Something about the downcast expression in Herbie’s face starts eating into me. The sadness, the resignation. And, omigod, he’s been living in the shelter for months. I can’t help thinking of how Clive felt—like there was no one in the world out there for him.
“You can’t change the whole world,” the man from the Humane Society said. “But you can change the whole world for one dog.”
“Anthony,” I say, barging into his room. He sits at his computer and ignores me. “There’s this dog…”
He still ignores me.
“And not just a dog, but a very sad and pathetic dog.”
He still ignores me.
“Anthony, remember how much dad loves dogs? How his face would light up when he looked at one?”
He takes his fingers off the keyboard and turns to face me. “So?”
Anthony picks me up at school the next day and looks at me warily. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Anthony…”
“What?”
“He has no one in the world and he’s sweet and all good and we’re going to give him a real life and a happy home outside of that miserable shelter and he’s going to help all of us start to…I don’t know…open our hearts and feel love again?”
“I don’t know…”
“I do know Anthony. And Daddy would be proud of us, you know that. He loves dogs. He loves to save dogs. You remember that, don’t you?”
Anthony looks away.
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he says, biting his lip.
“A pit bull?” my mom says, stepping back to the couch and grabbing onto the arm. “A pit bull?”
“Mom, he’s not a pit bull, he’s Herbie. And he’s ten years old, Mom, which makes him a senior, and he’s friendly. Don’t stereotype him.”
She sits there and watches Herbie, and Herbie watches her back.
“Is he Italian?” my mom asks.
“What?”
My mom starts to laugh, then so do I, and so does Anthony, and we’re laughing so hysterically that we can’t stop, and Herbie’s just watching all of us like, what? And then I try to remember the last time we all laughed like that and I draw a total blank.
I fill the dog food bowl I bought Herbie with a cup of his senior diet chicken kibble and put it in front of him. He practically inhales the food.
“See, Ma?”
“He’s Italian,” my mom says. Then she goes over and pats Herbie on the head. “You’re a good boy,” she says to him. “A good boy.”
Herbie looks up at her and licks her hand. A moment later her eyes fill with tears.