Atticus

by S. Bennett

“You want me to live here?” I ask neutrally, but inside, I’m jumping up and down ready to accept.

  “The rent will be two hundred dollars a month,” he says, and my heart sinks. “And I’ll start paying you a wage at the clinic. Still minimum wage until you can learn a few advanced things. I can only afford to pay you about twenty hours a week with the way the patient load is right now. But if we keep increasing, then I’ll increase your hours.”

  “Oh, wow,” I say, feeling slightly dizzy. Taking two steps back, I plop down onto the couch, staring at him hopefully. “Are you serious?”

  Dr. Peele contemplates me, his eyes warmer than I’d ever seen them before. “You ever hear of the saying ‘When one door closes, another opens’?”

  “Sure. And here you are opening a door for me when one just closed on me last night,” I reply, my voice getting a little choked up over his generosity.

  “No, you opened a door for me,” he corrects. “You pushed me to start taking patients again, and you gave me the support needed to do so. So now, I’m opening a door for you.”

  I can’t help myself. I lean forward, put my face in my hands, and start crying. Atticus jumps to the couch and tries to push his head in between my hands. When I pull them away from my face, he starts licking at my tears. Dr. Peele sidles closer to me, and then pats me awkwardly on the shoulder.

  It makes me cry harder, and it flusters Dr. Peele. “Now… this isn’t anything to cry about. It’s a happy moment, not a sad one.”

  I laugh and cry harder, peering at him through the pools of wetness in my eyes. Dashing the tears away with the back of my hand, I feel my smile widening. “Do you realize this is my first real job? I’m thirty-two years old, and I’ve never done anything but bartend. I feel like such a grownup right now.”

  Dr. Peele starts chuckling and ambles away, moving into the kitchen. I pull Atticus fully onto my lap, hugging him tight.

  “You’re going to have to give this place a good cleaning,” he says as he opens the refrigerator to look inside. A light doesn’t come on, so I assume it’s either broken or unplugged. “I’ve got a bunch of cleaning stuff down in my utility room off my kitchen. Just borrow whatever you need.”

  “Thank you,” I finally manage to get out the words that should have come immediately after he made me this wonderful offer. The amount of gratitude in my voice makes him pause to look at me. “It’s seriously the nicest thing anyone has done for me in my life.”

  Dr. Peele’s face flushes beet red from the compliment and he turns away, poking through the cabinets. Giving a slight cough to clear his throat, he says, “I suppose you could call me by my first name. Oley.”

  I knew that was his first name, but I didn’t know how to pronounce it. He says it with a long “o”.

  Oh-lee.

  I grin at Atticus and then at Dr. Peele, who is still giving me his back. I don’t think he takes compliments well. “Okay. Thank you… Oley. I’ll never let you regret this decision.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Atticus

  It’s a pretty exciting day.

  Last night, I was terribly worried about Hazel. We left what had been our home with Hazel carrying all our possessions over her shoulder. She trudged us through the late night until we came to Dr. Peele’s office. I could feel the exhaustion rolling off Hazel.

  I could smell her defeat.

  What scared me the most was how terrified she was. After she laid down on the tile floor and pulled me into her arms, she was shaking so bad I couldn’t fall asleep. I licked at her hand, but she kept telling me to “stop”. I whined for a bit, but finally I was so sleepy I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

  But today something monumental has happened. I have never felt such joy from Hazel. She even smells different… like belly rubs and tug-o-war, two things that make me deliriously happy.

  We spend some of the day at the clinic, which I don’t like because I have to stay in a kennel. But the rest of the day is spent cleaning the new place we’re going to live in. Hazel gives me a very stern lecture about the importance of not peeing or pooping inside. I make her a silent promise to be good, and I pay extra attention to when my bladder gets full.

  Like right now. I give one bark and a scratch at the door. Hazel’s head lifts from the kitchen floor she is scrubbing. and she smiles at me. She drops her scrub brush in the bucket, and then peels off the rubber gloves she was using to clean.

