by Tracey Ward
We got the house in Hermosa. Word came through during that second week after Laney collapsed and Jenna was in the thick of it with her family. I brought her papers to sign, promising her I’d read all of the contracts and that I’d handle everything. She was excited but her joy was tempered with the somber feel of her family, consuming her every waking moment and thought. It wasn’t until three days after the incident when my dad sent flowers to the family that she thought to ask me if I’d won my final bout. I told her I had, smiling happily, proud to be able to deliver good news. I thought she’d be excited. Instead she cried. Not the reaction I was expecting but I held her and told her it was okay, whatever it was. I think she was a confused mass of emotions then. Nothing was processing right and it all came out in tears, her body purging the hurt every chance it got.
They were dark days.
Now a month after the miscarriage things were starting to head back to normal. Laney was still on medical leave from her job. She said she didn’t want to go back but her therapist backburnered the topic the way Ben often did to me, putting a pin in it for later discussion when Laney was feeling stronger. She wasn’t being watched every second of every day but the majority of the time she was awake someone was there in the house with her.
Jenna hired new help at the store and for once it was going well. She picked up some young artist with a lot of promise, a lot like herself six years ago when Bryce discovered her – not yet eighteen, still in high school, but determined. Sure of her path. I was glad to see she was mentoring someone eager and loyal. Grateful.
Things were going well at the firehouse. I was making friends, enjoying my days, and when I wasn’t there I was at the Hermosa house with Callum doing demolition work, getting it ready for the remodel. I texted with my dad now and then. He asked after Jenna and her family. I sent him pictures of the house. I saw him on ESPN when I was flipping through the channels and stumbled on an old broadcast of the World Series of Poker. He was consistently one of the November Nine competing each year. On the footage I saw he took home nearly eight million dollars, and it wasn’t his only victory that year.
“How flush do you think he is?” Callum grunted.
He tossed the bathroom sink into the wheel barrel in the hall. It crashed loudly, sending up a plume of dust into the air. His voice was muffled by his breathing mask, my own making my mouth wet with rebounding hot air. I itched all over from where the dust found home on my skin and mixed with sweat. My body was exhausted and busted, bruises running up and down my arms and thighs. It was brutal, tiring work but I loved it. I relished the feeling every night of utter fatigue from a day spent tearing the place down and plotting how I’d build it back up.
“I don’t know, man,” I answered Callum. “He’s been doing this shit for a long time and he’s into the stock market too. He’s good at it. He’s smart.”
“Is he a genius like you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Does he want to invest in an MMA gym in L.A.?”
I laughed as I landed a blow to the ugly green tile shower, sending ceramic chips flying. “You’re welcome to ask him.”
“I can’t believe you’re not gonna get in on this.”
“I can’t believe you talked Tim into going into business with you.”
“He knows a good thing when he sees it,” Callum replied proudly.
“I think he sees a chance to hand off a lot of the work to someone else and retire. He’s getting old. His health isn’t great.”
“Either way, dude. Who cares? I’ll do the work. It’s worth it. It’d be a lot more fun if you did it with me.”
I paused, lowering the long hammer I’d been swinging to look at him. He was covered in white dust and sweat, same as I was, but his eyes above his mask were eager and excited. He was putting a dream into action, just like Jenna had. I was proud of him. Psyched for him. I just didn’t want to get too involved in it.
He didn’t understand how I could quit competing. He yelled at me when I told him I was done. Tim had only nodded gravely, no words spoken. He understood it. He had ended his career around the same time, just before hitting thirty. He’d known me since I was an angry eight-year-old kid and I’d needed something to hit. He’d helped me find my outlet and now he knew I didn’t need it anymore. Now I needed Jenna and a functioning right hand that could hold my kid someday. I was leaving my past behind and looking forward to a future, for once believing I had one. For once in my life I was looking to the next day. The next dawn. The next chapter in my story.
“I think it’s great you’re going in with Tim on the gym. I’m proud of you. You’re not the complete fuck up I tell everyone you are.”
