The Darkest Evening of the Year

who?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “He has no neighbors.”
    “No.”
    “No one to help.”
    “No one.”
    Heat bursts a window. Blisters of burning paint pop, pop, pop. Joints creak as nails grow soft.
    “Are you hungry?” she asks.
    “I could eat something.”
    “We’ve got that good ham.”
    “I’ll make sandwiches.”
    “With the green-peppercorn mustard.”
    “Good mustard.”
    Spirals of flame conjure the illusion that the house is turning as it burns, like a carousel ablaze.
    “So many colors in the fire,” she says.
    “I even see some green.”
    “Yes. There. At the corner. Green.”
    Smoke ladders up the night, but nothing climbs it except more smoke, fumes on fumes, soot ascending soot, higher and higher into the sky.

 
    Chapter
13
    W ith breakfast and the morning walk only a couple of hours away, Amy would not let the gang of three pan-handle cookies from her. “No fat dogs,” she admonished. In the refrigerator she kept a plastic bag of sliced carrots for such moments.
    Sitting on the floor with the kids, she gave circles of crisp carrot first to Ethel, then to Fred, then to Nickie. They crunched the treats enthusiastically and licked their chops.
    When she had given each of them six pieces, she said, “Enough. We don’t want you to have bright orange poop, do we?”
    She borrowed a dog bed from the study and put it in a third corner of her bedroom, and filled a second water dish to put beside the first.
    By the time Amy changed into pajamas, the dogs appeared to have settled in their separate corners for what remained of the night.
    She placed her slippers next to her bed, plumped her pillows, got under the covers—and discovered that Nickie had come to her. The golden had both slippers in her mouth.
    This might have been a test of discipline or an invitation to play, although it did not feel like either. Even with a mouthful of foot-wear, Nickie managed a solemn look, and her gaze was intense.
    “You want to bundle?” Amy asked.
    At the word bundle, the other dogs raised their heads.
    Most nights, Fred and Ethel slept contentedly in their corners. Occasionally, and not solely during thunderstorms, they preferred to snooze in a pile with Mom.
    Even made anxious by thunder, they would not venture into Amy’s queen-size bed without permission, which was given with the phrase Let’s bundle.
    Nickie did not know those words, but Fred and Ethel rose from their sheepskin berths in expectation of a formal invitation, ears raised, alert.
    Wrung limp by recent events, Amy needed rest; and this would not be the first time that elusive sleep had come to her more easily when she nestled down in the security of the pack.
    “Okay, kids,” she said. “Let’s bundle.”
    Ethel sprinted three steps, sprang, and Fred followed. On the bed, assessing the comfort of the mattress, the dogs turned, turned, turned, like cogs in a clockworks, then curled, dropped, and settled with sighs of satisfaction.
    Remaining bedside with a mouthful of slippers, Nickie stared expectantly at her new master.
    “Give,” said Amy, and the golden obeyed, relinquishing her prize.
    Amy put the slippers on the floor beside the bed.
    Nickie picked them up and offered them again.
    “You want me to go somewhere?” Amy asked.
    The dog’s large dark-brown eyes were as expressive as those of any human being. Amy liked many things about the appearance of this breed, but nothing more than their beautiful eyes.
    “You don’t need to go out. You pottied when we came home.”
    The beauty of a retriever’s eyes is matched by the intelligence so evident in them. Sometimes, as now, dogs seemed intent upon conveying complex thoughts by an exertion of sheer will, striving to compensate for their lack of language with a directness of gaze and concentration.
    “Give,” she said, and again Nickie obeyed.
    Confident that repetition would impress upon the pooch that the slippers belonged where she put them, Amy leaned over the edge of the bed and returned them to the floor.
    At once, Nickie snatched them up and offered them again.
    “If this is a fashion judgment,” Amy said, “you’re wrong. These are lovely slippers, and I’m not getting rid of them.”
    Chin on her paws, Ethel watched with interest. Chin on Ethel’s head, Fred watched from a higher elevation.
    Like children, dogs want discipline and are most secure when they have rules to live by. The happiest dogs are those with gentle masters who quietly but firmly