The Dogs of Christmas Read online

  Wayne managed to finish the kitchen without destroying anything, though he made several more dire pronouncements in the process. “Kitchen’s done except the turkey, you want me to put it in the fridge or call a hazmat team?” he announced, coming out with a towel in his hands.

  Josh said he’d take care of it. Wayne picked up Isabella and Josh picked up Lola and they were both equally unconscious, hanging loosely in their hands. He held Lola in his arms, waving in his window as he watched his friends drive away, feeling unaccountably sad.

  The following Sunday he woke up thinking about everything Leigh had said. Amanda’s not happy with her new situation. He went to the plastic box in his parents’ closet and pulled out the picture of her he’d taken when he’d flown her to Kauai for her birthday. She had been happy with her situation then. They both had been happy.

  I just wish you were more social. Underneath, you’re a great guy. “Underneath,” Josh muttered.

  The puppies were squalling, so he went back to let them out. It was another weird winter day, frigid but so dry Josh’s skin hurt to be out in the air. The dogs weren’t really sure why he always took them out to the cold yard behind the house as soon as they woke up, not connecting the need to squat with the fact that they often seemed to be outdoors when they did it. Oliver usually bolted for the trees, wanting to conquer new worlds, and Sophie usually found a stick to add to her toy collection, though she never seemed upset when Josh gently pulled it from her mouth before letting her back inside.

  The others just waited for Josh to give them some sort of clue as to what was going on. In fact, they all seemed to look to Josh to decide everything for them. If Lucy was their mommy, Josh was the daddy. They ran to him when he knelt, they craved the touch of his hand. He loved picking them up and kissing them on their little noses. He’d never really thought about it before, but there it was: when you had dogs, they loved you. They never even thought to look for a “new situation.” They never said you were a “man-child” obsessed with the past, acting like it was somehow your fault that they met some guy at work and decided the new situation would be living with him in Fort Collins.

  Lucy played with the puppies, rolling them with her snout, but rebuffing any attempts they made at accessing her teats, which looked to Josh as if they were rapidly receding. Josh laughed at how the dogs tumbled, and shook his head in amazement at how adroitly Rufus steered Cody back to the crowd when the little guy strayed too far away.

  This was it, this was the thing he could cling to: the happiness he felt with his dog family. Amanda haunted him like a ghost and he’d blown every opportunity he’d had with Kerri, but everything was okay when he was watching the dogs.

  I just wish you were more social. Leigh was right; he needed to get out of his rut.

  Down the hill was a small pond where the neighborhood children skated in the winter and, if they were very young and optimistic, fished in the summer. Josh put the puppies in a wooden crate, loaded them and Lucy in the front of his truck, and drove down there to see if there were any kids around who might want to see the puppies.

  It was a blindingly clear day. Josh parked next to two vehicles that had pulled off the road by the frozen pond, changing his plans when he considered how the adults might react if he approached the children and told them he had puppies in his truck. He grabbed the crate and, marveling over how heavy the puppies had gotten, headed down to where the children were sliding around on the ice. Only one of the half-dozen kids had skates—a little girl in full Olympic figure skating dress who frowned in concentration in the center of the pond, trying to twirl. Two men sat on a crude wooden bench, talking to each other while a handful of boys kicked a plastic disc around on the ice in a game somewhere between soccer and hockey. Huffing with exertion, Josh walked over to the men with his container of puppies. Lucy was a little anxious, jumping up to look in the crate, where her brood was unsteadily riding out the movements and climbing on top of each other to try to catch a glimpse of where they were going.

  The men regarded Josh’s approach speculatively. “I’ve got some puppies, here,” Josh greeted awkwardly. “I was thinking maybe the kids might like to see them. You need to socialize dogs when they’re young, get them used to people.”

  The men stood and peered into the wooden box. They were both taller and heavier than Josh, both with dark hair and plaid shirts under drab jackets. Josh wondered if they were brothers.

  “Fine with us,” one of them grunted after the two men passed a glance between them.