“Fuck you,” he growled, his voice smiling.
I grinned. “I just don’t want in. I told you I’ll still work out there. I’ll train there and I’ll be around if you need any help but I don’t want to get too invested in it. I’m done with that being my entire life. I’ve got this house to rebuild and a job to work, Jenna to take care of, and someday I want a family here. Doesn’t leave a lot of room for constant training and competing.”
“Yeah, alright. I get it. You’re pussy whipped.”
“I’m holding a sledge hammer. You see that, right?”
He put up his hands up in submission, his eyes squinting against the swell of his smiling cheeks under his mask.
Two hours later and Callum was gone. He had a date with Sam and the dude definitely needed a shower. I was dreaming of one myself, but I went to check the back patio before heading home. I liked to stand out there with the ocean at my back and the house glowing golden in the setting sunlight in front of me, because if you crossed your eyes and used your imagination to its fullest extent, you could see it. You could imagine how this shell of a building could be a home. One filled with Jenna and her laugh. With love and little feet on the floor. With gray eyes and dark hair and the entirety of my existence.
It gave me peace in my soul that I could barely comprehend and a sting in the back of my eyes that I didn’t try to brush aside. I let it burn and I let my eyes brim because I was a man. I was an Irishman, and I wasn’t ashamed of my joy.
Of the absolute overwhelming fullness of my heart.
A board rattled, knocked, and clattered loudly to the ground at my right, startling me.
Callum and I had been assembling a pile of boards we were salvaging from the house out here on the patio, planning planter boxes or the construction of a small shed with what we saved. We had stacked it precariously and I assumed the wind had gotten under one, lifting it just enough to send it off balance and knock it to the ground. But then I saw a shadow, dark and sleek. It darted farther behind the pile of boards, pinning itself down between the fence and the stack.
It was an animal, too big to be a cat or raccoon. Had to be a dog.
I wasn’t great with dogs.
I approached the stack cautiously, expecting the animal to run out at any second and dart down the beach toward home, but it stayed hidden and silent, waiting for me to leave. I saw its dark head first; shining black fur and wide, panicked eyes. Its body was hunched down low and lost in the shadows, but the face told me it was a pit bull. No doubt about it.
I hesitated, now sure what to do. We hadn’t been pulling nails from the boards. They stuck out at all angles from practically every surface and this guy had shoved himself down in the fray. He was going to get cut if he didn’t get out of there. If he wasn’t cut already. I couldn’t just leave him in there.
I knelt down, shrinking my body and getting low at the entrance to the stack. I reached out my hand, keeping it low and distant, making sure I could snap it back before he snapped at me. I also pulled a short board in close on my left, just in case.
“Hey, buddy,” I said softly. “What are you doing in there, huh?”
His eyes darted from side to side, looking for an escape. His front feet scuttled over the broken patio cement as he tried uselessly to get farther from me. To p
ush himself farther into the corner.
I could see his body moving with each breath, fast and labored. His heart was probably beating out of his chest and still he stayed there, hunched down to the smallest size he could be with fear in his face. He released a low moan, almost a growl but more of a whimper that ended in a groan and I caught the tang of copper on the air. The undeniable scent of blood.
He was hurt and cornered, the cagey look in his eyes so fucking familiar it was uncanny.
“Yeah,” I murmured, lowering my hand slowly. “I get that feeling.”
I backed up out of the way, giving him an out if he was brave enough to take it. He could dart past me and be down the beach if he wanted to run, but I sat down off to the side, put my hands in plain view in my lap, and I waited. I didn’t speak to him again. I didn’t move. I didn’t make eye contact. I sat and I waited and as the sun set farther and farther into the water the dog disappeared in the shadows. All I could see of him were his dark eyes, all I could hear was the rushed sound of his breath.
