Feels Like Summertime

G
et a dog
, they said.
It’ll be fun
, they said.

They. Lied.

I had no idea that getting a dog would be like adopting a child. They wanted my blood type—you know, in case the dog ever needs one of my organs—and they wanted to know how much money I make a year.

Ha-ha. I fooled them. I don’t make
any
money. Not anymore. Not since my life went to shit.

My new dog sits in the passenger seat with his snout out the window, his tongue lolling so hard that it occasionally smacks him in the jaw when I take a turn. Why don’t I put the window up, you ask. Well, that would mean I’d have to smell the beast. I’m not one to judge, because I’ve met some unsavory characters before, and a few of them had odors I never ever want to encounter again. Not to mention that my own smell offends me on occasion when I leave the gym… But this dog, he takes the prize for
most foul smell ever
. It’s like sweaty ass. Sweaty ass that has been stuffed in a gym bag for days and forgotten. Then crapped on. That’s what this dog smells like.

I pull up to the police station and grab the leash, holding tightly. When I left the pound with this thing, he pulled me all the way to the car, not stopping. He sensed freedom, and I was the portal. Or at least my truck was. He hopped up in the seat, I cracked the window, and he’s been riding happily for the past twenty minutes.

But now, now he’s not happy that I want him to get out of the truck. I tug on his leash and he looks at me, hunkering down a little in the seat like a surfer might hug his board.

Then the corner of his lip lifts.

Oh, no, you hateful bastard. You will not growl at me. I lift my lip too, and I stare at him. His eyes hold mine, not breaking away. We go on like this for about two minutes, and then he stops, shakes his head, and finally gets his big ass out of the truck. He lumbers onto the pavement, stopping to stretch his great big body.

This thing is like a horse. They called it a Great Dane mix at the pound, but if it’s a mix of anything, it’s mixed with bear. Or bull. Or elephant. Because this sucker is
huge
. He stands at the same height as my hip, and I’m a big guy, topping out at six foot four.

I tug on his leash and say, “Come on, killer. I need to get my job back.”

We walk into the police station and the rookie behind the counter lifts the neck of her shirt to cover her nose. “What the heck is that?” she asks through the material.

I don’t answer her. Anyone with half a brain can see that it’s a dog.

“Is the chief around?” I ask her.

She shakes her head, which is not an easy feat while she holds her shirt to her face. “He just left. You might be able to catch him at his car if you hurry. Like right now.”

I lean against the wall and pretend to scratch at a stain on my shirt. “You mean like right now? This second?”

My new dog gets up, spins around, and the smell of him fills the whole front of the station. The rookie gags a little and points to the door. “
Hurry
, or he’ll be gone.”

I click my tongue at my new dog and he trots out the door behind me. I see the chief by his squad car, talking on his cell phone. He puts it away and stares at me through the shiny lenses of his sunglasses. “What the hell is that?” he asks, eyeing my dog.

“That, my friend, is my therapy. Get a dog, you said. So, I got a dog.” I show him off like he’s a prize on
The Price is Right
. “So can I get off suspension now?”

“No.” He opens his car door.

“Why not? I got a dog just like you said.”

“Three months, Jake. Three months. Not a day sooner.” He gets in his car and pulls out of his spot without even looking at me. But when he gets ready to pull away, he puts his window down. “Take that stupid thing home and give it a bath. It smells like shit.”

I look down at the dog. “It’s not
that
bad,” I grumble.

“It’s terrible. Go clean him up. Then learn to at least look like you like him. That’s the first step.”

“I like him,” I insist.

“Sure you do,” he says, and he finally grins and shakes his head. “Get your head on straight, Jake. Then come back. We need you, but we need you at your best.” Over the tops of his lenses he gives me one of those fatherly looks he’s famous for. Then he pulls out of the parking area.

I stare down at my new dog, who has sprawled himself out across the sidewalk and is licking where his balls probably used to be. “I’d do that too, if I could reach mine, dude,” I tell him.

He yawns and stares up at me. Then he sneezes and slings snot across my shoe. With a dog this big, that’s a lot of snot. I’m not looking forward to when he takes a dump.

My phone rings in my pocket and I pull it out, hoping deep inside that the chief is calling me to tell me he rethought his position on my return to work, that since I got a dog, he knows I’m rehabilitated. That he wants me back at work. That they need me fiercely and the department can’t continue to prosper without me.

“Hello,” I say, when I see that it’s an unknown number.

“Hi, can I speak with Mr. Jacobson, please?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Jacobson, I’m very sorry to have to call you with this information, but it’s about your father.”

“What has the old bastard done now?” I ask. He’s probably chasing one too many women around the bingo hall. Or he’s finally managed to catch one of them. Usually, they just slap him and he moves on to the next one.

