The Wicked Flea

name.
    Repeatedly.
    Afterward, Rowdy’s lady love flew back home to the Pacific Northwest. Practically before the plane had landed in Seattle, I began to check my E-mail every hour. When I wasn’t logging on, I was hovering by the phone. Filled with nervous energy, I finished my cookbook and mailed the manuscript. My notes about fatal dog attacks ended up at curbside on trash day; my interest had shifted from death to birth. I had no intention of breeding Kimi. Knowing her as I did, I felt certain that she’d produce a litter of ten or twelve vigorous little female-rights fanatics. What would I do with them? There’s barely room enough in the world for one Kimi, never mind a whole litter. As for me, there wasn’t a suitable stud in sight. Besides, I’m ordinary. Rowdy is special. Kimi agrees. As I tell him, he’s our boy. That’s an understatement. Rowdy is the dog.
    The gestation period of Canis familiaris is sixty-three days, give or take. In some cases, each of those days is a hundred years long. A few weeks after the breeding, Cindy sent E-mail to report that Emma was suffering from all-day-long morning sickness. According to Cindy, Emma was ravenously hungry. When Emma had stayed here, she’d tried to convince me that she was starving. Rowdy and Kimi always act famished. But at about four weeks, Emma showed a subtle raising of the hairline along the side, and soon after that, she lost hair around her nipples. Finally, Cindy called with the happy announcement that Emma looked as if she’d swallowed a Thanksgiving turkey whole. Afraid to get my hopes up, I reminded myself that although Thanksgiving was long past, Emma, like Rowdy or Kimi, would’ve happily dispatched a turkey, including a live one, feathers and all, and might have done just that. But when the vet counted six puppies, I was finally convinced.
    Nine weeks after the breeding, at seven o’clock in the morning, which is, of course, four A.M. Pacific time, I happened to be sitting in the kitchen eating scrambled eggs, drinking coffee, and staring at the phone. When it rang, I grabbed it, not because I have ESP, but because I’d been leaping at it like Kimi after liver every time it had rung for the past five days. This time, the call was the one I’d been waiting for. Cindy spoke in that exhausted, blissful voice that’s unique to devoted breeders who’ve been up in the night whelping puppies. Emma had had seven strong, healthy puppies so far, five males, two females, with at least one more on the way. According to Cindy, the puppies were beautiful. It’s a universal truth that whereas newborn puppies of other people’s breeding look exactly like drowned rats, those of one’s own breeding are staggeringly gorgeous even before they’re dry. Since these were Rowdy puppies, I had no doubt that they really were beautiful. In the background, I heard the puppies mewling. The little cries were plaintive and miraculous.
    The bawling of the puppies stayed with me after I hung up. It rang in my head until my eyes filled with tears. My weeping began softly and gently, but the more I cried, the harder I cried. Just before Cindy had gone back to attend to Emma, she’d said, “You know, Holly, you can still have a puppy instead of a stud fee.” I wailed for the puppy I couldn’t introduce into my two-malamute pack and couldn’t keep in my little house with its small yard. I hate crying and seldom do it. Once I started, monumental sadness poured out, never-ending grief at my mother’s death, longing for my long-dead golden retrievers, and the overwhelming loneliness of life without Steve Delaney. Rowdy and Kimi stared at me with wide eyes. Rowdy leaned against me, and Kimi licked and licked my damp hands as if they were her own newborn pups. Eventually, I staggered to the bathroom, blew my nose, and washed my face in cold water. I simply had to pull myself together. Rowdy and Kimi trusted me. They deserved better than this blubbering mess. The puppies were good news. I was blessed with a family and friends who’d celebrate it—Rowdy’s breeder, my father, Gabrielle, my cousin Leah, even my annoying cousin Janice, Rita, Kevin Dennehy, Ceci and Althea, friends from dog training, my editor at Dog’s Life magazine, E-mail friends I’d made on Malamute-L, the AMHotline, caninebackpackers, Dogwriters-L... I was continuing this ineffectual internal pep talk and blotting my haggard face dry when the phone rang once more. Bolting for it, I