Page 3 of Shake the Habit

“Thank you,” I repeated. “I really, really appreciate that you stopped.”

“Happy to help.”

“It’s a generous thing to do on Christmas,” I said, and he seemed slightly surprised.

“Right, it’s Christmas,” he answered, nodding. “I lost track of the days.” He looked down at the animal. “What about him?”

The dog was currently sitting on his foot, and I remembered something about possession being nine-tenths of the law…wasn’t that right? I took a step backwards, away from them. “He seems to like you,” I mentioned, but as I said the words, the doghopped up and walked toward my trunk. I had closed the door, luckily, but he stood there expectantly.

“No, sir,” I said. He wagged his bobbed tail. “No, I can’t take you. You smell, and the shelter is probably closed today, anyway.” But I didn’t want to leave him out here in the cold, either. I looked at the man. “I can’t have a dog.”

“I wasn’t suggesting—”

“I’m gone all day at work. I live by myself so there’s no one else to be with him. I’m totally alone, every day. Alone all the time,” I reiterated. “And if you asked anybody, they would probably tell you that I’m not the kind of person who could take care of an animal. They would probably say, ‘Kayleigh can’t be trusted with a dog, because she doesn’t care about anyone but herself.’”

He was looking surprised again.

“That’s not true,” I informed the man. “I would take great care of him. I would give him a bath, which he really needs, and I have money to buy food and anything else. I mean, my expenses are practically nothing. This car is paid off because it used to belong to my nana, and I live in a cheap apartment. I don’t go out, not ever. Not ever,” I repeated. “I don’t take trips but even if I did, I have a million and two McCourt relatives who could step in to watch him.”

“A million and two McCourts? Sounds like you’re all set then,” he said. “Be careful driving on that spare.” He was walking back to his truck as he spoke, his hand held up in a gesture of farewell.

“Wait, where are you going? What about the dog?”

He stopped. “I thought you just explained how you were taking him.”

“No, sir!” I said vehemently and the dog woofed a deep bark in response. It sounded as if he were arguing, and he jumped a little, too, lifting his front paws. “Oh, my Lord! What am I going to do with you?” I asked him.

There was only one answer. A few moments later, I was back on the road, heading toward my house. “You smell terrible,” I told the animal in the cargo area. “My whole car is going to reek!”

He had no response to that. But after all his insistence about getting in here with me, he didn’t much like the ride I was giving him. He cried in deep, hoarse whimpers that were really heartrending. “I’m sorry, I’m going as fast as I can on this tire,” I kept telling him, and I checked a lot in my rearview mirror to see how he was doing.

When I did that, I also saw that the truck was behind me. The man who’d helped me had pulled out after I did, and at first, it made sense that we’d be heading in the same direction. After all, we were going towards the closest town in the area, and I lived on the outskirts of it. But when I turned off the main road, so did he, and that was odd—and then when I made the next turn, he did, too.

So I stopped before he could follow me all the way to my duplex, and I got out. “What are you doing?” I asked.

The man rolled down the window. “I wanted to make sure you made it on that doughnut and that the dog didn’t act up,” he called. “You never know with a stray.” Then he pulled aroundme and drove off and I watched the truck turn at the next street and disappear.

Ok, good. If he had been telling the truth, then it was a nice thing, but it was unnerving…oh, no!

“No, sir!” I told the dog. “You may not sit in the driver’s seat. Get back. Get back, right now!”

He rested his chin on the steering wheel, and I looked at the sky and asked for patience.

But later that night, I had decided that it was a nice thing to have a dog. I had already determined that I would keep him when my cousin Cassidy called to talk about the day and gossip about our relatives. I told her my news, how I’d had the blowout and how I’d found a new companion.

“We’re already friends,” I explained. “It was meant to be, like a rom-com movie or a romance novel. I saw him, I almost killed him, and boom. Happily ever after.”

“I don’t know about this,” she answered doubtfully.

I did. I was absolutely sure that I was going to keep him. “We had dinner together and talked,” I said. “He watched me clean the bathroom.”

“If he got you to clean, then he is a positive influence.”

“You should be proud,” I told her. “I even used bleach.”

“Don’t use ammonia in there, then!” she immediately ordered. “They don’t mix.”

“I don’t even have that stuff.” I’d been lucky to find the bleach spray, and it had come from her. Cass had given me a bucket of supplies when she’d left her old house and moved into her boyfriend’s beautiful place on Lookout Mountain, above the city of Chattanooga. I was happy for her and I’d been glad to accept the surplus bottles, sponges, and rags. To be honest, I’d never expected to use any of them, especially not with so much…force.

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