more than enough else to focus on while she gave these momentous events time to settle in. The most pressing, at the moment, was Ollie’s class party. After that, she’d focus on the last-minute shopping and grocery lists and cleaning. All this kept her one solid step from getting swept away in indecision.

  Reassured that she’d packed everything she needed, Mia shut the trunk and jogged back inside for her purse. When Christmas was over, she would need to address the kiss more directly than through a text. Even if it was a touch humiliating. As her mom was fond of saying, calling attention to the embarrassing and the ugly was the best way to shrink the elephant in the room.

  She’d also place a call to Stacey. Mia had no idea yet if it would be to tell her to put her offer where the sun didn’t shine, or if it would be to tell her that, for Ollie’s sake, she’d bring the baby into their lives at some level. But she was going to make the most of Christmas first.

  Twenty minutes later, Mia found herself loaded down with bags and headed into Ollie’s classroom. She hovered on the threshold, fully appreciating what her son had faced going back to school after the funeral. Looks darted her way, and conversation faltered before she was even in the room. She’d anticipated as much. The group of regular classroom volunteers had somehow been tight-knit even at the start of kindergarten.

  While most of the moms of the kids in Ollie’s class were nice enough, Mia would have needed more than her twenty fingers and toes to count the times she’d heard, “You’re so young, you wouldn’t get it.” As if by being only twenty-three when Ollie was born, she’d not been exhausted, or her boobs hadn’t looked like they’d gone into shock the month after she’d stopped breastfeeding and her milk dried up, or she hadn’t gotten her share of stretch marks during pregnancy or, one of her favorites, the demands of a young child somehow only hampered the sex lives of those thirty and over.

  And now, not only was she younger by five or ten or even fifteen years than everyone else, but she was also a widow.

  As she’d unloaded the supplies for the popcorn-filled snowman cups the first graders would be taking home, Mia realized she didn’t care if she ever fit in with the other mothers. The only thing that mattered was how, in his own way, Ollie had already braved this path before her. He had come back to face his classmates and fallen back into the routine of childhood and glue sticks and recess and single-file lines. And he was healing.

  This gave her the strength to make it through the party with her focus right where it needed to be—on Ollie and his friends. The clear-plastic, popcorn-filled snowman cups were a hit. The kids munched bites of popcorn as they added felt carrot noses and eyes and real buttons to the cups. Next, they glued the cups together and filled them with more popcorn. When the party was over, Mia chalked her part up as a much-needed success.

  On the way home—Ollie got out early since it was the final day before break—she asked if there was one place Ollie would like to go before school started back up.

  From his spot catty-corner behind her in the back seat, he answered with zero hesitation. “Everybody says you can’t go to the North Pole, but it seems like it would be easier to get there than heaven.”

  Mia was fumbling to find the best answer when he added that with Mimi—his name for Lynn—here, and Sadie and Sam, all he wanted was to make a snowman bigger than the ones in his books.

  After she arrived home and got Ollie in the backyard with the dogs, Mia pulled up the next ten days of weather on her phone and frowned.

  “Yeah, so Mom, there aren’t by chance any African snow dances you’ve committed to memory, are there?”

  Lynn’s eyebrows raised optimistically. “I sense a touch of sarcasm and am choosing to ignore it. Not snow particularly, but I know plenty of chants and mantras to call for precipitation. Why?”

  “It was mostly meant to be rhetorical, but what Ollie wants more than anything is to build a snowman over the break, and it looks like we’ve got a ten-day stretch of warm weather and rain.”

  Lynn cocked her head and looked out the window of the breakfast room into the yard. “Then he shall have snow.” Her tone was as confident as if she’d just had personal confirmation from the weather gods.

  Mia’s first inclination was to shake her head, but the older she got, the more faith she was developing in her mom’s predictions. When Lynn didn’t pursue it, Mia decided she wouldn’t either.

  After all, she decided, it was St. Louis, the city where everyone said if you didn’t like the weather, just stick around. In twenty-four hours, it might turn into something else entirely.

  * * *

  The thing about Lynn, Ben had learned over the years, was how intuitive she proved to be, over and over again. The first time he’d glimpsed this, he’d spent no more than a half of cumulative day around her over the space of a couple different meetings. It was Ollie’s second birthday party, and the house was crowded with people Ben had never met and others he didn’t much care to know any better than he already did.

  Back then, he’d had one failed attempt at Everest’s peak but had made it up Denali successfully. When strangers found out he climbed mountains, the subject had a way of becoming the focus of conversation, whether or not he encouraged it. That afternoon, he’d fielded a dozen questions, from “Was it scary?” to “Did your hands get cold?” to the inevitable “Have you ever seen someone die?” when a ten-year-old kid asked him the one question he had no answer for.

  “What do you think you’ll find at the top?” the kid had asked, his eyes wide. For whatever reason, Ben remembered that the boy had a stuffed nose and he’d been breathing out of his mouth.

  “Just the top, I guess,” he’d answered after giving the question a bit of consideration.

  “But what’s at the top?” the kid had pressed. “Does it look different?”

