Second Chance. Elizabeth Wrenn

clutching it closed.

      ‘Why?’ I whispered. My faults and shortcomings lined up in my mind like obedient soldiers.

      Bill reached out and put his fingers on my other hand, trembling on the table. His touch surprised me, making me look up into his kind, blue eyes.

      ‘You obviously put a great deal of love and care into your house, and you have some gorgeous things.’ He pointed to the colored glass on the windowsills, then to the largest bouquet, which I’d strategically placed for greatest effect on the glass coffee table. ‘Everything is so tidy and clean. I’m worried that a dog will not fit into this picture. Especially a K-9 Eyes dog. They’re not like pet dogs and can’t be treated that way. You have to be with them nearly all the time, morning, noon, and night. And there are lots of restrictions. For example, they can never go off-leash in an open area. And they have to learn to go to the bathroom only when you say. They can’t be working guides and have a strong retrieval instinct, so they can never chase a stick or ball or Frisbee.’ He looked at me, compassionate but concerned. ‘And Deena, dogs, puppies especially, chew and dig and knock things over and get into all kinds of mischief. Your house and yard just aren’t set up for that. Is a clean house very important to you?’

      Oh, God. How was I supposed to answer that one?!

      My house was … it was my … what? My life? Oh, God.

      How had I, a farm girl, come to this? Well, probably because my mom, a farm wife, worked her whole life to prevent the farm from coming inside. Rocky and Fordy were never allowed in the house, even on subzero winter nights. They did get to sleep in a heated barn, so they were comfortable, but they and their muddy paws and constant shedding were not welcome inside. I knew that K-9 Eyes required that the puppies sleep in the house, so I’d set up a little bed in the laundry room on the vinyl floor. Easy to clean up little accidents down there. When I’d shown him around the house, Bill had clarified that the requirement was not only that the dogs sleep indoors, but that they sleep near the bed in the room with you, since that’s how it would necessarily be once they were assigned to a blind person.

      Here I’d gone to greater lengths than usual to clean my house and prepare for this inspection, and now I was about to be denied because of it. My life was becoming too damn ironic.

      I put both my hands up to my face. Do not cry. Do not cry. I took a deep breath, removed my hands, and looked directly at Bill.

      ‘Yes. It has been very important to me. But not as important as doing this. I’ll do whatever it takes. Tell me what to do. I’ll bring a wheelbarrow full of dirt in here and spread it around, I swear to God.’ I took a breath, calmed myself. ‘I really, really want to raise a puppy for K-9 Eyes.’

      Bill was silent, staring at me, but to my relief he looked intrigued rather than alarmed by my outburst.

      Finally, he spoke a single word. ‘Why?’ His gentle, sincere voice pulled a lump up into my throat.

      Why indeed? Now I was on guard. I’d missed all the cues about the house. It seemed like everything was riding on my answer to this one-word question.

      The silence stretched across the room like a taut rubber band.

      I forced a smile so I wouldn’t cry. ‘Because I’m a dog person, and I’m, well, trapped in—’ I realized I was nervously twisting my wedding ring. I stopped, put my hands flat on the table, but then to my horror realized I’d begun the sentence without knowing how to finish it.

      I looked around the sunroom, my breathing shallow and rapid. Hairy was snoozing in a warm pool of March sun on the couch. A single cat hair was floating with the dust motes in the yellow shaft above him. Without looking at Bill, I told him: ‘Because I’m a dog person trapped in a cat existence.’ Now I turned. He was smiling.

      I’d never really thought about how much meaning different kinds of smiles conveyed. Bill’s eyes crinkled, his face softened.

      ‘Okay, then. Let’s get started,’ he said, and reached into his briefcase and handed me my thick training manual.

      At first no one spoke. Matt, Lainey, and Neil each stared at me, sitting artificially all together on the couch in the den. You’d think goldfish, not words, had just spewed from my mouth. In fact, they themselves looked like three gap-mouthed carp sitting in their green plaid bowl as I stood before them.

      Finally, Matt spoke. ‘A dog, Mom? You’re gonna let a dog come into the house?’ The three of them looked at each other as if to confirm they’d heard right.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Unbelievable,’ said Matt. One of his eyebrows lifted, the other dropped, as did his jaw.

      Lainey had only one concern: ‘What about Hairy?’

      ‘Hairy can hold his own against a wolf. I’m more worried about the puppy,’ I said.

      ‘But Hairy will feel jealous,’ she whined.

      ‘Well, maybe you could spend more time with him.’

      She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.

      ‘Deena,’ said Neil quietly, ‘don’t you have enough to do around here without having to look after a puppy? Besides, I thought we’d agreed on this. No dogs. They tie—’

      ‘I know,’ I cut in, raising my palm, ‘“they tie you down.” But it won’t! Not at all! I’ll take him everywhere with me. It’s required. And the local puppy group has lots of volunteer sitters. If we go away for the weekend we can just call and they’ll take care of it.’ Why I felt compelled to mention this, I wasn’t sure. We never went away for a weekend. Our last family vacation was a road trip to Disneyland when Sam was twelve. Neil and I hadn’t been away, just the two of us, in … well, we’d had that honeymoon trip to Vail after our wedding.

      Before he could mull over another argument, I added, ‘And besides, we didn’t agree. I’ve always wanted a dog. And this is exactly the kind of dog you’ve said is a good one: someone else’s. This dog will really always sort of belong to someone else. And, if everything goes well, the dog we raise—’

      Neil’s eyes widened.

      ‘I mean, I raise, will be a huge gift to a blind person.’ I waited. No one spoke. ‘It’s something I can do for someone. I can do this.’

      ‘DeeDee,’ Neil said in that pediatrician voice. My skin crawled at ‘DeeDee.’ Years ago it had been affectionate. Now most of his nicknames for me just irked me. ‘You know you’re going to fall in love with this dog, and then what? You’ll be devastated having to give it up.’ He said the word with uncharacteristic drama.

      ‘You say that as though you think I’m a basket case perched on the edge right now.’ Maybe I was, I thought, but I’m fighting to hang on. This was my fight. ‘I’m going into this with my eyes wide open, Neil. I will fall in love with the dog. It’s part of the assignment. But I love Sam and Matt and Lainey, also part of the assignment, and Sam’s off at college, and soon, Matt and Lainey will be. Do you think my world will fall apart then?’

      He looked up at the ceiling, pulling at his chin with his hand. His thoughts were all too visible. Yes. He did think I would somehow cease to exist without the kids. I had told him that it felt like a little part of me had died when Sam left for college. Neil had evidently surmised that it was one-third of me, and when the two-thirds sitting on the couch right now left home, that would be it for Deena Munger. No kids, no life.

      But the prospect of this dog, this worthy work, had put a tiny spark of life back in me. I wasn’t sure why, exactly. Was it simply the idea of having a dog again? Was it going up against Neil? Or was it that I needed to nurture another dependent being so I could feel useful? Whatever was driving me, I didn’t care. The point was, I was driven for the first time in a long time.

      I took a deep breath. ‘Look, I really think it’ll make a difference that I know I’m sending this dog on to a really important job and a good