Flash fiction number two based off the Bonnie "Ten things I love" list.
2) The way dogs
communicate you should keep petting them after you have stopped
Her Dad gave the
family dog the same nickname that he had given her when she was younger. Dee
sat at the living room couch, staring in horror as he called the dog to him a
few days after she had graduated and moved back in.
“Come here, Sweet Pea,”
he said. He scratched behind her ears and across her back until he found a spot
on her ribs that caused her hind leg to sputter out of control. He suddenly
pulled his hand away and laughed when she rubbed her forehead desperately into the
outside of his thigh. When he didn’t continue to pet her, she lay down and gazed
up at him, ears perked and wagging her tail. She leapt up and let out a
high-pitched bark. Dad finally caved then and went back to running his fingers
on the top of her head.
It
didn’t help when she first arrived to find that her room was turned over to the mutt.
The floor was littered with half-eaten twisted rawhide chews. The walls were
lined with stacks of canine products—tiny stuffed toys, tennis balls still
suctioned into their plastic cylinder, and a few spare dog beds for when she
tears the stuffing out of one again. The blankets on the bed were even wrinkled
into a tiny oval where she slept at night.
At dinner that
night, Dee made a joke about her parents using the dog to replace her.
Mom set down her
glass. “Oh, honey. No one could ever…” She paused for a moment. “Actually—maybe
a little bit.”
After dinner, Dee
went up to the room and got into bed. Dee thought about her childhood here. She had their undivided attention
from when she woke to when they tucked her into this bed at night. But, as a
kid, she always had trouble going to sleep alone in the dark. First, she didn’t
understand how she could continue breathing in her sleep. When her parents told
her she didn’t have to worry about it and her body would breathe for her, she
would still worry. She would be curled up in the sheets, holding her breath and
waiting for her body to take over. After she finally did fall asleep, she would
wake up in the middle of night and be convinced there were monsters everywhere.
Her parents would come in to her room armed with an aerosol can in each hand
that they claimed were full of go-away monster spray. Dad would spray in the
closet and Mom would spray beneath the bed until the surrounding smell of lavender
led her to sleep.
Dee woke up to find
that Roxie had gotten into the room and was now curled up behind the bend of
her knees. Dee started to turn on her back and straightening her legs
to shove the dog out of her bed. But then Roxie cuddled in closer to her and
let out a sharp exhale of breath from her nose. Somehow, Dee couldn’t bring herself to
disturb the sleeping pup. She did her best
to slowly and smoothly turn onto her back with her legs still mostly
surrounding Roxie. Then she drifted back to sleep, the two of them packed
together like two peas in a pod.
much love,
hedgie
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