Adopting Jenny (4 page)

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“And then remember when Charlie broke her leg, like, two weeks after we got her?” Kaye said with a giggle.

I giggled too. Dad gave us a funny look, but that only increased our fits of laughter.

“I don't think Charlie getting hurt is funny,” he said.

“But… but, don't you remember how Mom made that leg splint from her hair roller and duct tape?” Kaye said gasping for breath.

Dad laughed at that. "Right," he said. "I remember that. How could I forget? That poor cat looked so stupid. And when I took her to the vet, they couldn't stop laughing."

"Hey, at least it kept her leg still."

We all turned to see Mom standing in the doorway. She had a mock stern look on her face, but a moment later she broke out smiling. "The way I remember it," she said, "I had three little girls in tears because their new kitty was yowling in pain. That splint at least helped control her pain."

"Mom's right. You should have been a vet, honey," Dad said, standing to give Mom a kiss on her cheek.

I tried not to roll my eyes. They were always so darn lovey-dovey. Sometimes it made me want to gag, but tonight I just averted my eyes and waited for the moment to pass.

Kaye yawned. The kitchen clock read two-thirty. I couldn't remember the last time I had been up this late. Maybe at Carly's birthday party, but this was way more fun.

Mom knelt beside the box, pulling her bathrobe tighter around herself. "Any luck?"

"Not yet," Dad said. "Two of them have tried a few times but haven't gotten the hang of it yet."

"That's too bad," Mom said and sighed. "A few more hours of this and we might have to give up and just give them bottles until they can eat from a bowl."

"It seems like you might be just in time to help us try again," Dad said.

I could hear the false note of encouragement in his voice. He was probably trying to cheer Mom up. She sounded so sad at the thought of giving up. I didn't want to give up either. These puppies belonged with Jenny, and Jenny belonged with us. I kept that thought to myself because I knew it wouldn't be well received. Still, I knew I was right. Jenny did belong with us. When I had used her as my pillow, she had snuggled back against me. She loved all of us, even our dopey cat. Pepper would adore having another dog around, I could guarantee it. If only Dad would listen to me. How could one more dog create more expense when for the longest time we'd had two dogs? Ever since Duke had to be put down, we'd only had one. This would just be like evening things up.

My thoughts were interrupted by a smattering of applause as one of the puppies latched briefly onto Jenny's nipple. I had to suppress a groan as the little mouth fell away with a protesting yelp. Mom's face fell. She reached out and gathered the puppy into her arms. She cooed to him for a moment before offering him his bottle. Dad began the whole process again with the next puppy.

When Mom finished feeding the dog, she laid him carefully back in his box. "Well, it's pretty late. I think you girls should get back to bed."

"I agree." Kaye stood and stretched.

"I don't." I crossed my arms firmly in front of my chest. "Please don't make me go to bed. I want to stay up and help."

Mom's mouth twisted into a frown. "I don't think…"

"Come on, Barbie," Dad interrupted. "Joanie's been a big help. Jenny loves her. There's no school to worry about tomorrow. I do think, however, that you should go back to bed. Lee'll probably be awake for another feeding in less than an hour. You should get some sleep while you can. Me and Joanie are doing just fine."

I could feel my mouth drop open. Was Dad really saying what I thought he was saying? Was he lobbying for me to stay up even later? With him? Maybe I was still dreaming. Just to be sure I pinched my arm, wincing when pain shot up to my elbow.

Mom looked back and forth between me and Dad before saying, "Alright, but you have to listen to your father."

“I will,” I said, nodding in agreement.

Dad placed another puppy back in the box. He stood and followed Mom and Kaye into the kitchen. When he was nearly out the door, he paused and turned toward me. “Hey, Joanie, can you finish with the puppies? I'll be back down in a few minutes.”

I was sure my mouth hit the floor at that moment. By the time I got myself back together, the rest of my family had disappeared up the stairs, leaving me alone with two hungry little puppies. I carefully picked one up out of the box, trying to mimic what Mom had done each time. The puppy made a few attempts before he latched on. I held my breath as I waited for him to suck. When he fell away I released my pent up breath and sighed. Jenny leaned over and licked the puppy's head.