  “Hey, want to see some puppies?” Josh called to the children. The boys abandoned their game and rushed over. They looked to range in age from eight to ten, maybe, all with noses red from the cold. They clung together and slid to a stop in front of Josh.

  “Look!” one of the boys cried.

  Inspired, Josh went out on the ice and set the crate down with a thump, tipping it up on its side. The puppies came out in a jumble.

  “Can we pick them up?” one boy asked.

  “Just be careful,” Josh agreed.

  One of the boys went down on his knees and Sophie grabbed his scarf—toy!—in her tiny teeth and pulled it off him. Immediately she tried to run away, her feet sliding out from under her, with Oliver in pursuit. They couldn’t get traction; when Sophie tried to change direction she fell, and when Oliver grabbed at the scarf his momentum spun him in a circle.

  The girl glided over. “Be careful with your skates, sweetie,” Josh told her. She solved the problem by sliding down on her hands and knees, reaching for Lola and gathering the little dog to her chest like an infant.

  The dads on the bench decided they couldn’t resist and came over to play with the dogs. Josh threw the plastic disc for Lucy, who ran like a cartoon character, her legs scrabbling underneath her unproductively and then, when they seized enough purchase, propelling her right past the disc while she dug her claws in, her legs spread apart. Sophie ran over, too, but wasn’t quick enough to deprive the mommy dog of her prize.

  The boys eventually came up with a game where they ran in circles on the pond, hanging on to each other, while the puppies slid and spun in pursuit. The little girl changed out of her skates to participate, giggling and laughing with the rest of them.

  “Kind of dogs are they?” one of the dads asked. “Beagle mix?”

  “Nobody knows. Maybe Lab/boxer/Akita. Abandoned at birth so we’ll never know unless we do a DNA test,” Josh explained.

  “They for sale?”

  “Oh,” Josh responded. “Uh, no, they’re just my puppies.”

  The man looked at him oddly, but didn’t say anything.

  When the puppies were slow to untie themselves from a particularly spectacular pile-up, Josh figured they were getting tired and it was time to head home. The children pleaded for five more minutes and he granted their wish—they weren’t his kids; it wasn’t his job to teach them the perils of instant gratification.

  Josh sang “Jingle Bells” to the puppies in the front seat of his truck and they were all sound asleep when he arrived home. He swung into his parking spot, a bit surprised at who he saw sitting in her vehicle in his driveway, her engine running to keep her heat on.

  Kerri.

  FIFTEEN

  Josh opened his door and Lucy bounded across his lap and trotted over to where Kerri was standing up out of her car. They greeted each other, and then Lucy went off to explore the yard. Josh got out of his truck, leaving the puppies in a sleeping sprawl in their crate on the floor.

  “Hi,” Josh greeted cautiously, blowing the word out in a cloud of steam.

  “Look, Josh. I’m sorry. I totally overreacted. That was so rude and so, so … I don’t know why, why I did that,” Kerri apologized. “I needed to tell you that in person.”

  Josh took a step forward. “Okay,” he said agreeably, but when he took another step toward her, she backed up a pace.

  “Nothing you’ve done, we’ve done, suggests any kind of thing with us,” she continued
, brutally matter-of-fact.

  “Kerri…”

  “Anyway. Thanks for the flowers but you didn’t do anything wrong. I was the one who was out of line.” Her eyes didn’t back up what she was saying; they looked wounded and more than a little angry.

  “It’s just that it’s the first time that Amanda’s called since she left,” Josh started to explain.

  “Oh, let’s not talk about Amanda, okay?”

  Josh looked at her, searching for softness he couldn’t find. There didn’t seem to be any right thing to do.

  “Anyway,” Kerri said.

  “Want to come in?”

  “No. I just came out to apologize. Oh, and good news.”

  “Good news,” Josh repeated.

  “We got applications for the puppies—like, a lot—and have approved a couple of them. It really helps because when people register on our website we can let them know about other dogs, even if they thought they only wanted a puppy. So, today’s Sunday. How about Wednesday, want to bring them down then?” She gave him a probing look. “What is it, Josh?”

