Well. I was, but I didn’t know Benny knew it. I felt proud, but also as if I might’ve been caught doing something slightly embarrassing. Bragging.
“This is her mouse pad.” He was whispering again. He did that adorable thing he did with his face when he was thinking hard: He scowled and pursed his mouth and wrinkled his nose. I knew exactly what he was thinking: How do I explain a mouse pad to my dog? In the end he decided not to bother. “It has a picture of us Dad took, me and Mom, then he had it put on this thing. It’s us sledding down York Lane. I was a little boy. I couldn’t go on my own yet. This is Mom and this is me.”
I loved that picture. Benny, three years old, sat in front of me on the sled, both of us red-f aced from the cold and laughing like loons. He had on his silver snowsuit, the same outfit he’d worn at Christmastime that year to sit on Santa’s lap. Outgrown long ago.
He held the mouse pad photo closer to my face. “It looks like we have the same color hair, but we don’t.” No, we did-he’d forgotten. His hair had darkened in the past two years, and mine stayed the same. He’d just forgotten.
The mouse pad went back in the box; out came something wrapped in a piece of cloth. Something special, I could tell by the way he held it.
“Look,” he said, and opened the last treasure.
Earrings. Cheap metal hearts with MOM engraved on each one-he and Sam had bought them last Mother’s Day at a kiosk in the mall. “She liked them a lot. She said they were beautiful. When she wakes up, I’m giving them to her again. As soon as she wakes up.” I leaned my weight against him; he put his arm around my neck. “I told Dad, and he said she might not remember. That I gave ’em to her before, but I think she will. Don’t you?”
He wasn’t crying, but I licked his cheek. I know she will.
I’d always liked Sam’s father, even though he was as unlike his only son as could be. Where Sam was a quiet man, unassuming and kind, often reserved around strangers, Charlie was the kind of guy the phrase “good time” was invented for. He sold insurance before he retired a few years ago, and I used to like to imagine what a nice surprise people were in for who invited him over to discuss premiums on their whole life. What I hadn’t known was how much fun he was if you happened to be a dog.
Pretend-growling was great fun, too, sort of like constant gargling. Charlie played tug-of-war with me and my toy pheasant almost as long as I wanted. Almost. We played in the kitchen until he dragged me out of the house by his half of the toy and collapsed on the front porch step. I let him pry my mouth open, hoping he would heave the bird out into the dark front yard. He did; then he did it again, and then again, but not enough. He tired out-they always do. I could’ve retrieved that pheasant all night.
Sam came out with a couple of beers, handed one to his father. “Hot,” he said. “We can sit inside if you’d rather. Cooler in the air-conditioning.”
“Not me, I like it. The dog days. Benny go to sleep?”
“Finally.”
“Seems to me like he’s doing pretty well.”
“You cheer him up, Pop. I think he’s too quiet.”
“You were like that.” Charlie took a sip of beer and then belched a few times, softly. He still had a full head of sandy hair, but he was going soft and round in all the places Sam was hard and angular. “Quiet kid, you were. Always figured that’s why you took up magic.”
“But Benny’s a talker.”
“That’s for sure. Nonstop. But he’ll be okay. He will be, Sam.”
“Sure, I know.”
“Hey, getting that dog was a great idea.”
“Well…”
Well, what?
“No leash-you’re not worried she’ll run off?”
“No way. She sticks to us like a shadow.”
“What about when you and Benny are gone all day? Him in school, you at work?”
I stopped sniffing around in the grass and trotted over. What work? Sam had work?
“She’s housebroken,” Sam said.
“Yeah, but cooped up in the house all day, that’s no life for a big dog.”
I thought of myself as medium.
“I’d take her for you myself, but they’ve got a weight limit on pets.” Charlie lived in a retirement community in Silver Spring. But what a sweet offer. I nuzzled his hand in gratitude.
“I’m more worried about Benny than the dog.” Sam set his beer on the step and pulled out the deck of cards he always kept in his pocket. “I hate it that I won’t be here when he gets home from school.”
“So what’ll you do?”
“There’s a neighbor who’s offered to keep him. She’s got two boys his age, so it should work out.”
Monica? “Mupf?”
“Hush, not now,” Sam said, thinking I wanted to play.
“Well, that’s good. Yeah, that sounds like it’ll work out all right. Kids adjust,” Charlie started saying. “When they’re little, they can adapt to almost anything…” So on and so on. I quit listening. Monica Carr was going to take my child after school every day? Why? Where was Sam going to be?
“Queen of spades.”
“So tell me about your new job,” Charlie said, pulling a random card from the flared deck Sam held out to him. “Queen of spades,” he confirmed without surprise, and handed it back.
“It’s not what I wanted. I was hoping for something part-time, but that was a dead end. There’s been a lot of downsizing and merging since I got out of the field. I had to take what I could get. Two of clubs.”
Charlie picked a card and nodded. “Two of clubs. But you hate this job.”
“No, Pop. Don’t say that.” He gave a weak laugh and concentrated on his overhand shuffle. “Anyway, it’s irrelevant. I have to make some money.”
“I was real sorry to hear about the cabin.”
Sam nodded, shrugged.
“I know you had high hopes,” Charlie said gently. “Spend more time with Laurie and all.”
Really? I tried to read Sam’s face in the dimness. That wasn’t why he’d wanted the cabin. Was it?
Charlie patted his knee. When I came over, he started ruffling my ears and blowing into my face. I wagged my tail, ready for a game. “Kinda ironic,” he said.
“How so?”
“Laurie always wanted you to go back to work.”
I wheeled away, out of Charlie’s reach. That’s not true. Even if it was, Charlie never knew it. Sam never knew it-because I never said it. Not out loud. I looked at Sam, waiting for him to deny it.
“Laurie…” he said and stopped.
Yes? What?
“She thought she was marrying an actuary. It’s not her fault she ended up with a part-time magician.”
“Oh, yeah?” Charlie sat up straight. “Well, the way I remember it, you didn’t think you were marrying-”
“Hey, now, Pop.”
“-a type-A workaholic go-getter who-”
“Pop.”›
“-lived for making dough and setting sales records. Okay, okay. Sorry. But if she was disappointed in you, I say that went two ways.”
Charlie! I thought you loved me!
Oh, this was so unfair. I slunk farther out into the yard, beyond the circle of the porch light. If only I could disappear. I found a patch of dusty-smelling ivy and burrowed down in it.
What was wrong with liking your job? I was not a workaholic. Charlie was right about one thing-when I met Sam he was working in one of the biggest insurance companies in the country, climbing the actuary ladder, taking the competency exams, passing with freakish ease. A math geek. As it turned out, he hated math, but I didn’t know that. But it didn’t matter! We were glad to switch gender roles, especially when my salary tripled and quadrupled during the real estate boom. When it went bust-okay, that was when I might have said something to Sam. Not nagging, though; more pointing out the obvious. Tactfully. Lovingly and supportively.
Then I got the O Street property in Georgetown and sold it to a Chinese businessman who paid the asking price in cash. Huge commission, Mega Deal Maker of the Year, promotion-Sam’s cabin on the river. In the worst housing market slump in recent history, I was invincible.