Decoding Dot Grey by Nicola Davison

Author:Nicola Davison
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781774710579
Publisher: Nimbus
Published: 2022-04-11T13:09:05+00:00

Eleven

“Rachel,” I say, killing the engine in front of Joe’s house. Is she at the shelter waiting or sitting in her stinking car with the Mustang pulling in behind her? “We need to call her.”

“Right,” he says, disentangling from the pups. “I’ll do that.”

“Here.” I toss him my pager. “The number’s on there.”

Joe disappears into the house while I watch for predatory cars. As soon as he’s out, I climb over the seat to join the dogs. Until now, I haven’t had a good look at the pups. One jumps down onto the floor and circles, finds a balled-up newspaper, and squats. I realize that I, too, need to pee.

“I forgive you,” I say to her as she leaps to tackle one of her siblings. She’s got a brown patch over one eye like a monocle and the shape of a jaunty cap covers one ear like Mr. Peanut.

“Peanut, you’re the party animal, I see.”

The smallest one has his front paws on the door. He’s got the shape of an English saddle on his back. The other three are knotted beside me on the seat, soaking up the heat of their mother’s bum. And the mother is pressed into my chest, unmoving. I long to get her into a warm tub to clean off the stench of that place, feed her a meal, give her a bowl of water free of cigarette butts.

Joe reappears and motions for me to roll down the window.

“Rachel?”

“She’s home,” he says, reaching in for the smallest pup. “She heard the gunshot, saw us behind her.” Way, way behind her. “And she didn’t know what else to do.”

“And now?”

“We’ve got this under control.” We do? We do. “She’ll meet us in the morning.”

It takes us longer to get them all in the house than it did to coax them in from the yard. Whatever life the mother dog had in her seems to have seeped out. Maybe she was in the grip of adrenalin too.

Drugstore flyers cover Joe’s bedroom floor. He’s nabbed a cushion from the couch to serve as a bed for the mother dog, but she crawls into his closet instead, making a nest of laundry.

“Where’s your roommate?”

“He had to work through Thanksgiving last weekend, so he went home.” Right. The feast. A bit contentious in our house, Dad saying I could just have the roast veggies. The ones cooked in the liquid of a dead bird. What bothers me most is how much I like the smell, so I just stay away.

Joe’s room contains one double bed, unmade, a real wooden side table with one of those clocks that flips the numbers like a rolodex, and a poster of the convertible from the ending of Thelma & Louise, forever flying from the red cliff. His choice or a previous tenant’s?

He sits on the bed, then gives a boost to the pup with the saddle who slides in next to his hip. The other two join their mother in the closet. I take the floor cushion and two pups scramble across my lap.

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