A Little Learning

by Margot Early

  “He probably was teething on her,” Beau said. “He does that to me a lot.” He held out his hand and pointed to a small scab. “His teeth are sharp. They’re puppy teeth, and that’s why they’re so sharp.”

  Seamus wondered what his son’s authority was for this statement.

  Caleb said, “Belle was climbing around and jumping over Seuss and stuff, and he was excited, and he growled a little and bit her. It looked like he was playing.”

  “He probably was,” Beau said.

  “Well, let’s go wash your arm, Belle,” Seamus decided.

  He was just applying a Band-Aid when the front door opened.

  Belle followed her father down the hall to the front room. “Lauren, Seuss bit me!”

  “He did what?” Lauren asked.

  Rory sank down on the couch to listen to the story of the puppy bite.

  Seamus turned to her. “Should I take her to the clinic?”

  Rory eyed the wound, which Belle was showing Lauren, and shook her head. She was exhausted, and hungry, but she couldn’t ignore the situation that had presented itself.

  Seamus Lee had chosen to acquire a dog that would grow to be large and powerful. That meant he was going to have to train the dog and his children, and he was going to have to supervise his children with the dog during the process.

  Dog training is not part of my job description, she thought with some irritation.

  But could she turn her back on this?

  She remembered Gandalf.

  She could not stand to see such a dog ruined by not receiving the training he needed. So many dogs ended their lives in shelters because no one had helped them learn rules for living with people.

  “He needs to be in obedience class,” she said.

  “There probably isn’t one in Sultan,” Seamus remarked. “Is there?”

  I can’t do it all. I can’t do everything! But she probably knew more about German shepherds than anyone else in Sultan. “I’ll see what I can find out. Look, all of you have to discourage him from chewing on people. He probably nipped Belle, and those milk teeth are sharp.”

  “Like I said,” Beau put in.

  “Here, let’s let him out.” She sat on the floor and opened the crate. The puppy tumbled out, scrambling into her lap. He began licking her hands, then teething on one of them. Rory firmly and gently closed his jaw with her hand, lifted his head so that his eyes met hers, and growled, soft and low. Then, she released him. When he sat comfortably in her lap again, she petted him and said, “Good boy.” Briefly, she gave them some guidelines for correcting the puppy, then said, “But I’m not a dog trainer, and you need to take this puppy to school. I recommend lots of obedience lessons. Dogs usually like them, and the training helps all of you learn to be consistent. Also, it will help him get along with other dogs.”

  Seamus said ruefully, “I didn’t realize a dog would be so much work.”

  She shouldn’t say it. It was too opinionated. They wouldn’t like her if she said it.

  But she had to say it, because Seuss was a good puppy and had a chance of becoming a great dog. “If you’re not prepared to put in the time, you should return him to the breeder. It’s not fair to him, and you just can’t have an animal like this and not train him.”

  “I’ll train him,” Beau said. “We’re not taking him back. I’ll train him.”

  While she would have doubted most children’s long-term commitment to such a project, Rory believed him. There was a steadiness to Beau that she liked and admired. But she knew the conversation about the dog was not over. Someone also needed to speak to Seamus about supervising Seuss with his children and their playmates and with teaching his children how to treat the puppy.

  Her instincts told her to stay out of the situation, to keep her mouth shut. But this wasn’t for the usual reason—that saying too much tended to get her in trouble.

  It was because, as Seamus Lee had put her skis on the car that day, she’d felt that mysterious whisper of being cared for, being looked after, being cherished. The whisper had suggested a future—an imaginary future, just happy thoughts in her mind, about a man like Seamus caring for her. Wanting to make a Ki-Rin character for her. Yet she couldn’t afford to think that way, even casually. She wanted so badly to succeed at this job, to earn her father’s esteem.

  She needed to back off from Seamus Lee and his family—from their emotional lives.

