Dad gets called into work on Sunday to finish reports and sign papers and talk to people about the fire on Friday at the pizza restaurant, which means I don’t have any chance to convince him that we should be at the humane society on Monday morning. That we should skip work and skip school and get there before they open, before they can load Parker into a van and take him an hour away from me.
Dad says I can come to the firehouse if I stay upstairs and do my homework. I already finished my math at Grandma’s and my book review is ready to go even though it’s not due until Tuesday, but I slide Wonder in my book bag and think maybe I can read a couple pages, stopping and thinking and finding the rhythm. Maybe Auggie can keep my mind off Parker until Dad is done at work.
The restaurant owner and manager and all the workers show up at the firehouse and sit around the kitchen table with Chief Reynolds and my dad and Sam and Officer Wilson. I can hear them talking about whose responsibility it is to clean out the grease traps and how could everyone just let it go and go like that? The schedules they kept hanging in the kitchen have burned, and as workers come in to answer questions, they just keep saying they thought the other person was going to do it.
“That’s a dangerous thought,” my dad says. “That someone else is going to do it, so you’re off the hook.”
Then Officer Wilson and Chief Reynolds write down all the facts for the insurance company, and it feels like it’s taking forever and ever. I want to see Parker. I want to run to the humane society, even though they’re probably not open because it’s Sunday, and even though my dad says that seeing him will only make it harder.
But so what?
I can at least go and check if maybe someone forgot to lock the door when they were leaving yesterday, or peek in the windows to see if I can catch a glimpse of anyone going in to feed the dogs.
I can at least try.
I can’t wait anymore, so I pack up my book bag and run down the stairs and even though it’s not like me to interrupt, I say, “Dad, I have to go.”
He looks up from the table in the firehouse kitchen where Officer Wilson is jotting in a notepad. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are warning me.
“Parker’s leaving tomorrow for another shelter far from here,” I say. “It’s just what you do. For family.” I take a breath that raises my shoulders up. “You let them stick their nose on your shoulder one last time. Or at least you try.”
Dad’s eyes change. They stop squinting and get softer and he purses his lips into a little understanding kind of smile and nods like he’s saying OK, then.
I’m sort of half running because I want to get there fast and hug Parker, but my legs automatically slow down when I get to the restaurant. I peek over the yellow caution tape and look in through the burned-out windows to the charred kitchen.
Usually that kitchen is busy with bakers tossing pizza dough in the air and catching them on their forearms and waiters going in and out with hot plates and bubbling pitchers of soda.
It looks emptier than empty in there—sad and damaged and hollow—and I wish there were some kind of instant replay where you could jump in and change what happened before, so that all the workers could take a second and check the grease trap and clean it out and not just think that someone else would. That way, Dad wouldn’t have to be at the firehouse filing papers and I could be convincing him that a dog would make our family even better and then we could eat pizza and drink soda like we do lots of Sundays.
The sign hanging on the humane society says Closed. The door is locked and the blinds are pulled down, but if I put my face close to the glass and close one eye I can peek between the blinds, and I see someone moving inside.
Bang! Bang! Bang! I knock until one of the vet techs I recognize lifts the blinds. When she sees me she gives me a look like I should know better, but I think she should know better too than to expect I wouldn’t show up the day before Parker has to move.
She cracks the door. “Where’s Max?” I ask.
“It’s Sunday,” she says.
“It’s Parker’s last day,” I respond.
She opens the door wider. “Two minutes, Cyrus.”
I step in and say thanks and it feels a little strange being here without The 7. I miss inching into their circle and sharing leashes and laughing and saying, “See you next time.”
The vet tech makes her way down the hallway. I hear a kennel lock squeak open and I hear Parker yip and the other dogs bark and then I see him running down the hall, a big brown blurry panting mess that lands right on my shoulder.
“Hey, buddy,” I whisper and scratch him behind the ears the way he likes. I whisper that he’ll find a new home soon and someone will love him as much as I do and maybe I can convince Dad to drive an hour for a walk sometime and that he can keep my T-shirt.
When it’s been two minutes, the vet tech reminds me that it’s time to go, so I stand up slowly and Parker whimpers and I do too and it makes sense now, what my Dad said about getting too attached, because when I step away from Parker it feels like something inside me catches and burns and I feel emptier than a scorched-out kitchen.
I move toward the door and push it open fast and I almost tumble right out because there on the other side is my dad and he’s pulling as I’m pushing again and I fall right into him and I don’t even try not to cry. I cry and cry and pound my fists on his suspender-strapped chest and tell him it’s not right. That Parker was all alone and scared on my birthday and he found me because he was supposed to find me and I’m not supposed to let him go like this.
I sniff my nose and clear my throat to say more, but Dad says something first.
“So go get him.”
I look at him and he juts his chin in through the door.
“Go on.”
And before I know it, Dad is talking with the vet tech at the front desk, and she’s telling him that they don’t process adoptions on Sundays, but my dad is saying it would save us the trip to wherever they’re taking Parker tomorrow and couldn’t she walk us through the process now? I’m hugging and patting Parker and he’s wagging his tail so hard I’m pretty sure he’s going to pee on my toe-scuffed Vans but not even that could make me back up a step. The vet tech sighs and starts showing Dad different papers and explaining how pet adoption works and Parker’s head is back on my shoulder and I’m crying big happy sploshy tears all over his fur and he’s panting sloppy strings of spit on my shirt and I know that this is right where I belong.