  How did she do that? He thought he was wearing a perfectly neutral expression but she could see that something was troubling him.

  “I need to get the puppies inside,” he replied evasively. “Going to get cold in the truck, soon.”

  She followed him into his house, but waited in the living room while he took the puppies back to bed. Lucy curled up on her pillow by the fireplace. Kerri had her arms folded when he returned.

  “Want some coffee or something?” he stalled.

  “What is it you don’t want to tell me?”

  Josh looked at the carpet. “I’m not doing it.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m not giving up my puppies.”

  “Oh,” Kerri murmured after a moment. Her voice carried some pity in it, so he looked at her, a bit gratified to see that the stony look on her face had softened. “I know it’s hard. But you can’t foster failure a whole litter of puppies. It’s not even legal.”

  “Failure?”

  “Foster failure, it’s what we call it when someone temporarily takes care of a dog and it turns permanent.”

  “You say failure, but actually it’s a good thing.”

  “Perhaps, but not when it’s six dogs.”

  “Six?”

  “I’m counting Lucy.”

  “Oh. Right.” For some reason it hadn’t occurred to him to include Lucy in the count.

  Kerri sat down in Josh’s big chair, unbuttoning her coat and shrugging it off. Josh did the same on the couch, forcing himself not to reveal how happy her gesture had made him, how relieved he was over the implication that she wasn’t immediately bolting from his house.

  “I get how hard it must be,” she said sympathetically.

  He didn’t like that very much. That’s what people had told him when his mother had so abruptly moved out, and ultimately Josh had concluded they knew nothing about how hard it must be.

  “You’ve never had a dog before, so you’ve never gone through any of it,” Kerri continued.

  “Okay, so we’ve established why I don’t know anything.”

  She blinked at his tone. “I didn’t mean that, Josh. I was actually talking about saying good-bye to them. Because when you adopt a pet you know you’re headed for heartbreak, you know? Dogs are with us for such a short period of time. They are our best friends but we only have a decade, maybe a decade and a half, and then they’re gone. That’s what I meant. So losing them is just part of the deal, something you have to learn how to cope with. But listen, I really, really believe that one of the lessons they teach us by loving us so intensely while they are here is that we need to celebrate life while we have it, that yes, everything ends and we have to move on but that while we’re here we should make sure we don’t waste it, you know? I mean, my mom has been numb like half her life, what kind of existence is that?” Kerri’s eyes were moist, and she wiped at them hastily. “And when we lose them, when they do die, I honestly believe that the last thought on their minds is that they hope we get another dog.”

  Kerri’s face was red and she took several deep breaths. Josh knew this was somehow an important moment for them, that they were supposed to be sharing something, but he searched inside and all he felt was a cool remoteness. He couldn’t get past the fact that she was essentially arguing he should give up the puppies.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Josh finally responded.

  “I guess I’m just saying you can’t keep them because, well, you can’t. No one can, not for as long as we’d like to. So the thing to do is to understand that what dogs give us is always just a brief period of time of being with us, which has to be good enough because it’s all there is. So we need to celebrate it while we can, and then move on. That’s the lesson of the dogs, that it’s important to both live in the moment and then go on to the next wonderful thing.”

  “Is this a speech you give to people? Like, foster dog parents, when they take in dogs but can’t give them back?”

  “Maybe a little,” Kerri admitted with a small smile.

  “It’s pretty good.”

  “Thanks. Plus, I usually say that the main reason I work at the shelter is for the animals, but that there’s something about the joy you can give people when you bring them together with their new dog. Animals are so confused at the shelter, and then they’re so grateful when they are given a forever home. I want you to experience that.”

  “But that’s not what happened, here. I didn’t volunteer for this. The puppies were put in a box in my truck,” he argued.

  “Right, but Josh, six dogs? Come on. One puppy is a lot of work; I can’t even imagine what it would be like with a whole litter. Isn’t it enough that you’ll have Lucy?”

