A Dog's Perfect Christmas Read online

  Hunter shook his head, a pitying look on his face. “No, Dad,” he grated in strangled tones. “Without Juliana, there is no life.”

  * * *

  Sander drove with his granddaughter in the seat next to him, Hunter remaining back at the hospital.

  Ello’s expression resembled her father’s: a dead stare into an abyss. Suddenly she turned to Sander as if on the attack, her eyes sparking hard at him. “As soon as I get home, I’m going online. I’ll post those pictures of Ruby. And I’ll call the, the animal rescue whatever, and I’ll have Ruby picked up. She’ll have a better chance of finding her family if she goes to the shelter.”

  Sander took in her sudden intensity. He gave it a few beats. “I think with all that’s going on, maybe this isn’t the best time. Your puppy’s not a burden—in fact, Winstead seems so full of spunk and energy right now, it’s the opposite, it’s a gift. And maybe you could use someone to sleep on your bed and snuggle with you, a friend you can count on.”

  Ello gaped at him in wonder.

  Sander shrugged. “I’ll tell your dad, if you want. I just think we need Ruby right now.”

  Ello had thought she was all cried out, but Grandpa’s unexpected kindness put tears in her eyes. Sander reached out and placed a reassuring hand on her arm.

  * * *

  The next morning, Ruby was alerted to something, a change in the electric charges in the air. Curious, she abandoned her quest to find edible objects among the scatterings in the boys’ room and trotted out to investigate.

  She found Winstead alertly watching the bathroom door in Sander’s bedroom. It was from Winstead that Ruby had detected the change in emotion. Ruby sniffed Winstead, who ignored her.

  For Ruby, every single day was a novel experience, so she assumed there was some vitally important reason why Winstead was standing sentry outside the door. When she pounced on the older dog’s foot to try to inject even more joy into the situation, Winstead shook her off in irritation.

  Winstead and Ruby both wagged when the bathroom door opened.

  “What do you two want?” a dripping, betoweled Sander demanded gruffly.

  In the kitchen, Ruby watched Winstead for clues on how to behave in this room of amazing odors. The old man struggled with the two boys, finally managing to jam them into their high chairs. When Ello entered, Ruby bounded joyously over to greet her. Ello stooped and allowed the puppy kisses for a moment or two, then stood up.

  Ello examined what Sander had placed on the twins’ trays. “Peanut butter, toast, chocolate milk,” she observed neutrally.

  Sander shrugged. “Well, I burned the pancakes and then I thought, what’s a pancake but a form of bread? And then, you put butter on it. What’s wrong with peanut butter?” He grinned at her triumphantly.

  Ello slid into her chair. “Uh-huh.”

  Now Ruby realized why the old dog had taken up a position between the two high chairs. As the boys made noise, gurgling and laughing, they dropped a steady shower of bits of food from above—a treat-rich environment. Ruby eagerly darted forward and snapped up a piece of bread crust, and Winstead gave her a surly look.

  “What about your fried eggs?” Ello challenged him.

  “Peanut butter toast is fine for me. What’ll you have, Ello?”

  Ruby knew who “Ello” was. She raised her eyes and gazed lovingly at her girl.

  “Why not toast,” Ello decided. “Oh! With strawberry jam.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Sander praised. For just a moment they were smiling at each other, and then Ello’s face went cold. Ruby, sensing something, went to Ello’s chair and tried to climb up in her lap. Already she understood that her purpose was to keep her girl happy. After a moment, Ello reached down and picked her up, and the little dog felt some of her girl’s sorrow melt away.

  * * *

  Ello thought she had perfected the iron mask with which she could face down the world. When she set her expression a certain way, no one could see her feelings, because she was keeping them tightly under wraps. It was the best defense she had against being an eighth-grade girl. But what nearly broke her was the car ride to school.

  Sander was chatting joyfully without seeming to notice that his granddaughter had lapsed into a sullen silence. How could he act so happy? Did he think it was his job to try to cheer her up? With Mom in the hospital?

