Seven Perfect Things: A Novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Author:Catherine Ryan Hyde [Hyde, Catherine Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon
Published: 2021-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

Abby had walked almost a quarter of the way home when she realized she’d forgotten to ask a very important question. Or maybe she just hadn’t dared. It was hard for her to feel around in the missed opportunity and find the difference.

She turned around and trudged back up the hill, even though she was tired.

The puppies were still in the shed, where she and Elliot had put them so they wouldn’t try to follow her home.

She rapped on the cabin door, and the puppies heard her and fell into barking and howling.

Elliot came to the door and blinked into the light, as though she had woken him.

“Forget something?” he asked.

“If I do decide to tell my mom . . . well . . . I was just thinking. She’s probably going to ask me if I have a place to keep ’em. Because that’s a whole big part of the thing—of her saying yes or no—having a place to keep ’em. And I don’t even know what to tell her. You just said I could keep ’em in your shed while Patches has stitches and needs to keep that paw clean and dry. But we didn’t talk about what would happen after that. So . . . this is sort of hard, but I decided I just have to ask you. Do I have a place to keep ’em?”

He stared over her shoulder and into the distance, as though listening to the dogs bark with a sort of curiosity. Abby thought maybe he was thinking hard about her request.

“Well,” he said. “By the time Patches is all healed up, I will have headed home, most likely. And I guess it doesn’t make much difference to my situation if there are still puppies in my shed while I’m not even up here. So long as you keep it nice and clean.”

“You know I’ll keep it super clean. It’s just . . . you said you had to start filling it up with stuff again. Like another generator.”

Abby hated to say it. She would have liked to avoid reminding him. But it would be even worse if he remembered later and changed his mind.

“I suppose I could chain the generator to the back porch,” he said.

Abby rushed in and threw her arms around him. Too hard, she realized when it was too late to correct it. It seemed to knock the wind out of him. Abby could hear it go. A little “oof” sound.

Then she jumped back away.

“You’re the nicest man in the world,” she said, the words all tumbling over each other. “Thank you.”

Then she trotted away before he could change his mind.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.