  “I suspect that it’s more about what he hopes to leave behind than what he’s trying to reach.” Lynn had answered for him, even though she’d only recently come in from the kitchen and Ben hadn’t thought she’d overheard the conversation.

  It had been a striking-enough answer that the kid was stumped, and when someone called out from the other room that it was time to open presents, no one had brought it up again. Certainly not Ben, who’d looked Lynn in the eye long enough to decide he was better off not confronting her to see what had prompted her comment.

  She’d shown her insight more than a few other times over the years, so he probably shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was when she was outside his building midmorning on Christmas Eve, ringing to be let up.

  “I didn’t think you knew where I lived,” he said after he’d buzzed her up and let her in.

  Turbo circled her a few times before tentatively stepping forward to sniff her. He’d been pacing Ben’s loft with untouched energy despite the four-mile jog Ben had taken him on in Forest Park that morning. After a thorough sniff of Lynn’s flowing orange-and-purple dress and the bare toes showing through her open-toe sandals, he trotted back to the wall of windows that faced out to the street five stories below. Licking his jowls, the watchful dog sank hesitantly to his haunches as if he were taking up guard duty and would be ready to dash after something at the slightest notice.

  “I didn’t, but just because I’ve been living in Kenya the last fifteen years doesn’t mean I haven’t learned how to use the internet to find people when I’ve got the mind to. And Mia has you in her contacts. Her privacy code is disappointingly simple.”

  Lynn didn’t seem fazed by the fact that it was thirty-eight degrees outside and she wasn’t wearing a coat. Her chestnut hair was long and loose except one strand that was dyed with a blond-purple tint and braided. Aside from the fact that she was nearly two decades older and the African sun had worn groves into the laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, she and Mia shared a keen resemblance.

  Ben chuckled. “Fair enough.
” He motioned toward the couch and chairs in the center of his loft that faced the windows overlooking the Arch and downtown St. Louis. “Have a seat. Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?”

  “I’d take a cup of rooibos tea, if you have it.”

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t, but I’ve got a Himalayan blend you’d probably like.”

  Lynn raised one eyebrow appreciatively, drawing his attention to a deep-set wrinkle along her forehead. “I could be talked into that.”

  Rather than heading for the couches, she followed him into the kitchen. He was filling his cast-iron kettle when she asked what he was doing for Christmas.

  “Uh, heading to my sister’s tomorrow. Why?”

  “What about tonight? It’s Christmas Eve.”

  Ben shut off the tap. “Working, most likely.”

  “Working? When you could be spending one of the best nights of the year with your godson?”

  He lit the stove and set the kettle onto the blue flame. “What’s this about?” She had Mia’s gray-blue eyes, and when she looked right at him, he had a feeling she could read all the things he wasn’t voicing.

  “I suspect you aren’t going to believe me when I tell you I’ve had some very clear messages from my spirit guide. It’s why I’m here.”

  He huffed. “Lynn, you’re gonna have a hard sell if you expect me to believe that not only is there conscious life after death, but there are spirits out there interested enough in us to send us messages.”

  “But you believe in intuition, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, and I believe listening to it kept me alive in a couple of the most dangerous places on the planet.”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “You and I have two names for the same thing. What you call intuition, I call a message from something greater than our individual selves.”

  “And what does this have to do with Christmas Eve? If you’re about to tell me I’m going to have a string of ghostly visitors tonight, I’ll give you fair warning that I’ve had my fill of that plot for the year.”

  A smile brushed her face before she breezed through the galley kitchen and over to the windows where Turbo had his nose pressed to the glass. “I always liked you. Much more than that dimwit she married. Though you’re nearly as stubborn as she is.” She paused to sweep her hair into one hand as she looked out at the Arch. “Put it to intuition if it comforts you, but the other night when I first came in, I walked into something. When Mia told me about the baby the next morning, I assumed I’d been confused. But I’m damn good at reading energy, and the energy seeping off both your pores that night was primal. Carnal even.”

  Hot anger surged through Ben’s veins. He crossed to the edge of the kitchen. “If you’ve come here to accuse me of something, go ahead and say it.”

  “I didn’t fly halfway across the world to spend my Christmas Eve making accusations when I could be baking cookies with my grandson. I’m here because I want my daughter to reach for something she may be too afraid to reach for on her own. I’m sure you knew as well as me that she and Brad weren’t exactly peanut butter and jelly. But that thing I caught wind of the other night between you wasn’t new or fresh. It was just declared. And it wasn’t only coming from you this time.”

  He’d grown used to the quirky and direct way Lynn went about things, but this cut him to the quick.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” she continued. “You do love her. You’ve loved her longer than you’d like anyone to know.”

  Ben headed to one of his leather chairs and took a seat, balancing on the edge, resting his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, I love her,” he said once he’d taken a minute to collect himself. “You’re right. I’ve loved her for a long time.” His voice was foreign in his ears, but stronger than he’d have expected. He spent the next ten minutes confessing the sleeping dragon of a lie that he’d kept bundled inside for so many years. The words toppled out, the weight of them falling from his chest like bricks tumbling to the ground.

