Page 30 of Shake the Habit

Either the dog didn’t understand or he didn’t believe me, because he kept up the sad sounds.

“Let’s go inside and get a piece of cheese,” I suggested, and he liked that idea a lot. We entered the dim foyer, where the old chandelier wasn’t functioning at all even with new bulbs, and the outlets in the walls didn’t work either. I’d already called my cousin Amory’s husband, an electrician, to see if he could come up and take a look. Caleb was giving me such a good deal on the rent that I’d figured I could help him out in return by getting some repairs done on my own.

I’d depend on JT and Owen to work on the wires, and my cousin Dasia could take a look at the old furnace. A new one would probably be too expensive for me to tackle, but maybe she could tune it up, like a car engine, and give it a few more years of service. I also wanted to talk to her and see how she was doing. Just before Christmas, she’d gotten married and had blended her family of two kids with her new husband and his family of three. Her mother swore it was going great, but I was interested in hearing from the source instead of relying on texts of thumbs-up or smiley faces.

I was sure the family had questions about what I was doing as well, and I had already fielded a lot of messages and calls about why and where I was moving. I did appreciate their concern, but I hated knowing the cause of it: they thought that I couldn’t handle my life on my own—but I could, because I’d changed. I had. Right?

Even in the dark of this February night and even with the electricity not totally great in every room, the house wasn’t at all scary like Caleb’s other place down in the valley. I didn’t really mind the dark or the emptiness. Sir settled down on my couch in his usual space and I took the other end, and he gradually worked his way over until he was in my lap. I told him all about Cassidy having a baby, which was safe because he wasn’t able to spill that secret to anyone else.

“She’s so glad,” I said, and thought about it. She and Jack would be great parents. “What would you think?”

The dog’s eyes remained closed, but his eyebrow moved slightly.

“I’m not asking about your desire to be a dad…my Lord, that’s something I need to discuss the next time we go to the vet. I’m sorry but a mob of little Sirs running around here would be very difficult.”

I took his silence for agreement. No, he wasn’t ready to be a parent.

“Am I?” I asked him. “I don’t do so badly with you, do I? We still have some disciplinary problems, like how you tried to chase that truck this morning and pulled me down.”

He had no response now and after it had happened, he also hadn’t seemed very sorry. Two neighbors had come over to help me, but I’d said that I was fine. It was a good time to introduce myself and they had been friendly after they realized that my huge dog wasn’t going to try to kill them.

“But besides the discipline, we’re doing ok,” I said. “I mean, you eat great. I brush your coat and your teeth, and we doour nails together. I read up on dog health all the time, and I buy you whatever you need. And the most important thing is that I love you so much. Do you know that? I love you like crazy and I think you love me, too. That’s the most important thing,” I echoed, and paused. “Sometimes that isn’t enough. No matter how much you love someone, you can’t protect them from everything. No matter how much you love someone, you can really hurt them, too. Like how you pulled me down today. Or how I used to make my parents cry.”

My Lord! Now I was crying again, too. “We’re ok. Let’s go to bed now and do more affirmations. I think I could use some.”

Sir plodded along with me up the stairs and into the bedroom, to the new mattress I’d had to purchase due to the pot roast problem. We cuddled there and I told us that we were just fine.

Chapter 7

Isaw the scene and my heart sank. It looked like chaos, with too many people wandering around, too many materials stacked up, and too many trucks parked everywhere. I got out of my car and frowned at a few of the guys who appeared to be taking a mid-morning break and having a beer. Or three.

“There’s no alcohol on this jobsite,” I told them flatly, and one of them grinned.

“Who are you, cutie?”

“I’m speaking for the general contractor, your boss. Coops Creek Construction doesn’t allow drinking. Pour it out and get back to work.”

They made a big show of putting their cans back into their coolers instead of emptying them, and then of sauntering over to where the barn looked like a serious wreck. After fuming for a moment, I followed them, and I found Marc in a huge argument with another group of subs. He was furiously telling them that none of what they’d done, none of it, had been according to thespecs, and he finished by ordering them off the job and saying that he wasn’t paying them a dime. They left, but they said a lot of ugly things as they did so.

I gave my cousin a minute to let the red settle out of his cheeks before I approached. “Hi,” I ventured, and he took a deep breath.

“Things are great,” he responded, because he knew what I was thinking.

“Good. I’m sure you can keep all this under control.” My Lord, I hoped so. “But, if you wanted to talk to your dad—”

“No, I don’t want to talk to my dad.” His father, my uncle Johnnie, had been a contractor himself for many years, before he’d switched careers and bought the funeral home in town to start something new. Careers…there was that word again.

I was sure that his dad could help with the problems Marc seemed to be having, but I wasn’t doing a great job myself—obviously. I’d tried, but he wasn’t giving me all the information I needed to schedule and order. I wouldn’t be able to change that in the short term, because I was leaving today for Hawaii. I’d come, in fact, to get a ride from Caleb to the airport after I’d dropped off Sir with another relative, Uncle Harry. He had a hobby farm and had said that he was happy to help out with my dog. His two cats, the big ladies who ruled their house, did not feel very happy about Sir’s presence, not at first. By the time I left, though, they were climbing on him and batting at his beard, and he seemed very relaxed about it. Aunt Peggy was a runner and she said she would provide the exercise he needed.

Also, Caleb was going to check in, which definitely piqued my aunt and uncle’s interest. “He’s a friend ofSir?” Uncle Harry asked, his eyebrows up. He looked exactly like my dad when he’d made that face, and my dad had asked exactly the same question before, too. They were brothers, so it made sense.

Marc also looked a lot like them except younger and currently, a lot angrier. Except, I did remember one time when he and I had been kids and had eaten a bunch of berries in the woods. We hadn’t known exactly what they were…it had been a problem, our fathers got very mad, and the memory made me want to give a little more grace to my dog for the weird things that he wanted to put into his mouth. My Lord, I was going to miss him!

I gave Marc more time but he was still looking angry and was in no mood to talk to me, and I had to get to the airport. I’d spent a little too long settling Sir into his temporary home, so I said goodbye and reminded my cousin to please text and call if he needed me, and I hurried toward the house. I’d be back in only a couple of days, but it felt like a lot could go wrong.

I didn’t want to say that to Caleb, since it was his barn that might have been in trouble, so instead I focused on what could have gone sideways with Sir.

“He really has to be in bed by ten. If not, he’s a mess in the morning,” I announced as we left in the truck. I looked back over my shoulder at the jobsite, biting my lip.

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