Gladys
Each time she looked at the photo Jude sent, her foolish heart beat up with happiness. It was blurry, as if his hand shook when he snapped it. Something green, possibly a caterpillar? For a boy as miserly with his texts as his conversation, it was mysterious and wonderful.
Jude was acting as if they were friends. Not only that. He believed that True belonged to them now. She was theirs, and Jude was ready to do whatever it took to keep her.
Not long ago, either of those two things would have filled Gladys with happiness. Put together, they’d have practically made her delirious.
Be careful what you wish for, adults cautioned. Such dreary, depressing advice! But now Gladys understood that the two things she’d wished for—making Jude her friend and saving True—those two things were twined so tightly that if you pulled one loose, the other would fall away, too.
Keeping True at the fortress was supposed to be temporary, till they figured out what to do next. But Jude—and not just Jude but True too—had started thinking of it as forever. This was her fault. She’d told Jude that if he cared enough, things would work out. And now he did care, cared so much it would break his heart to give up True.
It would break her heart, too.
Maybe if she told Jude it wasn’t fair to True. As long as they kept her, there was always the chance something would go wrong. Didn’t True deserve a home she’d never have to worry about losing? A real home, with toys to play with, a dish always full of kibble, evening walks around the block on a real leash and then a soft bed to circle three times and sink into with a sweet doggy sigh, knowing she’d wake up tomorrow to another perfect doggy day.
What was more important: being safe or being with someone you loved?
Maybe that wasn’t even the real question. Maybe the real question was why should anyone ever have to choose?
She and Sophie were waiting for Mrs. Myers. Sophie had worn her fairy costume today and was flitting around the front yard with her magic wand. The leaves of the tree lawn tree were turning the color of butter. What kind of tree was it? Gladys had never wondered before.
Sophie tapped her with the magic wand.
“I grant you one wish,” she said.
“I wish you were a frog.”
Sophie leaped around, croaking, but when her mother’s pickup turned into the driveway, she immediately morphed back into a little girl, running with arms open wide as if she and her mother had been separated for years.
“Mommy! My best Mommy ever!”
“Sophie Marie!” Mrs. Myers swept her up. “My best darling girl! What do you say we go home?”
Gladys watched her buckle Sophie into her car seat, then climb behind the wheel.
“Thank you!” she called to Gladys as the truck clanked away.
Home was one of those words. Four letters, that was all. Yet some people might say it was the most powerful word in the entire English language.
Maybe in any language.
Gladys went up to her room and sat on her bed. She opened her laptop and typed in animal shelter.
A gazillion hits.
She closed the lid and pulled a breath, trying to calm her skittering heart.