Dog Bite - Page 13

I couldn’t blame them. How could I? I called the Gingerbread House and said Sophie would stay home, and called the school to ask about Bella transferring to online for a while, and the lady who answered the phone said I had a protection order against the school and that they would only speak to Heather. I forgot to call the dog door couple, and the shop called and chewed me out. I’m sorry, I said, and told them the kids were sick. That worked, and I made the girls help pack the truck with our recycling.

We made the plant just before ten. It’s on the Southside of town, surrounded by places Heather might be. If she’s still here at all. Unsorted cardboard and cans of Diet Coke and milk jugs and everything else stuffed in the back of the pickup. We lost some to the wind as we shot down the 12 South. Bella, Sophie, and me. All was good. Out beyond the farms, the little bands of cottonwoods dotting the middle distance resembled what I always imagined the Sahara looked like. But we weren’t on safari. We were dropping off recycling. As we rode by Vegas’ place, I searched for the dog. It wasn’t out there.

Sophie liked to carry the plastic milk jugs over her head like they weighed one thousand pounds, and she was the strongest girl on earth. Who’s to say? But when she got to the dumpster, she whined until Bella gave her a boost, and then she tossed it in. They repeated this process one by one as if once they finished, I’d make them go back to school. This would take a while. I stood in the back of the truck bed, throwing cardboard into the shed when I saw him. Dom. He was in his city vest and hopped on a forklift, and it beeped as he backed up and then grabbed garbled stacks of recycling and disappeared into the packing plant. I watched him as I tossed two and three boxes at a time. She’s gone, I said in my head. She’s gone.  It was warm and I started to sweat. A dog barked from the neighborhood. Somewhere on Alamosa’s Southside, and I flipped in an instant, found the girls, and realized we’re safe. They had only moved three milk jugs. Maybe forty more to go. I sat on the tailgate and watched them. Bella laughing.

We drove to Sonic after winding through the neighborhood where I feared Heather might be. I imagined her crawling out of a trap house, feet dragging behind her, like a zombie. I feared she’d come for the girls. I blew through a stop sign and sped up toward State Street. Bella looked up from her phone and questioned my driving with an annoyed flick of her eyebrow. Her mother could do that too. I slowed down and made our way down State. We parked by the Rio Grande and ate burgers and drank milkshakes, and Bella tried explaining the Lizard band to Sophie. She didn’t get it either.