“Ganny!” Mimi squealed when Lily opened the front door for Granny McGilly, who was weighed down with a heavy-looking cardboard box.
“Here, let me take that for you,” Lily said, relieving the old woman of the box’s weight.
“That’s just a few little ole things I thought you could use to brighten the place up a little ... a picture or two, a few little gewgaws. I’m getting to the age where little things like that just look like clutter to me. I thought maybe you could use ’em.”
“Well, thank you.” Lily looked at the framed picture that was sticking up out of the box: a Victorian print of a golden-haired female angel guiding two dimple-faced children across a bridge. It was kitschy, but Lily kind of liked it. “Nice picture.”
“That pitcher’d been hanging in my bedroom for years, but yesterday, I got to looking at it, and it put me in mind of Mimi — in all this trouble you’re having, it seems like she needs her a guardian angel.”
Lily was touched. Since the disastrous dinner with the Maycombs, all the McGilly clan had rallied around Lily, telling her those awful people had no right to treat her that way and that they’d live to regret the day they crossed a McGilly. Their support made Lily feel reassured and guilty at the same time —
guilty because she knew the McGillys would feel differently if they found out her and Ben’s marriage was a fraud.
“Mimi definitely needs all the help she can get,” Lily said. “Buzz Dobson’s working on setting up a date for the hearing. I’m a nervous wreck about the whole thing.”
“Don’t you worry,” Granny McGilly said. “There ain’t never been a McGilly to lose in court in this county.” She nodded toward the door. “I got somethin’ else for you out in the truck, but I don’t know how excited you’ll be to see it.”
Lily picked up Mimi and followed Granny outside. There, in the bed of the green Chevy truck, was Mordecai, panting and wagging his stump of a tail.
“Mookie!” Mimi exclaimed.
“Uh ... what’s Mordecai doing here?” Lily asked. It was a question she feared she already knew the answer to.
“Well, I stopped by the big house on the way over here. Jeanie said that ever since you moved out, Mordecai’s stayed up all night howling for you. He won’t eat, neither. Just sleeps all day and howls all night. Big Ben said he reckoned if Mordecai loved you that much, he orta go live with you. He’s too old to be much of a guard dog anyway.”
Lily looked into the big dog’s adoring, chocolate-brown eyes. “Well, I don’t know what Ben will think of this —”
“Benny Jack’s mother and daddy write him a check for five thousand dollars every month even though he don’t do a lick of work for the company. I figure five thousand a month’s enough to cover the care and feeding of a dog.”
“Well, I guess it is,” Lily said. “Come on, Mordecai. The backyard’s fenced in. I guess we can put you out there for the time being.”
Mordecai jumped out of the bed of the truck, delighted.
“So, Mimi,” Lily asked, “do you want Mordecai to be your doggie?”
Mimi wrapped her arms around Mordecai’s bull neck and cooed, “Big doggie. My doggie.”