“Your father has had a stroke, Mr. Jacobson. I’m very sorry.”

My gut twists and the pulse in my right eye starts to pound. “Is he dead?” I ask. My father might be a mean old codger, but I don’t want him to die.

“Oh, no,” she rushes to say. “He’ll need therapy, but he’s alive. Right now he’s complaining about the lunch special. And he just threatened to stick a fork in my eye if I didn’t find some chocolate pudding.”

The clench around my heart eases a little. “What do you need from me?”

“Well,” she stops to clear her throat, “here’s the thing. Your father’s insurance won’t cover in-home care, and he doesn’t want to go to a nursing facility.”

I hear grumbling from the other end of the phone and the nurse grunts. “Jake,” I hear. It’s my dad, and his voice is gruff with sleep. In my head, I imagine him lying there attached to monitors with tubes sticking out of him.

“Pop,” I reply. “What’s up?”

“The sky,” he says, deadpan.

“That’s good,” I reply, and I smile. “Better than if it fell down.”

Pop is silent for a moment. Pop is never silent. He always has something to say, and it’s usually not anything nice. “What’s up with you?” he finally asks.

I look down at the beast lying at my feet. “I got a dog.”

“One of those yappy little things?”

“Oh, no.” I tilt my head. The dog’s tongue is lying beside him on the sidewalk where he’s panting. “Definitely not yappy. Or little.”

“Well, bring him with you when you come, will you?” He gets quiet again.

“You…want me to come there?”

“Well, who else is going to come and spring me? This is like jail, son. They won’t let me go home unless I have someone to stay with me.” He clears his throat and I can tell he doesn’t like asking. “It’s not like I need you to wipe my ass or anything. I just need you to pick me up. Stay for a few weeks.”

“Okay, Pop. I’ll pick you up. I’m on my way.”

“How long?” he asks, and I think I hear him sniffle.

Pop’s in North Carolina and I’m in New York. “I can be there tomorrow.” If I drive all night.

“I’ll see you then.” There’s a shuffling of the phone and I can hear him talking to the nurse. “He’s on the way. Now get my chocolate pudding.”

“Put down the fork, Mr. Jacobson,” she scolds. She should be glad he’s not grabbing her ass, because that’s what he usually does. The line goes dead as the call is ended.

I look down at my dog. “Want to go on a road trip?” I ask him. His tail starts to thump against the concrete, but he doesn’t lift his head. “Let’s go, dog.”

He lumbers to his feet, stretches, and then takes his spot in the front seat of my truck. I wonder if I could run him through the car wash…

Probably not.

M
y eyes are
blurry when I finally get to the campground. Well, it’s not really a campground. It’s a bunch of cabins in a park near a lake. My family came here the summer I turned sixteen. It looks smaller than it did when I was a child, and a little more run-down, but to be honest, I’d take just about anything over where I’ve been.

My daughter, my copilot, is in the passenger seat. She’s the same age I was the year my parents and I came here, and I want to share this place with her more than any of the other kids.

“This is
it?
” she says, looking around at the thimble-sized cabins.

“Yes, this is it.”
This is the best place on earth, little girl, and hopefully the safest place.

“You have to be kidding me.”

It’s a good thing God makes children cute, or parents would eat their young. “Will you sit with the kids while I get the keys?”

“Duh,” she says with all the ego of a sixteen-year-old ingrate. Normally, she would have her face stuffed in her cell phone but I didn’t let her bring it with her. I didn’t bring mine, either.

I walk to the camp office, where there’s a metal box with a combination lock on it. That’s where the instructions said I would find the keys. I pull a piece of paper from my pocket where I’ve written the lock numbers and I dial them in. The box opens and I see a set of keys. They’re small copper keys and I pick them up. The key ring has a naked centerfold on it. That’s just like Mr. Jacobson. He’ll never change.

I remember Mr. Jacobson as a surly middle-aged man. He was never very nice, but he was interesting. You wanted to ask him things just so he would bark at you and threaten to beat you over the head with a boat oar, because when you turned your back, he’d be halfway grinning and there was a chance you could catch it if you looked at just the right time.

I wonder where he is now.

I see my children getting out of the car and I lay a hand on my pregnant belly. I’m eight months along, and every move I make causes a counter move from the newbie, as Gabby likes to call him. Gabby is my oldest, and she tends to get stuck with the children when I’m busy. Then there’s Alex. He’s nine. The youngest is Trixie, who is seven. We thought we were done after Alex. Then Trixie surprised us all, who got the nickname when Alex couldn’t say Tracy. Then life went to shit, and now I’m here, trying to escape it all.