  The twins, responding to Grandpa’s energy, were in high spirits, kicking and laughing and babbling. Periodically, her grandfather asked her for a translation, which she provided reluctantly, resenting that she even had brothers. She felt like turning and belting both of them. She Felt Like Screaming.

  Of course the twins did not understand anything. They had not seen their mother lying there nearly dead, poked full of holes, tubes and cables trailing from her like an external circulatory system. They didn’t know that this might be the new family: Sander, the children, Hunter at work, no mom.

  Ello held it together because the last thing she wanted was for her grandfather to start hugging her or something. She needed to keep this locked up and deal with it without interference from adults. She needed her friends.

  But, of course, the legs had been knocked out from under her support system. Brittne was isolating Ello, and everyone in their group followed Brittne’s lead. Which Was Stupid. Ello recalled how many times she had frozen out a person because it was what Brittne wanted. Her stomach heaved at the memories.

  She may have been aware of Brittne or Mourgen in the hallway, but did not look at them or acknowledge they existed. They were Acting So Middle School.

  She would have said hi to Soffea, but she was looking for one person only, and when she saw him she strode straight up to him.

  His face registered his alarm as she approached. “What happened?” he asked.

  Ello couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop the tears as she told him.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Sean asked her urgently.

  Okay. What a word. How do you get from being in organ failure to anything resembling okay?

  Ello couldn’t reply, but Sean didn’t seem to require an answer. He held out his arms and gathered her so gently, so respectfully, and yes, so lovingly, that for the first time since hearing the words “organ failure” she felt taken care of. As she pressed her face into his shirt, she was aware of how quickly she was soaking it with tears.

  “No public displays of affection,” the history teacher, Mr. Morrison, lectured as he passed by.

  When neither Sean nor Ello broke the embrace, Mr. Morrison halted, a stern expression on his face. “Did you hear me? No public displays of affection. Break it up. Now.”

  Sean made no move to obey. “It’s not affection, dickhead,” he retorted. “It’s humanity.”

  Mr. Morrison stiffened. “You just earned yourself a trip to the vice principal’s office, young man. Let’s go.”

  And Sean did go, but not just then. He gave it another minute or so, letting Ello recover so that she wouldn’t be bawling when they parted. As Sean followed the history teacher down the hall, Ello watched him in wonder.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was the second time Thursday had rolled around since Thanksgiving, which meant no Mrs. Espinoza, which meant Sander would be picking up the boys if they survived another day at preschool without injury or arrest. The forecast called for snow, but the gray, pregnant clouds were withholding. It seemed like a perfectly normal thing for Sander to take the dogs to the park where he had met Allison and her daughter, Audrey. In fact, their last conversation had seemed to imply to Sander that he had something like a reservation.

  When he clanged the gate on the dogs, he turned and regarded the preschool-aged children on the playground equipment. They looked familiar. He also recognized their moms: what’s-her-name and whatever-her-name-was, plus Allison (sans daughter Audrey) and two other women who looked to be in their early sixties, maybe. Every single one of them waved, so he had no choice but to walk over.

  “This is
the woman I was telling you about. Claire, this is Sander,” one of the moms said. He couldn’t see the family resemblance. Claire had thick hair with a hint of red in it—there was a name for that color that Barbara had tried and failed to teach him—and her brown eyes seemed a tad mischievous as she shook his hand.

  “Sander, as in the machine? Or is it short for something?” Claire asked him.

  “Short for something? Like what?” he asked without thinking. He had the sense he had been rude, but … well, too late.

  Claire was unoffended. “I don’t know. Salamander?”

  Sander laughed. The other women looked a little impatient.

  “This is my mom, Lucille,” one of the younger women told Sander.

