If You Only Knew(66)

“His name is Perry,” she tells me.

“Oh. Um, he’s beautiful.”

“He started pulling out some feathers. I just wanted to be on the safe side, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with your dog?”

“Uh...he had a seizure.” I glance at the clipboard and start filling in what I can—Leo’s name, address; Loki’s age: fifteen; breed: Australian shepherd/mutt. But my heart is racing, and my face is hot. First of all, Leo may be in there, saying a final goodbye to his dog.

And secondly, Dorothy’s here.

I bolt up to the counter. “Can I go back there?”

“He’s already doing a little better,” the woman says. “Seizures aren’t uncommon in older dogs. We’ll have you go back in a few minutes, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

I go back to my chair. Dorothy smiles. “He’s a cute dog,” she says, very nicely.

Shit.

I should tell her who I am. I could ask her why he did it, and if she loved him, and did she want to marry him, and was he going to leave my mother. I could call her a slut, tell her that she stained my memories of my father, my daddy, the man I loved best in the world, thanks a lot, whore.

I want to know why. I want to know how a woman can sleep with another woman’s husband. I want to know how it started, how my father took that first step away from my mother. Did he stop loving Mom bit by bit, the way Owen stopped loving me? Or was it pure, carnal sex, like Adam described to my sister?

I hope Dorothy never found anyone. I hope she lay awake at night for years, thinking about the poor widow and daughters and how she tainted and polluted his last months on earth.

I’m Jenny Tate. Robert Tate’s daughter. Great. I’d sound like an idiot. My name is Inigo Montoya, and you slept with my father. What if she says, Big deal? or Who’s Robert Tate? What if I’m wrong and it’s not really Dorothy?

I’m not wrong. Her face has been burned on my brain for twenty-two years. You don’t forget the woman you saw your father kissing.

But I just sit here like a lump, pretending to be totally engrossed in this form.

“Leo Killian’s friend? You can come back now.”

“Good luck,” Dorothy says, and I remember that smile, that sweet smile. She looks so much younger than my mother. Still.

“You, too,” I say, then I go through the swinging door with the vet, down the hall. “How’s he doing?”

“We gave him some medicine, so he’s groggy, but he’ll be okay.”

She opens the door to an exam room, and there’s Leo, sitting on the floor with his dog, rubbing his belly.

Those blue eyes are wet, but he smiles.

“Hey,” I whisper, and before I can stop myself, I bend over and kiss the top of Leo’s head. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

I sit in the chair and listen to the vet explain that this, while upsetting, isn’t that uncommon, and for the most part, a seizure will pass on its own. Loki is an old guy, but he’s in great shape, and obviously Leo takes good care of him. She gives Leo some medicine that should help Loki feel more energetic, then reaches down and pets Loki herself. “You’re all set. Just see Gina on the way out.”

“Thank you,” Leo and I both say. We sit there a minute, me in the chair, Leo on the floor with his dog, until he looks up at me. “Let’s go home.”

“Okay.”

When we go out to the waiting room, Dorothy is gone.

“Do you happen to know that lady’s name?” I ask as Leo pulls out his credit card. “The one with the cockatoo? I think I know her.”

“Um, let me check,” Gina says. “Dorothy Puchalski.”

Dorothy Puchalski.

The name sits in my heart like a rock.

* * *

I drop Leo and Loki at home, then run to Luciano’s and get us some eggplant parm, garlic bread and salad. When I get back, I go right into Leo’s. He’s sitting next to Loki’s doggy bed, petting the old guy. The dog is snoring.

“Everyone good here?” I ask.

“Much better.”

I set our food on the table, then open a bottle of red wine and pour us both a big glass. Leo gets up. He looks older, the poor thing, not quite recovered from tonight’s ordeal. God help him if he ever has a kid.

“So where’d you get this guy, anyway?” I ask.

Leo takes a sip of wine. “He came from a shelter.”

“Best place to get a dog, I hear.”

“It is.” His eyes flicker to mine, then back again, as if he’s embarrassed at what I’ve seen tonight. “So who’s Dorothy Puchalski?” he asks.

I jerk a little. I hadn’t thought he was paying attention. “Um...someone my parents used to know.”

“How did your father die?” he asks, and it’s such a normal question. It’s true—my father is dead. Leo knows this. He’s even seen Dad’s grave; Rachel told me how he sat with her that time. Me, I haven’t been there in years.

“He was shot in a convenience store robbery,” I say. “Buying a Green Watermelon Brain Freeze. He loved them.”

Leo doesn’t say anything, but his face... Crap, I’ve never seen a face that holds so much before in my life. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Dorothy, or maybe it’s the well of sympathy in Leo’s eyes, but my throat tightens unexpectedly.