  He explained how he’d been the one who’d been moved by Mia’s speech eight years ago, not Brad—not enough that Brad would’ve sought her out, at least—and how after not being able to find her on campus on his own, he’d asked Brad to connect them.

  Then he went on to explain how his father’s first in a string of heart attacks had prevented him from meeting up with them as planned, and how Mia and Brad had gotten together as a result.

  “In retrospect, that makes so much more sense,” Lynn said when he finished. She’d joined him after turning off the whistling kettle halfway through and was seated at the edge of the couch perpendicular to him. “But time is as precarious as love, and I suspect it just wasn’t yours yet. Not then.”

  Not sure how to respond to that, Ben stood up and headed for the kitchen to fix her tea. “Even loving her like I do, the way things turned out… I’d never have wanted this. Not this way.”

  “I know. And that must be some guilt you’ve been carrying, but as we say in Kenya, ‘A rope parts where it’s thinnest.’”

  When Ben didn’t reply, she said, “What I’m saying is that Brad’s undoing was his undoing alone.” Ben was nodding in confirmation when she added, “We also say that a baboon laughs at the buttocks of another baboon.”

  He huffed. “Yeah, I’m not sure I get that last one.”

  She joined him in the kitchen, shrugging. “I can’t really say it fits our current situation, but I’ve always been fond of it. And it never fails to make the children laugh.”

  He chuckled and pulled down two mugs from the cabinet. “So what now?”

  Lynn leaned against the counter, her sun-lightened hair spilling over one shoulder. “I was just about to get to that. Am I correct in assuming you’re still quite far from destitute?”

  “Comfortably far, yes.”

  “Good. Because I came here today to ask if you’d be interested in taking us on a vacation—Mia, Ollie, and me. And the dogs, I guess. Between now and New Year’s while Ollie’s off school. Assuming you can get away for a few days.”

  Ben was intrigued. “Where to?”

  “North. Minnesota, hopefully. I used to vacation there with my parents when I was young. Ollie’s biggest Christmas wish is to build a snowman, and up there, there’ll be plenty of snow. And you and Mia under one roof for a few days certainly wouldn’t hurt anything.”

  His stomach flipped stronger at the thought than when he’d crossed the Khumbu Icefall. “Have you said anything to her about it?”

  A hint of a smile brushed her lips. “I’ve found these sorts of things go over best when you tell the child at the same time as you tell the adult who’s most likely to object.”

  Ben laughed, the last lingering tension vacating his limbs. “Lynn, you’re something else. Don’t ever let anyone say you aren’t.”

  She drummed her fingers on the counter. “That’s a yes, isn’t it?”

  He could picture it perfectly. A cabin in snowy Minnesota with the four of them and a handful of dogs in need of some training and TLC. It certainly wasn’t how he expected to spend the holidays.

  It was a thousand times better.

  “It’s a yes, loud and clear.” And the one thing he was most committed to was no longer looking back.

  * * *

  Mia’s hands were beginning to sweat inside a pair of rubber gloves as she knelt to scoop out the last of the litter pans on the bottom row of the cat kennels. It was Christmas Eve, and the shelter had closed at noon. It was operating with a minimal staff to cover animal care for the next day and a half.

  Traditionally, she and Ollie spent this afternoon making cookies, but with Lynn here not knowing what to do with herself and baking up a storm as a result, the kitchen counters were spilling over with breads and cookies. When Mia had asked Ollie if he was interested in switching things up this year, he’d been happy to come with her w
hile she worked an open shift instead. He’d brought along a backpack full of books and had been entertaining himself for the last hour and a half.

  Mia was locking shut the lower litter door of the last kennel when she noticed Patrick had come in from the dog kennels in back of the building and was behind her.

  “Don’t tell me you’re finished before me?” Typically feeding the dogs took about twice as long as the cats. Depending on the needs of the individual dogs, it could take even longer at times. And Patrick was good, but not that good.

  “I won’t, because I haven’t.”

  Mia twisted, craning her head upward and resting her elbows on her knees. Rather than ask for clarification, she pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and counted out a few seconds as she waited for him to say more. He’d dressed for the occasion in a green polo today, and his flyaway brown hair was disheveled the way it got when he bent over a lot.

  And as usual, he didn’t pay it any notice. “What is your social media policy for Ollie?”

  I sure didn’t see that coming. “Um, are you asking if he has his own accounts? He doesn’t. He’s too young.”

  “No. In regards to him appearing on Facebook and Instagram.”

  Mia stood up and tugged off the gloves, glancing toward the glass doors separating off the back half of the shelter. Ollie was planted on the floor seemingly without a care in the world, with his pile of books outside the kennel of a Bernese mountain dog who’d just come in and didn’t have the best vision. “I don’t really have a set policy. Can you tell me why you’re asking?”

  “Yes. The way he reads to the dogs would make a good post. Posts with both dogs and children have a fifty percent higher-than-average click-through rate. It would take fifteen minutes to set up and film. It will make a good one- to two-minute post.”

  “That’s sweet, Patrick. Really sweet. Do you have a particular dog in mind?”