  When she gets to the door with my leash in hand, she gives me a pat to the side of my head. “You’re such a good boy, Mister Mister.”

  I wag my tail, but it makes me need to pee even worse. I sort of prance in place, hoping she understands the need is getting urgent.

  She laughs at me and hooks me up. Within moments, I’m squatting over the grass in relief. I lift my nose into the air, sniffing all the wonderful smells.

  My own pee, cows, ducks, winter hay, cherry trees, fresh mown grass, and pine pollen. That last one has me sneezing repetitively. I don’t know why I do it but sometimes after I pee, my back legs kick outward, scratching at the grass. I do that a few times and feeling satisfied, I look up to Hazel.

  She’s just staring back at me with an expression on her face that makes me want to lick her.

  “Hazel,” Oley calls out from his front porch. It’s the name he told Hazel to start using.

  We both turn his way, my tail wagging. I liked Oley before, but I really like him now. Not as much as Hazel, but way more than Charmin who let us down. He gave Hazel this new home and now Hazel feels safe, so he’s next in line after her.

  “What’s up?” she calls back to him.

  “Let’s go into town,” he replies, waving his car keys. “You’re going to need some sheets for the pull-out bed and some towels. Plus, some food.”

  Food?

  Yeah… I like Oley a lot.

  For this trip, I sit in the backseat as Oley says I’m getting too big, and he can’t see very well when trying to look out the passenger window. This is fine by me because I can run the length of the seat, peering out one window, then the other.

  When we drive past cow pastures, I bark at them so ferociously my slobber flies everywhere. Hazel tells me to quiet down, but I can’t.

  I’m just so excited about our new life it makes me need to pee.

  But I hold it.

  I’m pretty sure it would be frowned upon to piddle in Oley’s car.

  PART II

  “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”

  – Victor Hugo

  CHAPTER 21

  Hazel

  “Come on, Atti,” I say as I grab my thermos and purse from the counter.

  Atticus raises his head, which at this age seems bigger than the rest of his body. He’ll be roughly six months old tomorrow and he’s nothing but head and paws, sort of like a gangly teenager. I weighed him last week and he was at sixty-one pounds, which Oley said was right where he needed to be.

  Tomorrow is the Fourth of July and I’m going to have a combo Independence Day/birthday event. While we don’t know Atticus’ true age, I found him on the 28th of March. It’s a date I’ll never forget.

  Atticus’ Gotcha Day.

  He was roughly ten weeks old then, so by my calculations, he’s six months old tomorrow give or take a few.

  “Let’s go,” I command, giving a slap of my palm to my thigh.

  The mutt doesn’t move a muscle, except for those brown eyebrows that slant inward at a steep angle. His eyes are piercing and defiant.

  I call it his “stubborn look”. He’s been giving it to me a lot over the last few months.

  I suppose in dog years, he would be a teenager now.

  Here’s what I’ve figured out about my dog in the almost three months we’ve been living at Oley’s farm.

  He’s batshit crazy.

  Simple as that.

  Okay, he’s smart as hell. Like I can teach him a trick o
nce with a treat as a reward, and he has it down. He was fully potty trained just about a week after I moved into this apartment. He’s perfectly behaved on a leash, and we took a course and got his Canine Good Citizen award.

  And all of that means exactly shit, because outside of those few behaviors, he’s just plain bananas.

  First, he’s stubborn as hell. Many times, he won’t do something I ask just for the sake of making me jump through hoops to get him to do it. I think it amuses him. Mostly, he’s waiting for me to pull out a treat for doing something as basic as getting his ass off the couch so we can go somewhere.

  On top of that stubborn streak that rears its head randomly, he’s an absolute wrecking ball of a dog. I can’t even begin to count the things he’s chewed up in this apartment, but the highlights include a door casing, drywall, my lumpy mattress in the couch, a corner of carpet, and every roll of toilet paper that I leave within his reach.

