“Kodi is happier with new dogs here,” I said to Mama in the morning.
Mama nodded. “He’s a pack animal. He likes the order of it.”
“I guess I’m part of Jack’s pack,” I said. “He slept with me.”
“I saw that when I came in to check on you in the night,” said Daddy. “Jack goes quite well with red poppy sheets.”
If Kodi loved having more dogs around, Phyllis next door didn’t.
“More dogs?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
She and Mama stood at the fence, on opposite sides.
Daddy came down the yard, his white vet jacket over his shoulder.
“Good morning, Phyllis,” he said politely.
Phyllis nodded.
“The dogs need homes,” said Mama. Her voice sounded tight to me. It wasn’t the way Mama usually sounded. “It’s what I’ve chosen to do. I save them. I take care of them. I know you understand. You do the very same thing with Phillip, you know.”
Phyllis took a little step backward. She was very quiet.
Alice and I were pretending not to listen. But there was no more to hear. Mama moved away, leaving Phyllis looking after her.
“Claire works hard at it,” said Daddy.
He put on his jacket. It said DR. CASSIDY on the pocket.
“As do you, Phyllis,” said Daddy.
He walked down the yard to say goodbye to Mama, leaving Phyllis just like Mama had.
After a moment Phyllis turned and walked back through the grass, and over the narrow place in the brook, to her house. She walked up the porch steps, standing there to look back at all of us.
“Poor Phyllis,” I said in a soft voice.
“What do you mean?” asked Alice.
“I don’t know. Poor Phyllis doesn’t understand much of our world.”
Alice nodded.
“Almost as if she missed too many days of school,” said Alice.
I smiled.
“That’s a nice way to say it,” I said.
“I’m a writer,” said Alice. “I put words to things. But you know all those things, Zoe.”
I stared at Alice, surprised.
In the yard the dogs, all of them, tumbled and ran and played as if they understood all there was to know.
And maybe they did.
It was the next day that life changed for all of us.
It was the day that it happened.
It would be a rainy day.
The cows would graze in the meadow.
Far off the horses would run when the wind came up.
But the next day would be the day that it happened.