Scooping the puppy back up, I pressed his furry forehead against mine. “You need to get this, buddy. If you want to hang around here, we need some ammunition. Help me out here.” I picked up the bottle and started to feed him. As I gazed down into his dark puppy eyes, I said, “I think I'll call you Barney.”

Dad came back just as I was finishing with the last puppy. I had set Barney aside, and had to pretend like he was the one I had just gotten done feeding. A plan was forming in my brain. If I could get this puppy to latch, maybe Dad would let us keep him. I knew that if Barney was nursing, he'd get to stay at the house longer. Puppies can't be separated from their mamas too fast, even foster mamas. The other puppies would have homes found for them much sooner. If Barney stayed around long enough, even Dad would get attached to him.

I hadn't quite figured out how to get Dad to agree to have three dogs because I wanted to keep Jenny too. Actually, I couldn't imagine letting Jenny leave. Even though she had only been in the house for eight hours or so, she felt like part of the family. Charlie had come back in and curled up beside Jenny in the spot I had recently vacated.

"How're they doing?" Dad asked as he eased himself back down to the floor.

I set Barney back in the box. "Great," I said. "This one latched on for awhile before he fell off."

Dad reached into the box and scratched Barney behind the ears. "He's a good little guy, huh? I never knew getting puppies to nurse could be so hard." He shrugged. "Actually, I never thought about it before. I'm glad Mom knows about this stuff."

I leaned over to pet Jenny. She gave me a doggy smile. "How did Mom learn all this stuff?"

Pulling Barney out of the box, Dad leaned back against the wall. He settled the puppy on his chest, before saying, "Well, you know a lot of it has been through observation. Your Mom has always loved animals. She didn't have a chance to have a pet growing up because they wouldn't allow animals in the group home. So when we got married she expressed a desire to have as many pets as we could."

I hesitated. Then, with as much caution as I could muster, I asked, "So why don't we have more than two?"

Dad looked at me with a sad expression. "We can't really afford all the pets your mom wants. Not right now anyway. Maybe someday."

"How many pets do you want?" I asked. I knew better than to push the more pets thing when Dad started talking about money. That was always my sign to shut up. Fast.

“I had a lot of pets growing up," Dad said. "Have I ever told you about the farm I grew up on?"

I shook my head.

"We even had goats. Things were pretty hard for us when I was growing up. We didn't have much money. Actually, almost none at all, but living on that farm it was hard to tell how poor we were. My mom made sure we always had food on the table. And your Uncle Ernie and I had a great time just being kids. Sometimes I wish we could raise you girls on a farm."

I wrinkled my nose. "I don't think I'd like that so much. Sounds kind of… dirty to me."

"Well, yeah, Ernie and I were always dirty. We had chores and then we'd just keep playing in the barn or the pasture. Of course, a lot of that was all one and the same. After my dad left things got even worse. My mom had to work and run the farm. When I think about it now, I'm not sure how she held it all together. But I guess she did what she had to do for me and Ernie."

I nodded, thinking about the grandmother I had never met. Her photograph hung on the wall leading up to the second floor. She had had a hard life, but in that picture she was beautifully radiant. So I had to guess that she had been happy.

Suddenly Dad chuckled.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

Dad just grinned bigger and shook his head. Apparently he was lost in his own world. I started to get a little irritated, well, actually, a lot irritated, when he looked over at me. His smile was bigger than any time I could remember in my whole life. I could see his teeth and his gums. For some reason that both fascinated me and boggled my mind. This could not be my dad. It had to be some body-snatcher alien.

"I was just remembering a time when things got really bad for us," Dad said, chuckling a little as he spoke.

Now I had to concede that my father had gone crazy. He was laughing about bad times in his life, and just an hour ago he had been scolding us for laughing about Charlie's rather interesting leg brace.

As politely as I could I said, "Dad, are you okay?"

"Why do you ask that, Joanie?" Dad actually wiped his eyes. Was he crying from laughing?

This was seriously weirding me out. I hugged Jenny and held on tight to her. The slow, rhythmic breathing gave me something to focus on.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "It's just that bad times don't seem, you know, all that funny."