  I was horrified the first time this happened, which was the casing around the front door. I had left just for a few moments to run a casserole I’d made for Oley down to him. I couldn’t have been gone more than five minutes, but that little shit chewed through the wood like a damn beaver.

  Every additional “incident” was when I was gone or involved in something and not giving His Supreme Highness attention. Oley was a good sport about it, claiming the apartment was old and needed some updates. He’d said, “That’s just what puppies do,” but I seriously doubt that. If all puppies were this bad, the shelter would be full of them.

  At any rate, I’ve been diligently setting money aside to make the repairs myself.

  That problem has sort of been solved because Oley let me bring home a big wire kennel from the clinic. It takes up one wall of my living room and Atticus has to be crated when I leave now, unless he’s staying with Oley.

  Like this morning. “Come on, doofus,” I say crossly with another palm slap to my thigh. “Because if you want to stay with Oley rather than in your crate, you best get a move on.”

  I get nothing back except that look that says, Make me.

  “Want a treat?” I ask him in a falsetto voice.

  His head tilts and his ears perk up. Suddenly, I have interest.

  With a sigh, I head into the kitchen, open the chugging fridge that seems like it’s ready to die any day now, and pull a small carrot from a baggie.

  Atticus immediately jumps off the couch and runs into the kitchen, flopping his butt onto the linoleum and eyeing the carrot like he’s starving. He’s such a food-motivated dog, but joke’s on him… he doesn’t know the carrots are good for him.

  I put the carrot in my fist, then hold it to my side. Atticus’ nose bumps it in a silent plea for me to release it to him. I ignore him, heading to the door. He trots beside me, continually hitting my hand with his nose and follows me right out onto the staircase landing.

  After I shut the door, I turn around to look at him. I spare a tiny smirk before popping the carrot into my own mouth. His expression transforms from expectation to pure confusion, so I explain it to him. “You don’t get a treat just for coming outside, little man.”

  Reaching down, I give him a scratch on his head and he gives me a goofy grin in return while his tail thumps the small wooden deck. While he may be motivated by food, he loves physical affection the most.

  Atticus and I trot down the stairs on our way to the back of the house. We’ve been able to hang up his leash around the farm as long as me or Oley are with him. If he catches a scent he wants to chase after, he’ll stop in his tracks if we tell him to. I would not, however, trust him out here by himself. He’d be miles away if left to his own devices.

  Atticus races up the steps to the back patio, and then has to wait for me to open one of the double french doors that lead right into Oley’s kitchen.

  He’s at the table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper.

  “Morning,” I say brightly, heading over to the coffee pot to fill my thermos. He’s got one of those old-fashioned percolators. It makes the best coffee, so I pilfer it from him. I snicker as I remember that morning I’d brought Oley coffee and he told me he drank tea.

  Such a liar. He very much loves his java in the morning.

  “Mornin’,” he grumbles. Atticus jets right toward him, pushing his big head onto Oley’s lap. He gets a few scratches before he gets shoved away. “Go lay down.”

  Atticus obeys completely, dropping right to the floor with a chuff of resignation. I chuckle over the way he’s laying. I call it his “froggy position”. The dog must be double jointed because his back legs splay out to the side and resemble frog legs. His two front legs are extended forward and he lays his head down on them, carefully watching me as I pour coffee into my thermos, then doctor it up with a lot of cream and sugar.

  “Need anything else while I’m out?” I ask as I screw the cap back on.

  I’m running out to pick up his new glasses that are ready at the optometrist’s office—finally talked him into getting an updated eye exam—and to the grocery store for us both. I’d taken to doing errands for Oley when I can because I know it’s difficult for him to walk long distances. I did suggest a scooter for him, and he bitched at me for about fifteen minutes that he wasn’t an invalid and didn’t need that.

  “Not that I can think of,” he replies without taking his eyes off the paper. “But I got something for you… There’s a box by the microwave.”

  That something turns out to be a rectangular box with the Apple logo on the front. I hesitantly lift the top, gasping at the brand-new phone sitting there, all sleek and shiny.

