Catherine Lanigan - Love Shadows

“Did you say something, Annie?” Luke finally mumbled.

Annie’s face was pressed against the glass. “Yeah,” she said with a whisper of reverence in her voice. “That’s the house I want.”

“Me, too,” Timmy chimed, looking at his father’s mournful expression in the rearview mirror. It was like always. His father wasn’t listening to them. Half the time when he did listen, he just growled at them.

Nothing had been good for any of them since Mom had died. Timmy watched out the back window as they drove past the stucco house. I wish we could live in that exact house someday.

Timmy realized he’d been making a lot of wishes lately. He wanted a big golden retriever and he wanted a home where everyone hugged each other a lot and always smiled and never frowned as if something was wrong. Timmy didn’t think such things were impossible.

That’s what wishes are for, aren’t they? Timmy thought. To make dreams come true.

CHAPTER TWO

LUKE PARKED HIS Ford F-150 smack dab in front of Cupcakes and Coffee Café and turned off the engine. “I’m going to get a quick cup of coffee,” he said, turning to his children.

“Okay, Dad,” Annie said, unbuckling her seat belt.

“Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?” Luke asked sternly, throwing his hand over the buckle.

Annie’s eyes flew open with her customary dramatic flair. “To see the puppies. The only thing good about this whole day is that we are going to see the puppies. Right now,” she said in that intractable tone that revealed conviction without disrespect. “If we have to go to boring school all day, then we can at least see the puppies.”

Luke chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully and rubbed his scruffy, unshaven cheek.

“Please, Dad,” Timmy said earnestly.

Peering at both his children, Luke wished he didn’t see so much eagerness in their eyes. It dumbfounded him that dogs could mean so much to them. He’d told them a hundred times that they could not afford a dog. Luke was overwhelmed with all the medical bills that had piled up in the wake of Jenny’s illness and death. Luke didn’t see how he’d get them paid off even if he had a decade to do so. To make matters worse, both Luke and his boss, Jerry Mason, were very concerned about the slowdown in the construction sector. Jerry had laid off all his full-time crews and used them only on an “as-needed basis.”

Luke was the only employee left on salary, and his paycheck had gotten smaller. Still, Luke was lucky to have a full-time job. In order to make up the difference, Luke had been looking for weekend work and had cut back on extra household expenses. One of the first luxuries to be eliminated was cable and DSL. In order to use the internet to search want ads, he’d resorted to visiting the public library. So far, he’d come up empty.

Somehow, Luke had managed to keep the family afloat over the past year, even with the cutback at work. Although there was some equity in the house that would relieve most, but not all, of Jenny’s medical bills, Luke knew that if he were to sell the house, it would be like burying Jenny all over again. He couldn’t go through that kind of pain ever again. It was hard enough to live in the hollow space he called his “life” as it was. He had left the house Jenny had turned into a home for them all just as it was on the day of her death. Her clothes were still in the closet, her sweater hung over the back of the kitchen chair and the kids knew never to move it. The house was a time warp, and inside its walls, Luke could pretend that Jenny was alive.

Luke was right, he believed, to deny the kids a dog. A dog required shots and veterinarian visits. They got sick just like kids. There were bills for the groomer. Special diet foods. He knew from his friends and coworkers that owning a dog was as costly as a child, minus the education.

Scratch that. I forgot obedience school.

“You can go look as long as you remember that I’m not buying a dog.”

“We know, Dad,” Annie answered.

“Annie, you hold Timmy’s hand. Don’t go anywhere else. I’ll only be a sec.”

“Dad,” Annie said, “we just want to see the puppies. We don’t want to run away.”

Luke opened the truck door and hauled Timmy out of his car seat, which Timmy despised because it made him feel like a little kid. At least twice a week, Luke caught Timmy weighing himself, hoping he would finally pass the legal forty-pound mark so he could use an “adult” seat belt and not be treated like the little kid he was.

Annie took Timmy’s hand, and together they walked up to the bay window of Puppies and Paws, where three two-month-old golden retriever puppies played with each other. They tumbled over stuffed animals and scooted dangerously close to their water bowls, but never splashed a single drop out of the metal containers.

“I like the white one,” Annie said. “I think I’ll call her Snowball.”

“That’s a stupid name for a dog,” Timmy replied, placing his nose so close to the glass he mushed the end. “These are the best pups Grandy ever made.”

“Grandy doesn’t make the puppies, she just breeds them. There’s a difference,” Annie said, though she wasn’t quite sure why she was right. Annie just remembered that several years ago, when her mother was alive, they had come to Puppies and Paws and her mother had told her Grandy was a dog breeder.

Puppies and Paws was the best place in all of Indian Lake as far as Annie and Timmy were concerned. Grandy Ipson always had the cutest and cuddliest puppies in the window, and no matter if it was raining or snowing, there was always a new little fellow for them to watch while their dad went next door for his coffee.

“I like the red one,” Timmy said. “I’d call him Copper. That’s the right kind of name for a great dog like he’s going to grow up to be.”

Annie smiled at her little brother and slid her arm over his shoulder. She knew Timmy wanted a dog really bad.

Annie looked at the longing in Timmy’s eyes. The little red puppy was now licking the glass that Timmy had pressed his face against. The past two years had been very sad for all of them after her mother had died. Annie had often cried herself to sleep, but Timmy had started spending a lot of time by himself. Often, she saw him sitting alone on the back steps of their house, just staring off into the distance. Annie wasn’t sure if he was missing their mother or if it was because their father didn’t spend time with them like he used to. She knew she couldn’t say or do much to make up for their mother being gone, but if she could get a dog for Timmy, maybe then the heavy sadness they all felt might go away.

Right then and there, Annie promised herself that she would find a way to convince their father that dogs could be cheap.

* * *

“A DOLLAR TWENTY-FIVE? Since when?” Luke asked Maddie Strong as she handed him the paper cup of robust black coffee. “It’s always been a dollar.”

Maddie swept a palm over her short, streaked, blond hair, put her hand on her hip and leveled her sparkling green eyes at Luke. “My profit margin decreased when the property taxes went up. Heating bill is through the roof. Water jumped, too. Not to mention there was some drought in Colombia and the coffee beans are sky high. That about cover it for ya, Luke?”

Luke sucked in his cheeks to keep his laughter at bay. “Your face is red, Maddie.”

“Gets that way when I’m riled up.”

“Sorry I said anything,” he apologized, taking a sip. He smiled. “Man, that’s good.”

Maddie’s grin broke free across her face. “I aim to please.”

“You want to take a cupcake to your kids?” She leaned a bit closer and whispered so the other customers wouldn’t hear her. “Half price.”