  Yet someone had to talk to him about the dog.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EVEN BELLE WANTED to see Lola, the Burmese python, so after pizza the entire Lee family followed Rory back to her house. On the way, she considered how to segue from acknowledging the inappropriateness of a Burmese python in a household with children, to responsible dog ownership.

  Stay out of it, Rory.

  Samantha was working—she waited tables at one of the two restaurants in Sultan that remained open during the winter—but Desert was home. Rory found her housemate painting her toenails.

  “Desert, these are some of SMS’s new clients. Seamus Lee and his children—Lauren, Beau, Caleb and Belle. Seamus, everyone, this is Desert Katz. They’ve come to look at Lola.”

  Seamus watched as Desert stood up, her long flared pants skimming the Victorian floor, one of those authentic patterned floral floors, obviously restored with care. Rory’s roommate’s head was shaved; her skin bore many tattoos, and her nose, eyebrow and lip were all pierced. Ears, too.

  She was beautiful—with model good looks, cheekbones, figure and all.

  “Oh, I’ll take you down,” she said. “We can get her out.”

  “No,” Rory said quickly. “We’ll just look at her through the glass. Let’s not bother her.”

  “She ate yesterday. She’s going to be pretty lazy, in any case,” Desert argued.

  Rory shook her head, her expression clearly anxious.

  Desert said, “Well, whatever. Come on downstairs.”

  The basement was lined with stone and surprisingly warm. Seamus noted that Rory kept close to her housemate—as if to prevent her from opening the large vivarium that stood in the center of the basement. It was a floor-to-ceiling unit—a glass room—and inside, a huge white-and-yellow snake with red eyes lay atop a boulder.

  “Lola is an albino Burmese python,” Rory said.

  “Awesome,” exclaimed Beau, coming closer.

  “Would you like to hold her?” Desert asked.

  “Sure!”

  Rory said, “Actually, let’s not.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Desert told her.

  “Desert, there are too many people here. It’s too stressful for Lola.”

  Seamus said, “Beau, let’s not do that.”

  “She’s really gentle,” Desert insisted.

  Seamus could see that Rory was infuriated by her roommate’s obstinate refusal to listen.

  Rory faced his family. “Beau, the reason we’re not taking Lola out is that she is a wild animal—a large one. She weighs around sixty pounds, and last summer she bit our other housemate and might have killed her if we hadn’t been there. That’s why we keep her safely inside her vivarium.”

  “She wouldn’t have killed Samantha. She was just confused,” Desert insisted.

  Caleb said, “I want a snake, Dad. Not a big one. A little one.”

  Rory blinked and Seamus wondered why. But he, too, heard the strangeness of one of his children actually calling him Dad. Twenty-four hours around his family, and Rory had noticed that his own children were like strangers to him—and they treated him as a stranger.

  “They’re a fair amount of work,” Rory said to Caleb. “But there are plenty of smaller snakes that make good pets. You definitely don’t want one that will grow as big as Lola. But corn snakes are gentle and fairly inexpensive. Here, check out this book, Caleb.” She went to a bookcase against one wall and selected a large colored encyclopedia of snakes.

  Watching, Seamus felt enchanted—by her kindness toward his children, he supposed. Si
mply by her. She was pretty, but he had known more beautiful women. Her off-balance roommate, even, was more beautiful than Rory. But the roommate didn’t have

  Rory’s attentive presence, her instinctive caring—at least that was what he thought he saw in Rory Gorenzi. That when his children were present, her motivation was to listen, to attend, to care.

  Desert seemed immature, in comparison to Rory—and less of the real world. He wondered why Rory lived with a woman like that, with a rather frightening zoo animal for a pet.

  “What happened with your roommate?” Lauren asked, gazing through the glass at the python.

  “Well, Lola may not look like a lot of work, but it takes three of us to move her. We used to take turns feeding her, and then one day, we don’t know why, she grabbed Samantha’s leg and wouldn’t let go. We didn’t even know how to make her let go at that time. Now we keep some cold water ready in the refrigerator. We bring it out before we have to go into the enclosure. Supposedly, running cold water in her mouth will make her let go. Anyhow, Samantha needed stitches.”

