French Braid(72)

“We could?” Benny said.

“Lots of luck, though, finding your kid a bathroom nowadays.”

“Oh, dear! What did you do?” Greta asked.

“Jif peanut butter jar,” Nicholas told her with a shrug. “Remind me to bring it in, by and by.”

He went around to the trunk to unload their belongings—just a couple of canvas duffel bags, but a considerable number of boxed games and wheeled toys—and he and David began carrying them toward the house. Greta followed with a plastic barn, and Benny walked next to her with a worn-looking plush bear. “We’re going to get a dog while we’re here,” he told her.

“You are?”

“Now, hold on, buddy,” Nicholas said, turning to give him a stern look. “We’re going to talk about getting a dog.”

“Can we?” Benny asked Greta.

“We’ll talk about it,” Nicholas said again, and then to David, under his breath, “Oh, Lord.” He had a weary, rumpled look, and he seemed thinner. And now that he’d shifted his sunglasses to the top of his head, David could see the strained skin around his eyes.

“I don’t think any dogs are even available right now,” David told him. “Our shelter has closed for the duration, and the staff has taken home whatever animals they couldn’t place.”

“Yeah, but one of that staff is Julie Drumm,” Nicholas said. “Remember Julie, from high school? She thinks she can line something up for us.”

“Ah.”

They entered the house from the front. “Pot roast!” Nicholas said, and he sniffed appreciatively.

“I thought you might like something homey,” Greta told him.

“I’m craving something homey,” he said. “It’s been pretty slim pickings lately.”

Then he told Benny, “I’m going to take our bags up. You can stay down here with Grandma and Grandpa.” Benny said nothing, but when Nicholas started toward the stairs he followed, still carrying his bear. Clearly he was feeling a bit out of his element.

By suppertime, though, he seemed more comfortable. He had taken a tour of the garden, where David let him pluck a tiny nubbin of a green pepper, and he had tried out a badminton racquet. In the garden he’d gone so far as to confess that he was a little scared of bugs, which David treated respectfully. “Of course you are,” he said. “I was scared too, once upon a time. Eventually you won’t be, but for now we’ll just steer clear of them.” Benny reported this to his father over supper. “Grappa used to be scared of bugs too, so he says we’ll just steer clear of them.”

“Or power through,” Nicholas suggested. “Learn to face up to them, maybe.”

“No, I think steer clear,” Benny said firmly, and he speared a chunk of potato. Then he told David, in a confiding tone, “I’m scared of banana threads, too.”

“Banana threads. I see. Well, I can understand that,” David said. He couldn’t help feeling honored.

In the evening, Greta read Benny some of the picture books from Emily’s and Nicholas’s childhoods. Benny proved to be on the very edge of knowing how to read for himself; he pounced on random short words and called them out to her. “Cat,” he said. “Dad.” And then, triumphantly, “Truck!”

“That is correct,” Greta said each time. She was always very formal with children. Even with her own, she had avoided the fluty voice and the cutesy phrasing that other mothers used, and children seemed to find that reassuring. When it came time for Benny to go upstairs to bed, he asked, “Can Granna tuck me in?” and Nicholas said, “Why not?”

“He misses having a woman around,” he told David once they were alone. “I don’t think he fully understands why he’s seeing so little of Juana.”

“It’s hard, I imagine,” David said.

“That was how come I’ve been talking about getting a dog, maybe—adopting one here and taking it home with us when we leave. Not a puppy, though; a grown dog. I’m not sure we could deal with a puppy, at this stage. But if you and Mom have any objection, we’ll just wait till we’re back in New York.”

“It’s fine with me,” David said. “Greta?” he asked as she re-entered the room. “Would you be okay with having a dog in the house?”

“Yes, of course,” Greta said, and she sank onto the couch with a sigh. Probably she felt as tired as he did. Children took so much energy! But it was a pleasant kind of tiredness. That night, David slept better than he had in some time.



* * *



—

The dog that Nicholas’s friend Julie arrived with, a couple of days later, was a sand-colored, short-haired mutt with one floppy ear and one upright one, which gave him a sort of quizzical look. He bounded out of her car and rushed up the front walk toward the house, where everybody stood waiting, since Julie, of course, would not be coming inside. “Wait up, boy! Slow down, boy!” she called after him, but he paid no attention and instead headed straight for Benny in a purposeful manner. Benny shrank back slightly but held his ground, and the dog stopped in front of him and sat down, panting and grinning, till Benny reached out and gave his nose a tentative pat with just the tips of his fingers.

“Did you tell the dog ahead of time it was a kid who’d be adopting him?” Nicholas asked Julie, and she said, “No, but I think he was hoping.”