Now, if there was one thing I hated as a kid, it was anybody seeing me cry. Dogs not included. That’s another thing that’s great about dogs.
I thought I’d just put the tears away again. I wrestled with them as I stepped up onto the lady’s porch. I figured I would win, because I usually did. But that day they flipped me and pinned me. Got me in a headlock I knew I could not escape. This time I’d get my freedom back when the tears told me I could have it back and not a moment sooner.
I sat on the edge of the porch with the dogs and cried into Rembrandt’s short silver coat. Every time I lifted my head Vermeer tried to lick the tears off my face.
I heard a voice from behind, and it startled me.
“This can’t be good. You don’t ever come a second time unless you’ve got something bad going on.”
I didn’t answer.
She came and sat on the edge of the porch with me. I kept my face pressed into the boy dog’s coat, so she wouldn’t see I was crying. But then a little hiccupy sob broke through the gates.
“Oh dear,” she said in that signature gravelly voice. “You’d best tell me what’s on your mind.”
I raised my head. The jig was up anyway.
She was wearing jeans with a big, oversized, untucked blue work shirt over them. Sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her hair was down and freshly combed. It struck me that she had been a pretty woman, once upon a time. Before she’d decided she didn’t want to be anymore. Before she’d decided she didn’t want to be anything to anybody.
“Spill it,” she said.
“It’s too much, though.”
“What’s too much?”
“For you, I mean. First me and then Connor. Both needing you and leaning on your time like we do. It’s too much. Isn’t it?”
I was looking off into the woods as I asked it. But I heard her sigh.
“Well, it’s a lot,” she said. “But I don’t know the magic boundary on what’s too much.”
We sat for a minute, saying nothing. Vermeer was still licking my face.
“Now you know why I have dogs,” she said.
“Yeah. They help. Wish I had one.” Another awkward silence. “I never asked you what kind of dogs they were.”
“Weimaraner and Great Dane.”
“Oh. That explains a lot. That’s how they got so big.” I paused. Cannonballed into the deep end of the thing. “My brother’s home from the war.”
She gave me space to say more, but I didn’t use it.
“And, obviously,” she said, “there’s a reason why that’s not such a happy thing like it’s supposed to be. How bad did he get hurt?”
“Lost half his foot. Well. A third of it, anyway.”
“Land mine?”
“No. He says it was a gunshot.”
“Yeah. I guess that makes more sense. Land mine wouldn’t leave you any foot at all. So, listen. It’s bad, I know. I’m not saying it’s not bad. But it may turn out to be a small price to pay. I mean, you get your brother back, and if he’d stayed over there, maybe not one bit of him would’ve made it home.”
I didn’t answer. I was staring off into the woods, thinking I wouldn’t bother her with the rest of my troubles. How much of other people’s problems can one poor woman take?
“There’s more,” she said. “Am I right? It’s written all over your face.”
“I just don’t understand why my folks are upset with him. They’re acting like it’s his fault or something.”
“Hmm.”
We sat for the longest time. Minutes. I got the sense that she had all kinds of things to say but hadn’t decided whether or not to say them.
“My ex had guns,” she said after a time. “I’m not a fan of them myself. But he had a deer rifle, and then a pistol for home protection. That’s what he called it, anyway, but it always seemed to me that bringing a gun into a house is more likely to do the opposite of protecting it. Case in point, he was cleaning it. Thought he’d taken all the shells out, but he’d left one in the chamber. Shot himself in the foot. Still walks with a bad limp to this day. Not that I’ve seen him any too recently.”
I waited. I was wondering if she was going to tell me what this had to do with my situation. It did seem like a weird coincidence that we both knew someone who had taken a gunshot to the foot. Maybe that was her only point.
“Here’s the reason I’m telling you all this.” She paused. And I knew that something big was coming. And I knew I didn’t want it. “Kind of hard to shoot a person in the foot from some distance. More likely you’ll get them somewhere between the legs and the head. For that foot injury, seems like the gun would have to be right above the foot, pointing down. Now, I can’t say that for an absolute fact. I’ve never been in combat, and I suppose weird things happen. I’m just talking likelihoods here. You understand what I’m saying to you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I wasn’t feeling much. At least, not in the way of reactions or emotions. The inside of my head seemed to be stuffed with cotton. The inside of my guts felt like concrete. My mouth was painfully dry.
“But you don’t want to go there just yet.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Fine. I won’t bring it up again.”
We sat in silence for a time. Then I guess she got tired of that, because she spoke up.
“Well, if you got nothing else you wanted to say . . .”
“I need to ask you about something.”
“Okay . . .” But she sounded skeptical.
“I’ve been working really hard not to ask anything about Connor. Because I figure what he talks about with you is none of my