Dad took another gulp of air but couldn't stop himself from laughing. He hiccupped and burped at the same time. That made me giggle a little. Still, I tried to remain serious. I mean, one of us had to be the adult about these bad memories. Maybe they were just so bad that Dad couldn't handle thinking about them without getting hysterical.

"Okay," Dad began, "so I'll tell you this story. Yeah, times did get pretty bad for us. My mom worked as a house cleaner in town so her whole income depended on people needing their houses cleaned. I think it must have been early summer. I seem to remember that a lot of her clients were on vacation so she had a light work week. That would have been fine except that the water heater had broken and she'd depleted our savings getting that fixed. So we had next to no money. Things had been getting tighter and tighter. It was too early in the season for much to be coming out of the garden. And, oh yeah, I remember now. We hadn't had meat in a long time because meat's expensive.”

I watched Dad's face for any hint that he was being sarcastic. Meat being expensive was Mom's favorite line. He didn't seem to be anything but serious in his reminiscing. He scratched his nose and continued.

"Ernie kept begging mom for meat. He even offered to go catch a rabbit in the woods. Mom offered to take him fishing, but Ernie was adamant. He wanted real meat. So finally my mom decided that she'd have one of our goats butchered. She felt like that would be a good use of her money, and she'd have plenty of meat to store in the freezer for the next time Ernie decided he had to have meat.

"I was so upset. I loved those goats. You know how you asked me how many pets I'd like to have? I can't answer that because, honestly, I don't know how many pets we could fit in this house, but out on the farm we had all kinds of animals: farm dogs, barn cats, chickens, and the goats. Some people wouldn't consider chickens and goats as pets, but I did. I gave each and every one of them a name. So those goats were my friends.

"Mom didn't really talk to us about her choice before she had the goat butchered. I didn't find out until I went out to the barn, counted the goats, and realized that Wendall was missing. I was so mad at my mother.” Dad paused as one of the puppies let out a sad, mewling sound. After he picked up the little dog, he smiled at me.

"But what was done was done, and a few days later we had fresh meat that my mom used to make some sort of stew with. When we sat down I actually was kind of excited at the thought of eating meat again. It had been a really long time. So after prayers my mom began to serve the soup. Ernie dug right in, but just when I was about to take my first bite, my idiot brother let out a long goat-like bleat. I dropped my spoon so fast soup splashed everywhere.

"Needless to say I didn't eat dinner that night. Every time I tried to pick up the spoon, all I could think about was Wendall."

My sides actually ached from laughing so hard, and I couldn't get a full breath into my lungs. I could picture my Uncle Ernie as a kid, thinking he was so clever for upsetting his younger brother. In that moment, I felt a flare of camaraderie with Dad. I knew what it felt like to be picked on by older siblings. And it broke my heart a little that Dad hadn't gotten to eat that stew when they had been so hungry.

Dad wiped his eyes. "Funny, right?"

I nodded as I regained control of my breathing. "Funny," I said. "But… Uncle Ernie seems like he was a jerk as a big brother."

"I used to think so too," Dad said. "But now I realize he was just doing what older siblings do. For the most part he looked out for me."

"That's good," I said, hugging Jenny tighter. I thought that maybe Dad was just saying that so I'd think about Kaye and Penny in a good way, even though they annoyed me. A lot. Burying my face in Jenny's fur, I decided that I liked this side of Dad. I wished he could be like this all the time. He hadn't yelled at me once since the night had started. He'd convinced Mom to let me stay up. And he was telling me funny stories. If Dad laughed more, I was sure he'd be way less scary.

That didn't mean he'd let me keep Jenny and Barney, though. Especially if Barney didn't start nursing. I sat up straighter.

"Do you think we should try to get the puppies to feed again?" I asked.

Dad glanced at the kitchen clock. "Not quite yet. Besides they're all comfy. Look at them."

I peeked into the box. Sure enough, the other four puppies had collapsed into a fuzzy pile under the heat lamp. They snorted and sighed as they slept.

"And this little guy here is way too relaxed to disturb," Dad said, gesturing to Barney. The little puppy had fallen asleep on his back, paws flopping in the air. Every now and then his paws twitched like he was running.