Just when I wondered if I should let him sort it out himself, the eyes moved. I watched them out of my peripheral as he came slowly toward me, hesitant and afraid. He inched toward me. Once. Twice. A little farther, until finally his head poked out of the shadows and his shining, wet nose sniffed around my hands. I opened one, keeping it low and under his face so he could always see it, and he sniffed my fingertips. My palm. He came out of the shadows far enough that I could see his naked neck.
No collar. No information. The bones of his shoulders stuck up high under taut skin. He was thin, too thin. Definitely a stray. Homeless and abandoned.
He came a little closer, his eyes darting to the side toward the opening I’d left him, but still he sniffed me. He stuck around and I took a chance. I reached up with my other hand and gently touched the side of his face. He flinched, going perfectly still, but I didn’t stop. I petted him gently and slowly, the rest of my body motionless and my eyes on his paws. He let me pet him and slowly I lifted my other hand, scratching the other side of his face and he allowed that too, never moving. His eyes started to calm, to close until I couldn’t see the whites anymore and his breathing wasn’t out of control. He was tense and afraid, ready to run at any second, but he wasn’t aggressive. Nothing about him said he was going to bite me, and when I began to pull my hand back he followed it. He stepped forward, cautiously laid down in front of me, and laid his chin on my leg.
“Hey, bud,” I whispered, still scratching his face. “You’re scared, huh? Are you lost?”
He listened to me speak, absorbed my pets, and his breathing started to slow.
“You don’t have a home do you? If you do it’s not a good one. You’re skin and bone. I think you’re hurt, too, aren’t you?”
He huffed a sigh, the weight of his chin increasing. His body settling.
“That’s okay. We’ll get ya cleaned up. We’ll sort you out.”
I sat with that beaten, mangy dog for over forty minutes, just petting and talking. Slow and gentle, letting him warm to me. The sun set entirely. We were left in the dark together and it wasn’t long before I heard a car pull up outside. I waited as Jenna called to me from inside the house and I picked up a small rock and tossed it at the kitchen window. I was relieved when it didn’t shatter the damn thing.
The swoosh of the sliding glass door brought the dog’s head up, but he was still hidden by the boards. He didn’t move to run. Only listened.
“Go slow,” I warned Jenna in a hushed voice. “I’m over here by the wood pile. There’s a dog over here.”
She hesitated. “Do you want me to turn on the light?”
“It’s busted. Do you have your cell phone?”
“Yeah, of course. I’m guessing you don’t have yours ‘cause you weren’t answering.”
“No, sorry. I’ve been sitting out here with this guy for close to an hour. Will you turn on the flashlight app?”
A few seconds later the flash on Jenna’s phone lit up, pointed at the ground at her feet.
“Come over slowly,” I warned her. “Keep it out of his eyes.”
The light moved gradually toward us. “How big is he?”
“Not huge. He’d be bigger if he were eating.”
“Has he been growling?”
“No. His head was in my lap. He’s letting me pet him.”
Jenna came around the corner of the wood pile, bringing the light in over the dog’s back to avoid his eyes, and she gasped at what she saw.
He was worse off than I thought. His ribs were visible, his fur dirty, and he had a gash on his side that could have been from nails on one of the boards, but more than likely it was from scurrying under a fence or getting in a fight with another dog.
“Oh, Kellen,” she moaned quietly.
“I know.”
“What do we do? Call animal control?”
“No. Let’s load him in the truck. Get him to the vet.”
“It’s after nine. No one will be open.”
“Shit,” I growled, stroking the dog’s head slowly. “Did you bring dinner?”
“Yeah. Burgers. Do you want to feed him one?”
“He can have mine.”
“Have you seen his ribs? He can have the whole fucking bag.”
Jenna came back a few minutes later with a rustling white bag of food and a length of cord that’d been strung up in the laundry room as a makeshift clothesline. She handed me the food and went about tying a loop in the end of the cord.
“What’s that for?” I asked, unwrapping a cheeseburger.
“For him. We have to take him to the vet tonight. He’s in bad shape. I remembered there’s an animal hospital by the Costco Sam and I shop at for the store. They never close. We’ll need this to guide him to the truck and load him inside.”
