BY THE FOURTH QUARTER of the Sunday night game, John had unknotted the problem of the live Nativity and its threat to his Christmas trip.
Darek. John would enlist his eldest son to take over the project. Sure, John would help Ingrid construct the set, but Darek could be there to oversee the event, just as he had the rebuilding of the resort. Together, they’d built twelve sturdy cabins, not to mention resurfaced the basketball court and planted a line of pine trees to cordon off their property from the blackened remains of the forest surrounding it.
Darek was ready to helm the preparations for the grand reopening. And if anyone would understand John’s need to take Ingrid away and surprise her, Darek would.
Maybe it would ignite a new flame between himself and Ingrid.
Not that the passion in his marriage had died —it simply needed to be restoked, maybe some new kindling added.
Especially after the cold snap in the car. Yes, of course he’d help her with the setup of the Nativity scene. He just wouldn’t stick around for the standing-in-the-cold-for-an-hour part. And he’d have to draw a line in the sand, cut off any hope that he might be willing to play the role of Joseph, the doting husband.
He’d be doting enough in seat 5B, winging their way over the Atlantic to Paris, then Prague.
However, maybe he couldn’t wait until Thanksgiving to surprise her with the tickets. Clearly she’d start asking questions —and short of lying to her, John didn’t know how to keep her from discovering the secret.
The Steelers kicked off to the Patriots with two minutes remaining, and he decided to tell her on Friday, over dinner. Someplace nice, in town.
Yeah, she’d forget all about their little squabble in the car and the recent chill between them. He’d fix it all by cheering her up, and everything would go back to normal.
No, better than normal.
He turned off the set when the Patriots scored again and headed upstairs. He expected to find lamplight puddling over the bed, Ingrid nose-deep in a novel. But she huddled on the far side of the bed, already sunk into slumber, the room shadowed and nippy.
John climbed into bed, and she stirred as if not quite asleep.
The urge to draw her into his arms swept through him, and he rolled over, intending to rest his hand on her hip.
She emitted a soft snore.
He couldn’t wake her. Not when she’d slept so poorly since the family fight this summer. He rolled back, switched off the light.
Friday. He’d fix things on Friday.
He pulled the covers up to his chin, let his brain relax, and imagined Ingrid and him in Paris, on top of the Eiffel Tower. Conjured up her expression as she grinned at him, the sadness vanished, the youth of their romance in her eyes.
“John! Wake up!”
He crawled through the swaddle of sleep and opened his eyes.
Light fell across the comforter, and Ingrid stood above him, wrapped in her pink terry robe. “I need your help.”
Huh? He glanced over, just in case he was dreaming, and found her side of the bed empty.
“C’mon, John, please. Help me.” She grabbed his arm, and he got up. Outside, the wind howled, rain spitting against the window —a sudden squall. He found his slippers and his robe, pulling them on as he followed Ingrid out of the bedroom.
“What’s the matter?” Maybe she wanted him to help close the windows.
“It’s Butter. She’s sick. She’s retching, but nothing’s coming up. Her stomach is distended and hard and she’s whining. I saw this movie about a dog who had this and died —”
“Honey, I’m sure Butter is fine. She probably ate something in the yard . . .”
Butterscotch lay in the hallway on her side, groaning, her eyes closed. Saliva pooled under her snout on the wood floor.
“She’s having trouble breathing,” Ingrid said, her voice tight.
John knelt next to the dog, put his hand on her belly. It felt hot, swollen.
Ingrid knelt beside him. “We need to take her to the vet.”
“Now? Can’t it wait until morning?”
He touched her arm. “Honey, Butter will be fine. It’s storming outside. We don’t want to go out in this —”
“I don’t care if it’s a category-5 hurricane! Butter needs to go to the vet!” She got up and headed to the bedroom. “If you won’t take her, I’ll take her by myself.”
Oh, for cryin’ in the sink —“Okay, just calm down. I’ll get dressed.” He glanced back at Butter, who opened her eyes and stared at him.
Like he might be the grim reaper.
Nice.
John threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, socks. Then he went downstairs and pulled on his work boots. Ingrid had already found a stack of old towels. She took them outside, running through the rain to arrange them on the middle seat of her old Caravan.
He put on a rain slicker and tromped back upstairs. “C’mon, let’s get you in the car.”
The dog tried to bite him as he lifted her into his arms. Figured. “Shh, Butter. It’ll be okay.”
He held the animal against his chest as Ingrid came back inside. She, too, wore a slicker, the rain dripping from her face, her eyelashes.
She ran her hand over the dog’s head as John moved past her. He dashed out into the night, ducking under the lashing rain, and settled the dog on the middle seat. Butter whined as he shut the door.
Ingrid followed, shoved the keys into his hand, and climbed into the car.
“I already called Kate, and she’s meeting us at the clinic.”
He didn’t want to consider what an emergency visit might cost. Probably the vet would give Butter some fluids and send her home.
As they pulled out, Ingrid turned and put her hand on Butter’s head, speaking softly.
“Remember the night when Casper drank that potion Grace and Eden concocted?” John said, more of a murmured memory than a question.
“Yes,” Ingrid said quietly. “I still want to kill them for that. Poor kid could never turn down a dare. I thought for sure he had appendicitis.”
She glanced up and met John’s eyes, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I’m surprised, frankly, that we didn’t have more late-night trips to the ER.”
He wanted to reach out then, catch her hand, but she turned back to Butter, speaking comfort to the animal.
John drove to town in silence.
The outside light of the vet’s office —more of an attachment to Kate Snyder’s home —shone hazy and bright through the rain.
He pulled up near the overhang of the porch, got out, opened the sliding door, then climbed into the Caravan and took Butter into his arms.
Ingrid followed him out, and he spotted Kate outlined in the door of her office. The sound of kenneled dogs —now awake —rose from the back of the building.
Ingrid followed John and Kate into the clinic, and Kate directed them to a room. He passed a very pregnant beagle in a cage, lying on her side. So maybe they hadn’t dragged Kate out of bed.
“I found her on my way to the bathroom, collapsed in the hallway, moaning,” Ingrid was saying. “She tried to throw up a few times, but nothing came out. And her belly, it’s so hard . . .”
John set the dog on the stainless steel table. Butter moaned again as Kate took a stethoscope from the wall. She pulled up Butter’s lips, inspecting her gums. She pressed them, watched the blood refill. Even to John’s unpracticed eyes, they seemed gray.
Ingrid took off her slicker, hanging it on a hook in the entryway. Apparently they were sticking around. He pulled off his, too, and returned to see Kate starting an IV.
“Can you help her?” Ingrid said.
John put his hand on Ingrid’s shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes wet. Then she leaned against him. He slid his arm around her as she fit into the cradle of his embrace.
“Butter has bloat, and we need to work fast,” Kate said. “I need to slow her heart rate down and get some fluids in her, or she’ll go into shock. Then I need to get her stomach decompressed.”
Ingrid clung to him as Kate worked on Butter. She finished inserting the IV, then turned to John. “I need to put in a stomach tube, and since my assistant is still ten minutes away, I’ll need your help, John.”
She took a tube from a drawer and ran it from Butter’s mouth to her rib cage, marking the distance with a piece of tape. Then she inserted a plastic block with a hole in the center into Butter’s mouth, wedging it open, and taped the block in place.
Butter groaned with the ministrations and even more when Kate inserted the lubricated tube into her mouth. Ingrid pressed her hands to her face, and even John gritted his teeth, watching Butter struggle.
But the dog swallowed the tube down. Kate gently slid it into the esophagus, working it into Butter’s stomach.
Suddenly gas and fluid began to spill from the tube.
Butter whined.
“John, pick up Butter and hold her in a standing position.”
He obeyed, and Kate massaged the dog’s abdomen to expel the rest of the fluids. Then, finally, she extracted the tube. John put Butter back on the table. The dog closed her eyes, breathing better.
“Is it over?” Ingrid said.