  My head pops up, my eyes rounded with shock as I gawk at Oley. “You got me an iPhone.”

  “Yup,” he says, still scanning the paper. He picks up his coffee, takes a casual sip. When he lowers the cup, he says, “That way I can reach you while you’re out if I need something.”

  “It’s too much,” I say, hands itching to pick it up. I’d had cell phones in the past. Darren had even gotten me a lesser-model Android last year, but he turned off the service to it after he kicked me out. But I’ve never had something so… expensive. I know these things cost a crazy buttload of money.

  So I repeat, “It’s too much for a phone just to be able to call me with.”

  “I expensed it out under the business,” he replies and finally turns to me for the first time this morning. “Besides… you deserve it.”

  He grimaces a little when he says that last bit. While Oley has warmed considerably to me over the last three months, he still has his grumpy ways. He’s not big on handing out compliments either.

  I’ve been busting my ass for him, helping him to build the clinic back up. Even when he could only pay me for twenty-five hours, I’d work thirty-five, sometimes forty. It was a slow process, but Oley’s at the point now he’s got several patients a day and he’s even considering opening back up on Fridays.

  I also help Oley around the farm when I can. It’s not a working farm, but it once was. Mostly there’s a lot of land to maintain, so I help mow the grass and trim the weeds. He has a few pastures he leases out, which explains the cows I often seen grazing in the distance. I helped him plant flowers in front of the house—which basically meant I did the work and he directed where each flower was to go.

  Then there’s the pet cemetery to maintain. Oley offers to bury any animal he euthanizes out on his property. Many customers have taken him up on the offer. There’s a corner of the farm that’s dotted with tiny wooden crosses he makes for each one, where he burns the name of the pet on the horizontal piece. It’s totally creepy and completely beautiful at the same time.

  Oley’s never once told me “good job,” or that he appreciates my work. But he doesn’t have to. I can feel his appreciation in other ways.

  Like when he told me to just come on in his house whenever I wanted, including for coffee in the mornings.

  Or when I was down with a sinus infection for a few days, and he trudged all the way up my
staircase to bring me some chicken noodle soup he’d made.

  Or that I could borrow his car anytime I wanted.

  Oley isn’t big on words as he’s more of an action guy.

  Like with this iPhone.

  “Just… wow,” I murmur. I pull it out of the packaging, oohing over the rose gold color. The screen is so big I could easily watch a movie on it. “Thank you, Oley.”

  He grunts an acknowledgment before returning to his paper. I’ve been forgotten.

  After I put the phone back in the box, I shove it in my purse. I’ll have to figure out how to work it later. Right now, I’ve got errands to run.

  Walking over to Atticus, I bend over and give him some rubs behind his ears. “You be a good boy for Oley.”

  Atticus gives me two thumps of his tail on the floor in acknowledgment.

  “I’m outta here,” I say as I snatch the keys off the ring by the door that leads into the garage.

  Oley doesn’t say goodbye, but he grunts at me again.

  ♦

  I found out that Oley’s car was a 1970 Chevrolet Impala that he had restored and customized about fifteen years ago. Once upon a time, he was big into that kind of thing. It was his hobby away from the veterinary practice. He would even go to car shows and I’ve seen some of the pictures he’s got around the house of him posing near a 1963 Corvette or a 1965 Pontiac GTO. I didn’t really understand if these cars were a big deal or not as he was pointing them out one evening I brought some dinner down to him, but they looked pretty cool to me.

  The Impala is a nightmare to drive. It’s big, wide, and long. Like I have to take corners with an extra-wide turn, so I don’t run up on the sidewalk type of monstrous. But admittedly, the more I drive it, the easier it gets.

  I time my drive perfectly to arrive at the optometrist’s office right as they open at nine. I’m out of there fifteen minutes later, and then I pick up the mail at the post office.

  I’m well ahead of schedule to get back to the farm, pick up Oley, and get him to the clinic for his first appointment at eleven, so I decide to treat myself to an absolute luxury.