“Should we put him in the back?”
The dog sniffed eagerly at the burger in my hand. I pulled off a piece and fed it to him, mindful of my fingers. His mouth was surprisingly gentle as he took it.
“Are we monsters, Kellen? Is that what we are now?” Jenna asked sarcastically. “No, he sits up front with you. He obviously trusts you. I’ll drive.”
Jenna waited patiently as I fed the rest of my burger, her burger, and an order of fries to the dog. She stopped me before I gave him anything else, cautioning that he could get sick from eating too much too fast. I stood up slowly, his eyes watching me as I went, and I carefully lowered the loop Jenna had tied over his head. He let it come, his eyes on it but his body motionless, and when I tugged lightly at it urging him to stand he popped right up and stood at my side.
We led him through the small alley between houses out to the car and as Jenna hopped into the driver’s seat of my truck I opened the door for the dog. He didn’t hesitate to jump right in, burrowing down onto the floorboards under the dash where he was hidden. When I jumped up into the seat and put my feet on the floor, he reached out and put one paw on top my left foot.
“I hope they can’t find his owners,” I told Jenna thoughtfully, staring down at the wounded animal curled trustingly at my feet.
She smiled. “Why? You want to keep him?”
“No,” I answered, the idea never crossing my mind. “Because I’d beat the shit out of them for what they’ve done to him.”
I expected her smile to fade. For her to chide me for the violent reaction, for the angry response. But as she pulled onto the main road taking us toward the hospital her smile only broadened.
“Oh Kellen,” she mused lovingly, “you’re going to make a great father someday.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jenna
Four months, two roofers, three plumbers, and one very pushy interior designer later and we had a finished house. We had a home.
Kellen and I moved in while it was still in the last phases of the renovation and it was a decision that would live in infamy for as long we both would live. We had no water for the better part of it and spotty electricity. Throw i
n a rambunctious pit bull who liked to eat my paintbrushes and make himself right at home on the bed between us, curled in a ball in the curve of Kellen’s big body, and we had some rough days and nights under our belt.
“I still hate this color.”
I rolled my eyes at Laney, barely glancing up from kebabs I was spearing. “You mentioned that at length when I chose it.”
“I just don’t get it.” She took a sip of her wine and leaned back against the white countertops. “Why did you hire me if you weren’t going to listen to me?”
“I listened to you!”
“You never did.”
“The brown accent wall in the living room says otherwise. Not my first choice.”
She smiled. “But you love it now, don’t you?”
“I do,” I lied.
I liked it, I didn’t love it. Kellen hated it. We’d had to squash most of Laney’s design ideas because they were too over the top. Too expensive, too flashy, just too much. Her taste worked well with the clientele at the design firm she worked for, but it wasn’t right for us. We were more understated. More interested in our house reflecting us and not our income, and we’d fought over the craziest things with her. She said the black and green bathroom was ‘just wrong’ and refused to have anything to do with it, she washed her hands of Kellen’s big stainless steel BBQ out back, and when we filled the hallway walls with mismatched frames of family and friends she walked out and swore she was never coming back. Yet here she was in my kitchen, sipping wine and pointing out the faults in everything I did.
Here she was, being my sister.
We’d hired Laney because she was still unsure about going back to work. We were her first shot at getting back into the swing of things after the miscarriage and the brown wall along with a few vases and pieces of artwork that would be hitting the garage after tonight’s housewarming party were our concessions. They were our sacrifices to give her the confidence to go back. To get back into her life. It’d helped, but Max was the one who saved her. He stood by her through it all, grieving with her, letting her fall, but pushing her when it was time to stand up, and she actually listened. Even about postponing the wedding. They were still engaged, living together happily as of last month, and they’d be getting married next year. They would take their time and plan it the way Laney had always dreamed, without the rush. They were taking things slow, and guided by Max’s gentle, loving hand, Laney was recovering. It was a relief I couldn’t put to words.