  “It was that essential oil she was wearing,” Desert insisted.

  Rory shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, now we never open the enclosure unless there are three adults present.”

  Belle stood beside Lauren and reached her arms up. “I don’t like the big snake.”

  Seamus felt rejected by the preschooler and wasn’t sure why. It was natural that Belle should turn to Lauren, since she knew her sister better than she knew him.

  But before his oldest could pick up Belle, he himself raised her into his arms. Belle seemed momentarily surprised—and wary. But then she leaned against him sleepily, gazing up at his face.

  Watching, Rory smiled, and Seamus felt his heart leap. She was smiling at the two of them; at the sight of him with his youngest daughter.

  Desert fell into step behind Seamus as he carried Belle upstairs, accompanied by the other children. Belle stared at Desert and asked, “Why don’t you have hair?”

  “I shave it off because I like how I look this way. Want to feel it?”

  As they reached the kitchen, Belle stretched out a hesitant hand to touch Desert’s head.

  A young woman with glasses was just coming in the front door. “Oh, hi.”

  Seamus started, recognizing her face but unable to place it.

  Rory introduced Seamus and his children to her second housemate, Samantha, who said to Seamus, “We’ve met. I interned as a legal aide at the Women’s Resource Center one summer when your wife was there.”

  Ice chilled his veins. She’d known Janine.

  “I thought I knew you,” he managed to say.

  Rory told his family, “Well, I’ll see all of you tomorrow. Practice with your broom handle, Lauren, so you don’t forget what we learned tonight.”

  Fire staff practice, Seamus thought, as his daughter smiled in response. The reminder of Janine faded away, leaving only a faint chill. Seamus guided his children out into the dark and the cold, but felt as if he was carrying some memory of warmth with him.

  And perhaps that of Rory Gorenzi, too.

  *

  “YOU KNEW HIS WIFE?” Rory whispered the words, anxious they not be overheard by the people walking away on the other side of the door.

  Samantha nodded with a sad half smile. “She was my boss.”

  “That’s the summer you were in Telluride.” And now Rory remembered Samantha returning to Sultan and saying her boss had been shot and had died, although she’d never said any more than that. Samantha had hated Telluride, though she’d liked the work. Rory was torn between demanding to know everything and showing a little restraint. It’s just morbid curiosity, she thought. Anyhow, Seamus already told me what happened.

  “What was she like?”

  Samantha’s blue eyes grew curious. “You like him?”

  Rory waved a hand casually, indicating indifference.

  Expression skeptical, Samantha said, “Well, Janine didn’t talk about him much. In fact, I’d worked for her three weeks before I even knew she had kids. And she was nursing the littlest one then. When she talked about any of them, it was her oldest daughter; then her daughters, plural. So it was a while longer before I knew she had boys.”

  “What did she talk about?”

  “Work. Batterers. Perps. Domestic terrorists, as she called them. Psychopaths, sociopaths. Big into psychology. Very… Almost masculine. Though I don’t know why I’m saying that. She used slang a lot. Lots of profanity, too. She could be pretty abrasive, but she was also sweet with her clients. You got the feeling she’d been through some stuff herself somewhere in the past.”

  Rory considered that, weighing it with what Seamus had told her.

  “Did she say anything about him?”

  “Well, the gun was an issue. I mean, when I knew she was carrying it, I asked her if she was okay owning a gun with kids in the house. She said, ‘Look, I don’t let my husband tell me what to do.’ Then, she went through all the safety precautions she used and said she was teaching her oldest daughter to shoot. And that girl must have been, like, ten. She also said, ‘But we’re not telling him. He doesn’t get it.’”

  I don’t get it, either, Rory thought. Had Seamus ever learned that Lauren’s mother had given her shooting lessons? “She must have been through an assault or something herself,” she mused aloud.

  “If she had been, she never told me. Janine was convinced this one client’s ex-husband was insane and was going to kill her. I mean, he did threaten her, in pretty disgusting terms, and she had a restraining order against him. He was a scary guy.”