Kate washed her hands in the sink, grabbed a paper towel. “I’m afraid not. That was just to save her life.” She threw the towel into the trash. “I need to get X-rays to confirm, but I believe Butter has gastric dilatation, or torsion. It means that her stomach has twisted and she is not able to eat or digest her food. There are toxins in her body as a result of the fermentation in her stomach. It could rupture, or she could even have a heart attack.”
Ingrid nodded, her face pale.
Kate sighed. “She’ll need surgery, something called gastropexy. It untwists the stomach and tacks it in place.”
Surgery. John had already glanced at the fees when hanging up his rain slicker. This visit alone meant he’d have to downgrade their hotel in Paris.
“Could it happen again?” Ingrid asked.
“If she doesn’t have the surgery? Yes, and most likely her situation will become graver more quickly.”
“She’ll die.”
“In great pain.”
“And if she has the surgery?”
Kate pressed her fingers against Butter’s femoral artery, along one of her hind legs. “It could still happen again, although it’s much less likely.”
Ingrid ran her fingers along her cheek, wiping away the wetness there.
John put his hand on her shoulder, hating the decision they’d have to make. “I’m so sorry, Ingrid.” He looked at Kate. “Maybe we should give Tiger a chance to say good-bye —he’s awfully attached to Butter. Can you keep her until morning?”
Kate nodded.
“What are you talking about?” Ingrid had rounded on him.
Uh . . . “Don’t you think Tiger would want to say good-bye?” He frowned. “Maybe you’re right; maybe it’d be too hard for him —”
“Say good-bye? John. Are you seriously suggesting we put Butter to sleep?”
The silence in the room turned deadly, and in a second he realized his folly. He swallowed. Glanced at Butter, eyes closed, miserable on the table. “She’s old —”
“She’s family, John. You don’t . . . you don’t euthanize your family.”
“She’s a dog, Ingrid.” He reached for her, but she jerked away. He looked at Kate. “How much is the surgery?”
“She’d have to stay for a week at least. . . . Maybe five thousand?”
“Dollars?”
“Well, it’s not in pennies, John.” Ingrid backed up, her hand on Butter. “But last time I checked our savings, we had that and more. We’ve got the money —and Butter needs this surgery.”
He stood there, trying not to let her words send him reeling, trying not to hear the howl inside. “Ingrid. Be reasonable. It’s five thousand dollars. I had plans . . .” He ran his hand behind his neck, turned away. Big plans.
“What plans could possibly be more important than saving Butter’s life? A new snowmobile? Maybe repairs on the car?”
“How about a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe to see your daughter for Christmas?”
He didn’t mean for his words to carry such a sharp edge —didn’t mean to say them at all, really. But that’s what she did —drove him beyond himself sometimes. Drove him to make decisions out of his control.
Drove him to be the one to face reality.
John took a breath and faced her. He could admit he’d sort of hoped she’d hear his words, let them sink in. In his wildest dreams she actually smiled at him. Agreed.
Not a chance.
Ingrid’s mouth was a tight bud of anger. She shook her head. “So this was why you didn’t want to do the live Nativity. Because you wanted to spend our savings on a crazy trip to Europe?”
“I thought it would be a nice surprise.” He noticed how Kate had grabbed her stethoscope.
“A surprise is flowers, an overnight trip to Minneapolis, even —let’s go wild —diamond earrings. A surprise is not stealing me away from my home for Christmas —”
“But no one except Darek and Ivy will be here. And they have their own family now!”
“I’ll be here. And Butter —Butter will be here. I know the kids are moving on with their lives and that Christmas won’t be the same, but it doesn’t mean we have to run away. How do you think Amelia would feel if we showed up in Prague only to tell her that we had to bury Butter?”
A tear dripped off her chin. “Don’t you know me at all, John? I don’t want a trip to Europe. I want the dog you gave me to live.”
The dog he gave her. In a clarifying moment, he saw it.
He’d brought Butter home just a month after they’d lost their last child to a miscarriage.
He ground his jaw tight and nodded to Kate. “Do whatever you need to do to save Butter’s life.”
Then he turned, grabbed his slicker, and headed back out to the van, where the rain stirred up the mud and chill of the dark autumn night.