The baby that’s still at residence in my belly gives a little kick. “I know, baby,” I say to him, “you’re not shit. Life is shit. Our circumstances are shit. But you, baby boy, you are loved. My coming back here proves it.” I heave a sigh and start toward my children, who are tumbling out of the car like jack-in-the-boxes. The two youngest live like they’re on coiled springs all the time. Gabby grabs Trixie’s hand as she slips it into hers and Gabby smiles down at her. Trixie is the quiet one, the one who has been most affected by my poor decisions.

“Can we go swimming?” Alex asks.

I look down at my watch. It’s seven in the morning. “We need to unpack first. Then we can go swimming.”

He jumps up and down, pumping his fist. Trixie leans her head against Gabby’s thigh and smiles her soft smile, the one that always makes my heart melt.

I pop the trunk and we start unloading the car. We brought baskets of clothes, but not much more. We were in a bit of a hurry. We brought what was in the washer and dryer, and the kids were able to grab two toys each. Nothing more. “Did you guys bring swimsuits?” I ask.

They all look at Gabby. “Yes!” she cries. “I got swimsuits. One for each of them!” She makes grabby fingers and starts to chase the little ones around. They squeal and run in circles, yelling while she growls and chases them.

We stand outside looking at the tiny cabin where I spent the summer the year that I turned sixteen. I asked for cabin number 114, and they said it was available. It looks just the same, but smaller. Or I’m bigger. I’m not sure which.

“Let’s go inside, shall we?” I say, forcing a smile to my face.

Gabby grabs baskets of clothes and passes them to the smaller kids, and Trixie’s basket immediately tips and dumps onto the ground. Her eyes well up with tears.

“No one here is going to get mad at you, Trix,” I tell her. Then I dump my basket, too. I grin. “Oops! Look what I did!”

My kids have had enough anger to last a lifetime. I don’t want them to have one more minute. Gabby dumps the basket she’s holding too, and Trixie finally starts to giggle. We sing a song as we clean it all up, and I stick the key in the lock of the cabin, giving it a gentle turn. The door creaks and dust falls down around us like snowflakes in beams of sunlight as we step inside.

“Wow, this is a pit,” Gabby complains.

“It’s not a pit. It’s charming.” It has the same country-blue curtains it had when I was a girl, only now they’re a little worn by time. And dust. I cough and push open a window. “Let’s get these open and air the place out a little,” I say. The kids and I go around opening windows, letting in the summer lake breeze. It’s the middle of May, and the campground probably hasn’t been used yet this year. In fact, I was surprised that they let me have a cabin at this time of the year. “We can clean it up. No worries.”

The tiny cabin has two bedrooms and a pullout couch. Calling them bedrooms is actually a stretch. They’re more like glorified closets with beds in them. Gabby will have her own room, and I’ll take the couch. And the two younger kids will share, since there are bunk beds in that room. “Let’s get some beds made up, and then we can go swimming.”

The kids and I go around putting sheets and blankets on all the beds, and we dust as much as we can, but it feels like every time we move, more dust falls out of the sky on us.

Finally, I flop onto the sofa. I need a nap. I drove all night.

The light patter of butterfly wings on my temple gets my attention. I open my eyes to find Alex staring down at me, his face touching mine, his eyes so close that his long dark lashes are sweeping my skin. “Can we go swimming now?” he asks.

I nod and hold out a hand so he can heave me to my feet. He pulls me up like a champ, and then they all run off to put on swimsuits. They come back moments later. “You’re not going to swim, Mom?” Gabby asks. But her eyes hold a world full of knowledge, more than she should have ever had to deal with.

“Not today,” I say.

She nods like she understands, but what she doesn’t understand is why my bad choices got us here, how I could have been so weak. How I messed it up so bad. “Let’s go, little kids,” she cries, barking like a drill sergeant. She got that from her dad. She also says “up and at ’em” and “get a move on, knuckleheads” just like her dad. The little ones line up behind her like ducklings, and then she starts to march. They follow her, walking with their knees lifting up high, their backs straight.

It’s a short walk to the beach area, down a wide path where those with bigger cabins drive golf carts down to the water. We don’t need anything like that, not while we have feet capable of walking, my parents would say.

There’s a cool breeze coming off the lake, but the air is warm and the sun is shining. I have a feeling that the kids are going to stick one toe in the water and decide it’s too cold for swimming, but they might surprise me.

We spread our towels on the sand and I sit down, crossing my legs in front of me. The sun feels good on my legs, so I pull my hat off in hopes of feeling it on my face.

Gabby rushes forward, pushes my hat back down on my head and adjusts it. “Right,” I mutter. I almost forgot. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to take them wading,” Gabby says. Lately she looks at me like I’m going to break, and I hate it. She shouldn’t have to deal with all she’s faced the past year. My biggest fear is that she won’t trust me anymore.

But to be honest, I don’t trust myself either.