Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
And now—well, I’m being offered everything. Not my daddy, not my mama, not my sister. But everything else I lost was given back to me today.
I’m not dumb, though. I know it all comes with conditions. And it sucks that people play that way. It would be nice, just once in my life, to be given something freely without an expectation in return.
When we get home, I empty my pockets onto the kitchen counter and remember I put that key in there this morning. I hold it up as Lowyn sits on the couch and takes her shoes off. “What’s this key to?”
She looks at it, squinting a little, slipping her shoes off and massaging her feet. Mercy barks and I turn to her and point. “Quiet now. Work’s over.” She gives me a look, but drops down near Lowyn.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen that key before. Where did you get it?” I can tell that Lowyn is exhausted because she sighs in the same way I recall from high school after a long day of homework, and football games, and cheering.
“The power went out this morning, so I went down to the basement to check the breakers. And this key fell out of the box when I opened it up.”
“Oh, that’s not the breaker box anymore.”
“I found it. It’s in the garage.”
“Your daddy did that for me. He said, ‘Lowyn, the electrics in this house are a mess, so I put in a new breaker box in the garage.’ So I have never actually looked in the old breaker box. I don’t go down to that basement. I had men fix the leaks as best they could, but that place is creepy and way too old to bother with.”
“Hmm. Weird though.” I set the key down on the counter.
Mercy barks again, and I finally understand. “Shit. I bet she’s gotta go outside. You go up, I’ll be up in a minute.”
Lowyn comes over to me, places her hands on my shoulders, then leans up and kisses me on the mouth. “Don’t take too long, because I’m about to pass out.” Then she flashes me a smile and goes up the stairs.
I look at Mercy. She looks at me and barks. I point at her. “Don’t you dare be mouthy all night long or I’ll take you back to the kennel.” She understands what I said, but she pretends not to, kinda lookin’ up at the ceiling. “All right, let’s go.” I point to the back door and she trots down the hallway and sits down facing the basement. “That’s the wrong door, doggie. We’re goin’ this way.” I pull the back door open and let her out, stepping out onto the back porch as she takes off into the yard.
Other than getting the key so I could let myself in the other day, I haven’t been out here. But two things have changed considerably. The porch has been rebuilt, just like the front one. Nice, too. It’s screened in, but obviously Lowyn has not gotten around to putting the screens back up after winter, because they’re not there and neither is the door.
Also, the back fence has been removed. Our yard—before it was Lowyn’s—had a tall, wooden privacy fence around it because it backs up to the hill and the woods and my mama was always yelling at me to stay the hell out of those woods. But Lowyn has removed the fence and there’s actually a little sitting area elevated up on the side of the hill. Just a couple of chairs and a little fire pit.
Of course, a fence comes in handy when you’ve got a new dog. But this dog is smarter than most humans, so when I say, “Stay here, Mercy,” when she gets close to those woods, she pretends like the thought of going up there never even occurred to her.
After a couple minutes, we go back inside. I’m gonna have to find her a place to sleep, but not tonight. Tonight she will sleep at the bottom of the stairs. And that’s the direction I’m heading when she suddenly veers off, goes over to the kitchen counter, points her nose at my keys, and gives off a single bark.
“Shhh. Quiet now.”
But she barks again, then sits down, looking up at the counter. And this is when it occurs to me that she’s pointing to something, the way a dog who has been trained to search for drugs might indicate it’s time for a search. So I go over there and pick my car keys, offering them to her.
She doesn’t move. Just barks one more time, and stares up at the counter.
The only thing up there is that skeleton key. And the moment I realize that’s what she’s pointing to, I get a weird feeling in my stomach. I pick it up and offer to her. She gets up, sniffs, barks once, then sits back down, just as she was trained.