  Lucille’s expression was challenging and assessing as she scoped Sander up and down. Her DNA matched her daughter’s—blue eyes, blond hair, and skin that was probably pale but looked incongruously tanned despite the time of year. Lucille was what Sander’s father used to call a “full-figured gal,” dressed in a formfitting winter coat and tall boots—what Barbara would have termed “stylish.” Her grip was the most firm of all the women’s. “Nice to meet you, Lucille.”

  “I’m Allison,” Allison stated, sounding defensive.

  “Yes, I remember; nice to see you again, Allison.”

  Okay, too many names to remember. Allison … she was thin and straight as an alley. Alley Allison. Claire had clear eyes and clear, glowing skin. Clear Claire. Alley Allison, Clear Claire, and Lucille … Lucille wasn’t Allison or Claire.

  Allison passed a hand through her thin brown hair, glaring at Lucille for some reason. “It’s supposed to snow again,” she declared after a moment.

  “So you’re the famous Sander Goss,” Lucille observed with a throaty laugh.

  “Famous?” Sander repeated.

  “We could all sit down if we went to the picnic table,” Claire said. Clear Claire.

  Everyone but Allison smiled and nodded.

  “The seats are metal. My butt will freeze,” Allison pouted.

  “Well, I don’t have to worry about that,” Lucille chortled, giving her rear end a slap. “Natural padding.”

  Allison bit her lip and glanced away.

  Sander looked between the two women, then to Claire, who was giving him a knowing smile.

  “You seem bemused, Sander,” Claire stated lightly.

  They settled around an octagonal, metal-mesh picnic table. “Bemused?” Sander asked, turning the word over in his mind.

  “You don’t seem to have grasped the impact that an appearance of an eligible bachelor like you might have on women of a certain age and status in this area,” Claire continued. Clear Claire providing Clarification.

  Allison was gaping at Claire. Sander wondered what his own expression looked like.

  “You are certainly an attractive man,” Lucille added, meeting Sander’s gaze directly and unwaveringly.

  “God, Lucille, you’re just so obvious about everything,” Allison complained.

  “What do you mean, Allie?” Lucille asked mildly. “Don’t you think Sander is handsome? Or have you always worn mascara to the playground?”

  Sander looked between the women, baffled. Claire had her eyebrows raised at him, as if asking a question he hadn’t heard. The younger women were glancing at each other with ill-concealed enthusiasm for whatever was going on.

  Allison crossed her arms over her chest. “Where are your boys today, Sander?”

  “Oh. They’re at preschool. I’ll head back to pick them up pretty soon.”

  “They are so cute,” Allison informed Lucille and Claire. “So full of energy. I just love children.” This last statement was directed at Lucille, and seemed almost like an attack. For some reason, it made Claire grin.

  Lucille waved off the comment. “Allie thinks because I have a place in Florida where I escape the winter that I don’t love my grandkids.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Lucille’s daughter declared bluntly, her blue eyes flashing.

  “I never said anything like that!” Allison retorted.

  “Don’t you get sick of winter sometimes, Sander?” Lucille asked huskily.

  It almost seemed to Sander that she was asking something else entirely, but he couldn’t at all comprehend what. He glanced at Claire, who continued watching him knowingly, as if they shared a secret.

  * * *

  Somehow Ello slogged through the rest of the school day, enduring the lectures and the assignments. Not one of her classmates, not even those who seemed to understand that she and Brittne were on the outs, had a single thing to say to her, though it had to be obvious that Something Was Very Wrong in her life. No one asked if she was okay or expressed any concern that she was being so quiet. It was as if, at this stage of life, when an eighth-grade girl was grappling with something far more important than the usual social dramas, no one had the emotional fortitude to address it. Easier to pretend Ello wasn’t there, wasn’t sitting with her head bowed, staring at her open math book without seeing it.

  She caught her teachers watching her sometimes and wondered if Sean had confided in the vice principal, who had tipped off the staff to her mom’s illness, but the teachers either respected her privacy or were as oblivious to her emotional state as the students.