  “No,” he said shortly. Lucy looked up at her name, then set her head back down, intently watching Josh. It was as if the dog knew what was going on inside him.

  “Then keep one. Two dogs is a handful, but fine,” Kerri reasoned. “You’ll have the mommy and a little one.”

  “And break up the family? How about I just pick a favorite, the way my mom took my sister with her when she moved, but not me? And then Dad tells me he’s secretly engaged to some woman in London. Like that?” Josh retorted bitterly.

  Kerri half lifted her arms, as if she were coming over to embrace him, but she didn’t move. “I didn’t know any of that.”

  “Okay, so, now you know.” Josh looked away.

  “So what are you going to do? They won’t let you keep more than three dogs; that’s the rule.”

  “I don’t know,” Josh admitted. The question made him tired.

  Kerri stood. “Right, then.”

  “Okay.”

  He followed her out to her car. Lucy raced out as if she’d never been in the front yard before, her tail wagging, nose down to the frozen ground.

  “So,” Kerri sighed. Josh sensed a barrier between them, a gap he’d be wise not to bridge, so he halted a few steps from her when she turned. “Merry Christmas, Josh.”

  “Merry Christmas,” he repeated woodenly.

  “Don’t … don’t call me, okay? I get you, I understand why you’re the way you are, but it’s not good for me to be around you.” Tears were unexpectedly spilling down her cheeks.

  “Kerri.”

  “No. I mean it. Good-bye, Josh.”

  Kerri slipped into her car and Josh stood and watched her drive away. Lucy came up to him with a stick in her mouth, dropping it at his feet like a gift, clearly hoping to cheer him up.

  Josh went into the house, knowing that for the next several days, maybe even for weeks or months, he’d carry the same empty weight that had settled on his heart after Amanda left, the sense that someone who belonged there was not with him any longer.

  The rest of November passed with gray clouds matching Josh’s mood. He took Lucy for a few walks, he played with the puppies, he watched Christmas movies. He fell behind in his
online coursework. He let dishes pile up in the kitchen, he ignored texts from Wayne. He registered without feeling when the dates crossed into December.

  He was sitting at his computer one morning when a conference request popped open on his screen. He accepted it and found himself looking at one of his former teammates on the Blascoe project, a friend who always went by his last name, Quincy. He looked an awful lot like Josh—same short black hair and dark eyes, though Quincy was a lot heavier, having been, in his own words, “In and out of In and Out Burger too many times.”

  “You hear?” Quincy greeted.

  “No, I’m completely out of the loop. What’s up?”

  “Client hates the interface now. There’s like six levels of nested menus.” Quincy grinned.

  “Seriously?” If Blascoe was going to claim that everything was Josh’s fault, the damage to his reputation could take a long time to repair.

  “You know Blascoe. He keeps adding crap. I swear he lies awake nights thinking of ways to screw everything up. So we had this big crisis meeting and, get this, Suni says, ‘We need Josh Michaels.’”

  Suni Ohayashi was the number-two person on the project. Josh searched inside himself and yes, it was there—a petty sense of vindication.

  “And Blascoe looks at Suni and says, he says”—Quincy dropped his chin and did a passable impression of Blascoe’s flat, gruff voice—“‘Not an option.’”

  Josh nodded. “Huh.”

  “What did you do to piss off the Blascotoid?”

  Josh shrugged. “I wish I knew. Did you see the report I uploaded?”

  Quincy shook his head. “No, it wiped when Blascoe delisted you from the project.”

  “Might have saved everyone some grief.”

  “I get exactly what you’re saying. Maybe, though, with Suni pushing him Blascoe will ask you back.”

  “Not going to count on that.”

  “Yeah.” Quincy grunted. “You got anything else going on?”

  “No. Time of year, not much happening.”

  “You okay? I mean with not working. How’re you doing with all that?” Quincy’s expression was pained, as if worried Josh was going to start discussing feelings or something.