Reasons for Waking by Karen Foster

Author:Karen Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bold Story Press

CHAPTER 23

We ate dessert in the living room, angled toward each other on the sofa, separated by the middle cushions, plates in our hands, mugs on coasters on the coffee table. Dilsey entertained us, shaking the floppy elephant she loved as much as her ball. Each time one end or the other smacked against her head, the toy emitted a tinny trumpet that enticed her to shake it harder. If she weren’t so fond of the damn thing, I’d have pitched it long ago.

The first taste of bread pudding left me speechless. It was marshmallow soft and melted away my agitation from the conversation we’d just had. I shut my eyes and allowed the first bite to linger. Sometimes the little things made all the difference.

“What’s wrong?” Scottie asked.

I swallowed. “Nothing other than you’ve blasted my formerly favorite dessert out of the galaxy.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Only the clink of stainless on stoneware and Dilsey’s playing broke our easy silence. I licked my fork one final time. “Uh, excuse my manners.”

“There’s plenty more.” She licked her own fork.

“No way. I’m stuffed.”

“I’ll leave the leftovers with you.”

“How can I say no?”

“Thanks so much for showing me your wonderful house. Even though you didn’t want to.”

I regretted that my reluctance had been so obvious. Scottie was personable, if pushy and talkative. Her dinner was more than a fair trade for the tour. It outdid anything I’d have cooked for myself. “It’s not personal. I . . . No, no, no!”

Immobile in the archway at the entrance to the living room, legs braced, Dilsey stared with wide and dark unseeing eyes. She’d dropped her elephant, and strands of saliva shimmered like tinsel from her lower jaw. Before I could move, her legs flipped out from under her, and she thudded onto her side.

My plate banged to the coffee table when I jumped up.

“Oh my God!” Scottie sprang from the couch. “What’s happening?”

I yanked my sweater over my head, checked my watch, and knelt beside Dilsey. Placing the wadded-up sweater between her thrashing head and the floor equated to waltzing with a partner doing the twist. But I knew all the moves.

The seizure’s violence threatened to pummel Dilsey against the brick hearth, so I slung her by her tail into the middle of the room. Her head twisted from side to side, her jaws clamping and releasing, clamping and releasing, with the decisive snap of an alligator’s.

After two minutes and three seconds, she stopped thrashing and lay still.

Long, very long, but not record setting. Twenty-nine days after the last cluster on January 14. About right. The potential for Dilsey to seize this weekend should have prompted me to refuse or at least delay tonight’s dinner, but Scottie’s self-invitation had blindsided me, and I hadn’t even considered that Dilsey might seize.

I gripped the loose skin over Dilsey’s withers and rump and slid her away from a puddle of urine but succeeded only in spreading it. Her raspy heaving signaled the fluid pooling in her lungs. This would be one of those long, exhausting nights.

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