Happily Ever Esther by Steve Jenkins

Author:Steve Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

After nine long days in the hospital, bringing Esther home was such a relief. We knew she would need a few weeks of taking it easy before she’d be fully back to her regular routine. We were just happy she was home, and I was more than ready to sleep in my bed, instead of on pine shavings.

What Derek and I didn’t expect were all the little behavioral changes that started creeping up almost immediately upon her return. Her personality was much softer. Those little anger flashes and the bratty attitude, particularly toward Derek, had subsided. She was much calmer and sweeter than she had been. She started sitting up in bed during the day and would hang her head while simultaneously making little honking noises. She had done that before on occasion, usually during Shark Week (which is what we call her period), and we had a whole routine when that happened: Either Derek or I would stop what we were doing and go over and sit beside her. That was usually all she wanted. Once you were there, she would lie back down while you sat with her for a few minutes. Then you could get up and go back to what you were doing. Now, however, she was hanging her head and making the noises much more frequently. And as soon as you got up to go, she’d get up too. She wanted somebody beside her at all times, and the dogs weren’t good enough. It had to be one of us.

She even started coming into the bedroom at night, giving us flashbacks to our time in Georgetown and the “piggy parades.” We’d hear her coming down the hallway and know she was heading straight for our bed. We’d quickly get our dog Shelby out of the way and brace for Esther’s arrival, at which point she’d storm right onto the bed. The funniest part was that she always climbed up on Derek’s side. (Well, funny for me, less funny for Derek.) She’d grunt as she approached, but she didn’t slow down one bit as she lumbered onto the mattress, pushing Derek out so she could lie down with me. This happened every night for two weeks, until we finally accepted defeat. We moved upstairs to the guest room, surrendering the master bedroom to Esther.

This coincided with our finally starting to do some renovations on the house, particularly to what was now Esther’s bedroom. The original wallpaper was right out of the eighties: a white background with a raised floral pattern and metallic accents in pink and silver. Once, it might have been quite fashionable, but that time was a few decades ago, before we were even born. Acid-washed jeans and overalls apparently were fashionable back then as well, but that didn’t mean we wanted them in our home.

The paper was also starting to peel—almost the entire sheet in certain places. We had used box tape as a temporary fix to hold it in place until we got around to renovating.

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