Gladys

Gladys rang Jude’s doorbell and when nobody answered, she rang it again. Meanwhile, her phone pinged with another text from Mama, this one asking where she was so long.

Mateo is blissfully asleep, Gladys texted back. Sophie is enjoying the walk. She added a string of smiling, winking, kiss-blowing emojis.

“It stinks here,” Sophie said, pinching her nose.

Time to head home, Mama texted.

“I don’t like that thing.” Sophie pointed at the mutilated fir tree.

Gladys tried knocking. Across the driveway, the neat-as-a-pin neighbor was spraying something with a highly unpleasant odor. Noxious, thought Gladys—such a perfect word. She raised her fist to knock again just as the door opened.

Jude smiled. The sun finding a minuscule crack in a wall of storm clouds—that’s what kind of smile it was. It was entirely possible Jude didn’t even know he’d smiled.

But Gladys did. Gladys saw.

A foot taller than she was, he peered down at the top of her head.

“Why’s your hair full of pine needles?”

“What?” She ran a hand through it, scattering needles like a dried-up Christmas tree. She thought fleetingly of her lost green velvet hat. “Her house. There’s a tall tree out front and—”

“Whose house?”

Spider hurtled out the door. He wore a Chucky mask, but that wasn’t the most remarkable thing about him.

“He’s naked!” Sophie shrieked with such delight she startled Mateo awake again. His eyes went wide. His arms flew out. He opened his mouth and sucked breath forever until...

“Whoa!” Jude clapped his hands over his ears.

“Siren,” said Gladys, picking the baby up. “Mateo is a siren that’s assumed the form of a human.” She jiggled him on her hip as Spider, a bandage on his forehead, took the baby’s place beside Sophie in the stroller. Fortunately, he wasn’t 100 percent naked. He wore Thomas the Tank Engine underpants.

“Get your butt out of that stroller,” Jude said.

“You said butt!” crowed Sophie, who’d abruptly changed her mind about how much she hated it here. “I pooped in the bushes,” she told Spider.

“I pooped on Jude’s head,” Spider said, sending Sophie into a giggle rhapsody. He offered her his Chucky mask, which Sophie accepted with delight.

“I guess Spider survived,” Gladys said.

“Yeah. Too bad.”

Gladys’s phone pinged with another text from her mother, but she ignored it.

“Whose house?” Jude asked again. His yellow hair hung over his eyes and when he pushed it back, she felt as if he was pushing her away, too. Then she reminded herself he’d smiled when he saw her. Against his will maybe, but still. She switched the wailing Mateo to her other hip and jiggled him harder.

“The woman with the dog.”

“For real?” He took the baby, held him close, and rubbed a circle on his little back. Mateo drew a shuddery breath and rested his head on Jude’s chest. “Where does she live?”

“Wait. How’d you do that?” Gladys asked.

“What?”

“The only one who can ever soothe Mateo is my mother.”

Jude shrugged. “Spider gave me lots of practice. Anyway where does she live? Under a rock, right?”

“On Seventh Street. Mrs. Marsh lives there—did you have her for third grade? She didn’t have any food or water, the dog I mean, so I gave her a biscuit but I fell over the fence, which is how I got needles in my hair, I guess. She, the lady I mean, came out and hurled all kinds of threats at me, plus it turns out True Blue’s really named Pookie, and—”

“I thought its name was Spooky. Where’d you get True Blue?”

Gladys ducked her head. She hadn’t meant to tell him that. “That’s what I call her. True for short.”

“You mean him.” Was he about to smile again?

“I checked. She’s definitely a girl.”

Jude’s cheeks pinked up. Gladys resisted thinking how cute that made him look. She didn’t want to get sidetracked.

“I’ve never really liked dogs, to tell you the truth,” she said. “But True’s different.”

Should she tell him about their wordless communication? How powerful forces had drawn her to True? How she was sure the dog was looking for something she’d lost? Mateo bunched a fold of Jude’s T-shirt in his little fist. Babies didn’t trust just anyone, Mama always said. Babies knew.

“You can tell by her sensitive, intelligent eyes. You know the way she sits still, gazing into the distance? Like she’s waiting for something?”

Gladys wanted to add, Waiting to be truly loved, but was too embarrassed. The way Jude looked at her, though, made her hope he understood. He glanced away, looked back, then suddenly screwed up his face.

“Your imagination’s out of control,” he said. “That dog’s eyes are weird. No way you can tell what it’s thinking.” He shook his head. “You’re really lucky it didn’t bite you.”

“You’re wrong. She needs help. I—”

A car turned into the driveway and a pretty woman got out. She looked totally harmless, even nice, but Spider jumped out of the stroller and Jude got a panicked look.

“You gotta bounce,” he told Gladys, handing back the sleeping Mateo.

The woman had to be his mother. She had identical blond hair and deep brown eyes. Her work uniform was rumpled and she walked as if her feet hurt, but she regarded Gladys in a not-unfriendly way.

“That baby’s half as big as you.” She smiled and touched the bottom of Mateo’s foot. The scar on her upper lip turned the smile crooked and made her look...Gladys searched for the word. Fragile? Breakable? His mother tapped Jude’s chest. “I hope you told your friend you’re under house arrest.”

“We were just leaving,” Gladys said. Jude had lulled Mateo into a sleep so deep, the baby didn’t even stir when she set him back in the stroller. She took the Chucky mask from Sophie and handed it to Spider. “Very nice to meet you.”

As she heaved the stroller down the front walk, she heard Jude’s mother ask him, “What in the name of God is that stink?”

“Mr. Peters.”

“It smells like a freaking skunk convention! And who’s that cute little girl?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Gladys.” She spun around. “My name is Gladys.”