  And Sean … since the incident with Mr. Morrison that morning, he’d vanished from the halls as if plucked from the planet by a UFO. Ello felt responsible—she’d gotten him in trouble, and who knew what fate had befallen him? She itched to text him, but hesitated due to her sense of guilt over the situation.

  After school, Sander was right where he should be, parked in the pickup zone when Ello extracted herself from the school building. She opened the door of the minivan and gasped in shock. “What happened?”

  The boys had each been on the receiving end of a haircut, shaved close on the sides and a little long on top. Sander had been to the barber too, though his white hair wasn’t styled any differently, just shorter: no longer woolly and wild, no longer springing out over his ears and curling up on the back of his neck.

  “Mom takes them for haircuts,” Ello seethed. “You should have waited for Mom.”

  Sander regarded her intently. Some sort of understanding passed behind his green, Ello-like eyes. He nodded. “You’re right, Ello,” he agreed. “I am so sorry. I figured it had been so long since I had gotten my own hair chopped, I might as well take the boys with me.”

  Ello wasn’t mollified. “Are you going to, like, change everything now? Like you’re our new mother?”

  “No. Oh no, Ello, not at all. I’m just helping until she gets better,” Sander assured her.

  “Because she is going to get better,” Ello insisted sternly.

  “Right. Of course.”

  But she was still angry at him.

  After playing with Ruby for half an hour or so at home, Ello curled up in her bed and grabbed her phone. A text awaited from Sean.

  SOB: Hey.

  Thumbs flying, Ello texted back.

  EG: Hey! What happened? After you went down the hall with Mr. Morrison you weren’t in class.

  SOB: I got suspension for 3 days.

  EG: W@????

  SOB: It was for using inappropriate and sexually suggestive words. They gave me a pass on the PDA.

  EG: IMSS.* (*I’m so sorry.) It’s my fault.

  SOB: What? No, it was Morrison’s fault. They asked me why I called him a dickhead and I said it was because he was being a dickhead.

  EG: LOL.

  SOB: My mom is freaking out. Really pissed at me.

  EG: Sorry.

  SOB: I’m not.

  Ello froze at those words. Was he saying he was not sorry that he had called a teacher a dickhead? Or was he not sorry that he hugged her? Or was he not sorry that it was seen by others as a public display of affection?

  Ello desperately wanted to know, so she changed the subject.

  EG: Do you want me to collect your homework or something?
>
  SOB: No, that’s OK, they said they would email it.

  Ello was disappointed.

  Later she and Ruby snuck into her parents’ bedroom, creeping like house burglars. Her mom’s desk in the corner was a sanctum, a place where all her lists and reminders dwelled. Ello simply wanted to touch something her mother had recently touched. But first she had to pull a slipper from her puppy’s mouth. That done, she picked up a list from the desk, her eyes widening, but she was interrupted by Ruby, who squatted on the rug, and had to run the puppy outside.

  At dinner, Ello told her grandfather, “You do know there’s a difference between cooking and reheating, right?”

  Sander accepted this with a chuckle. “Okay,” he agreed. “Tomorrow, I’ll cook. Or, how about this: we’ll both cook.”

  Ello nodded skeptically. “Sure.”

  “I used to make a mean chili, though it was more mean than chili.”

  Ello had No Idea What He Was Saying. “Okay,” she declared, unfolding the piece of paper. “I found this.” She gave her grandfather her most defiant glare.

  Sander craned his neck, trying to read the small writing. “What is it?”

  “Mom’s Christmas to-do list. We need to do everything it says.”

  Sander nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, kiddo.”

  “She would hate if she came home and we hadn’t done anything.”

  “Sure.”

  “We don’t even have a tree yet. That’s just wrong.”

  Sander spread his hands. “It’s only the fifth of December.”

  Ello bristled. “Mom would want a tree!”

  Sander nodded, clearing his throat. “Your dad called. He says that your mom hasn’t changed. But”—Sander leaned forward earnestly—“that’s actually a good thing, Ello. The doctors told him it means there’s been no deterioration in her condition. Right now, that’s everything.”