  Rory wondered if Seamus had been frightened for his wife. Or had he discounted her fear. Had the accident with the gun been an accident?

  She bit back the thought as soon as it occurred. She’d never been assaulted, but growing up in Sultan and keeping her eyes open, working sometimes in lines of work traditionally reserved for men, she’d become streetwise—or, well, at least she wasn’t totally naive. “How did she shoot herself?” Rory asked.

  “It wasn’t entirely certain, but the forensic evidence definitely pointed to an accident—and a fairly typical accident. It was nasty for Seamus for a while, because people knew they hadn’t been getting along so well.”

  “They weren’t getting along?”

  “Well, the gun, at least, was an issue between them. He’d told her, ‘Either the gun goes, or the children and I go.’ I have no idea if he meant it. Gun-control people loved the outcome, of course.”

  Someone dying? Rory reflected. But she knew what Samantha meant. People interested in gun control could certainly point to the accident as proof that handgun ownership was dangerous.

  The following morning, Rory told Beau that instead of going to the ski factory that day he would be joining his father in the afternoon for telemark lessons. In the morning, he and Lauren would be taking a tour of a local mine reclamation project.

  “I don’t want to telemark,” he said.

  “You wrote on your questionnaire that you do,” Rory replied, frowning and wondering if she’d mixed up the family’s answers.

  “Well, I don’t anymore. I’ll snowboard.”

  They stood in the living room of the Lees’ house. Rory had arrived to pick up Belle and Caleb for their morning ski lesson and to let the others know the plans for the day.

  “Come on,” Seamus said, downing his coffee. “It will be fun.”

  Caleb opened the front door and came in with the puppy on a leash.

  Rory’s heart constricted a little at the sight of Seuss. It was going to take a while to get over Gandalf’s death. She wasn’t sure whether the presence of a German shepherd puppy in her life would prove a hindrance or a help. She still hadn’t spoken privately to Seamus about this dog.

  It’s not your job to talk to him about Seuss, she told herself again.

  And, again, she concluded that she would say it, anyhow. I’m going to say it even if it costs me this job. There was no reason i
t should cost her the job, of course. And she had no idea how her father would feel about the situation.

  Right now, however, she must focus on a different parent-child relationship. She wondered if Beau’s relationship with his father was behind his sudden resistance to telemark lessons.

  Beau said again, “I just want to snowboard.”

  Rory gave a small shake of her head and threw Beau a look she hoped was compassionate, but she held her ground. He was going to have a telemark lesson today.

  The twelve-year-old acquiesced with a shrug.

  Rory continued to explain the schedule for the day, then made sure the younger children had everything for their ski lesson. The SMS van arrived to take Beau and Lauren on the mine tour, and then Rory loaded Belle and Caleb in the backseat of her own car to drive them to the ski area. Seamus would walk to his avalanche class.

  Fastening his seat belt, Caleb said, “Beau doesn’t want to telemark because Dad never wants to take him.”

  Rory looked at him. Caleb had a sprinkle of freckles across his nose. His hair was as dark as his father’s and overly long, and his eyes were a pale shade of aqua. When Caleb said no more, she replied, “Really?”

  “He never wants to take us with him.”

  Belle, in her child seat, said, “Rory, can I learn to make the stick go around?”

  Belle must be talking about staff twirling. She must have seen Lauren practicing with the broom handle Rory had given her. “I don’t see why not,” Rory answered. “But I’m pretty busy right now. Sometime when I’m not, we’ll find a stick your size and I can show you how to twirl it.”

  “I like you,” Belle said simply.

  Warmth suffused Rory. “Thank you. I like you, too. Caleb, does Seuss know ‘Sit’ yet?”

  He never wants to take us with him. As she drove the children to their ski lesson, she mulled over Caleb’s revelations and the things Samantha had told her the night before about Seamus’s wife, Janine, and her death. Janine Jensen.