The Dogfather

Sammy was about to become a houseguest instead of a visitor, I took pains to avoid spoiling my dogs’ potentially friendly attitude toward him. In this instance, the wrong dog would’ve been the same-sex dog, Rowdy. I crated him and then took care to protect Kimi from the sense that she was being displaced by an adorable rival. According to the Declaration of Canine Independence, all dogs are created unequal and are entitled to unequal treatment under benevolent human law. I intended to assure Kimi that she was still Miss Alpha in our little pack and that Sammy occupied a rank so far beneath the lowliest omega that the Greek alphabet was incapable of expressing how unthreatening and insignificant he was.
    In preparation for his arrival, I put Kimi on leash and took her outside, in part so that she’d get to march back into the house ahead of the little guy. As we waited for Steve’s van to drive up, I fed her liver treats and bounced around with her in the driveway, on the sidewalk along Appleton Street, and around the corner to Concord Avenue and the front of the house. This property is my principal investment and a good one; as the neighborhood has become gentrified, real estate values have ascended. The basket of flowers that I’d kicked into a corner of the porch was setting an untony tone. I retrieved it and was carrying it to the trash barrels under the back steps when Steve’s van approached on Appleton Street and pulled into the driveway. Instead of depositing the demolished flower arrangement out of sight in one of the barrels, I dropped it next to the trash containers. Steve, I thought, shouldn’t have to wait for condolences while I fussed with refuse.
    When Steve got out of his van, I moved into his arms in a way I hadn’t done for ages. Possibly by accident, Kimi didn’t step between us. Steve rested his head on mine and breathed into my hair. He held me so tightly that I felt surrounded by his strength. He had the same clean smell I’d always loved. Men’s cologne was something he’d never used. Now that his mother was dead, no one would give him any ever again. All her ill-chosen presents would stop: the hideous sweaters he donated unworn to charity, the incompetently embroidered wall hangings depicting dogs and cats suffering from what Steve always maintained were easily diagnosable afflictions. He’d miss the unintended amusement her gifts had provided. He might even miss her cooking: the lime gelatine salads with fake mayonnaise, the canned-soup casseroles, and the other specialties of the house that I’d slipped to her dog whenever I’d visited. Could the true cause of her death have been that dreadful food?
    “She was really a good mother,” I said. “She loved you a lot. She adored you.” Consequently, she must have hated everything about Steve’s marriage to the rotten, if beautiful, Anita, but I didn’t say so.
    “She always liked you, Holly.”
    “I liked her, too. Steve, I am so sorry.” Unaccountably, Kimi had refrained from barging in on the tenderest moment Steve and I had shared since he’d married the human fiend. Even now, observing an exchange that didn’t include her, Kimi continued to sit on the asphalt, but broke her silence by emitting one loud, musical, and highly expressive syllable: Whoooooooo. Her breath control is stupendous; she should give voice lessons. Steve recognized this particular monosyllabic outpouring as a vocalization that Kimi reserved for special people and special occasions. When he laughed in reply, it was with Kimi and not at her.
    Beautiful.
    Except that Steve also turned to look in Kimi’s direction and thus saw the demolished floral arrangement I’d dropped next to the trash barrels. With regard to divine punishment in the form of bad luck, let me say that although I’d recently been guilty of moral compromises in my dealings with Enzio Guarini, I had always tried to be a good person—hardworking, kind to animals, and except in the lamentable cases of Mary Wood and Harry Howland, loyal to human friends. For whatever reason, Heaven did not reward me at this crucial moment by celestially burning out the flood lights mounted over the back door of my house. On the contrary, the floods lived up to their name by washing light all over the ruined flowers and all over Steve’s face. When I’d kicked that basket, I hadn’t merely tapped it with my foot; I’d smashed it to pieces. The basket lay on its side. Crushed blossoms and