Berry twisted the ring on her finger. She should have immediately taken it off, but she’d given in to circumstances. And now she was giving in to circumstances again. She wanted to believe she was being kind and sensitive, but she suspected she was just being a wimp. Not to mention there was a scary part of her that loved the ring and all it promised.
“Maybe she’s empty,” Jake said after a few minutes of no action from Jane.
He scooped the puppy up in his arms, and they all trooped upstairs. Berry opened windows that were still barren of curtains, and Jake set Jane down on the new carpet.
“Your apartment doesn’t smell bad,” Jake said. “The chemical is potent but not long-lived. It lasts two to three days at most, and I haven’t been here since mid-week.”
If and when there’s a marriage, there will have to be clauses written into the vows, Berry thought. Thou shalt not give your wife experimental cereal, and thou shalt not brew and distribute stink oil without permission.
Jane was in the middle of the floor, sitting quietly.
“She has a strange expression on her face,” Berry said.
Jake agreed. “She looks like she’s concentrating.”
And then without warning, Jane stood and burped and pooped on the new carpet.
Berry was speechless.
“Maybe we should have one of these rooms carpeted with grass,” Jake said.
Ten minutes later the poop was bagged and carted outside to the trash, and the carpet had been cleaned to within an inch of its life. Jane was running in circles, and Berry was at the kitchen sink doing a surgical-quality scrub on her hands. She had soapsuds up to her elbows, and she was wondering if she was cut out for motherhood. The floppy-eared dogs and the kids sounded good on paper, but this was reality and her apartment was back to smelling stinky. She lathered herself one last time and the diamond ring slipped off her finger, sailed through the air, and bounced onto the carpet in front of Jane. In an instant the ring was nowhere to be seen.
Berry’s eyes opened wide. “I think Jane just ate the ring.”
Jake looked skeptically at the little dog. “That’s impossible.”
“Honest to goodness, I think she swallowed the ring.”
Jake dropped to his knees and raked his hand through the carpet. “Jane, you canine garbage pail, tell me you didn’t eat that expensive, undigestible ring.”
“Oh, Lord, what’s going to happen to her?” Berry carefully cradled the fat puppy. “Will she be all right? Will she die? Dogs can’t eat rings, can they?”
“To begin with, we’re not even sure if she ate the ring.”
They crawled around on the rug for several minutes, searching in vain for the diamond.
Berry had difficulty finding her voice. “It’s not here. Maybe we should take her to a vet.”
Jake stroked a soft, floppy ear. “I suppose we should.”
Berry held the dog close and headed for the stairs. “There’s a veterinary clinic just a couple blocks from here. I pass it on my way to school. I think it’s one of those twenty-four-hour emergency things so maybe it will be open on Sunday.”
Jake drove, and Berry held Jane while she whimpered and wriggled.
“It’s okay, Jane,” Berry said. “We’re almost there. The vet will know what to do.”
Jake opened the clinic door to an empty well-lit waiting room. “Guess there’s not much happening in the veterinary world on Sunday morning.”
The receptionist glanced up from her computer and smiled. “We don’t schedule appointments on Sunday. Only emergency cases. Is this an emergency?”
“We think the puppy ate a ring. A big expensive ring.”
The receptionist nodded sympathetically. “That could be an emergency.” She gave Jake a card to fill out. “I’ll get Dr. Pruett.”
“I hope Dr. Pruett knows what he’s doing,” Berry whispered to Jake. “Maybe we should have taken Jane to a specialist.”
“Maybe we should have taken her to a jeweler.” Jake slid an arm around Berry’s shoulders. “Honey, she’s going to be fine.”
“I know.”
“Then why is that tear hanging onto your eyelashes?”
“Poor Jane. She’s just a baby, and she has a scratchy ring inside her.”
Jake cradled Berry in his arms, being careful not to squash the panting puppy. “You love her, huh?”
Berry sobbed a strangled “Yes,” and buried her face in his shoulder. “Why does love always have to be so painful?”
“It’s not always painful.” He tenderly kissed her temple. “Jane probably thinks love is pretty great. She’s so happy to be getting all this attention and affection, she probably doesn’t even notice the ring in her stomach.”
Berry let her cheek rest against his chest. “You think so?” It was a nice thought, that she could make Jane feel better just by loving her.
The receptionist beckoned from the hallway. “Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer, you can take Jane into Examining Room Two. Dr. Pruett will be right with you.”
Berry opened her mouth to correct the receptionist and then thought better of it. It was an innocent enough misunderstanding, and it was sort of fun to test-drive the name. Mrs. Sawyer. Mrs.
Dr. Pruett was a short, stocky man with a receding hairline and an obvious love of animals. He scratched Jane’s neck while he took her temperature and told her dog jokes when he examined her teeth. “She seems to be in perfect health,” he told Jake and Berry. “With the exception of possibly having a diamond stuck somewhere in her gizzards.” He tucked Jane under his arm. “I’m going to take a couple X-rays. We’ll be right back.”
“X-rays,” Berry worried, “that sounds so serious. And do you suppose they’re safe? She’s just a baby.”
Ten minutes later Dr. Pruett returned with Jane and proudly displayed her X-rays. “There it is! She swallowed the ring, all right. It’s lodged in her stomach.” He turned to Jake. “Looks to me like you’re engaged to a cocker spaniel.”
Berry gripped Jake’s hand. “Does she have to be operated on?”
Dr. Pruett stroked the glossy black ears. “There’s a good chance that she’ll pass the ring all by herself. If you like, you can leave Jane here for a day or two. We’ll keep a real close watch on her and feed her a little mineral oil to help ease things along.”
Berry nodded numbly. “You’ll call us if anything happens?”
“For sure,” Dr. Pruett said. “You’ll be the second to know.”
Jake watched out of the corner of his eye and flinched. “You’re not very big, but you sure do pack a wallop.”
“You must be really frustrated. You’ve been beating up on that dough all day.” He leaned across the table at her. “You want to know how I get rid of my frustrations?”
“No!”
“Are these frustrations of yours physical in nature?” he asked.
“No.”
His voice gentled. “Want to talk about it?”
Berry sighed and pushed her curls behind her ears, leaving white flour smudges on her flushed cheeks. “No.”
What was there to talk about? She was confused and scared. Her heart told her to marry Jake, and her head told her not to rush into anything.
Jake slouched against the counter. “I hate to ruin your fun, but it’s ten o’clock. We’ve had three customers in the past two hours, and you’ve got enough pizza crusts to last through November. What do you say we call it a night?”
