“She’ll come home, Auntie,” Janie says. She wraps me in a hug, spidery-armed and warm.
My mom emerges from her library to take the food from Aud. They disappear into the kitchen to assess the calendar and dish up dinner while Janie and I head for the living room. I get out a puzzle for her to work on because I’m not feeling all that attentive. As I sit beside her on the couch, staring unseeingly at the pieces scattered across thecoffee table, I reach instinctually down to give Bambi a pat. I find empty air, and my stomach turns over.
In the kitchen, I hear Mom and Audrey talking. Someone’s turned on the radio, a low-key country station. The smell of Chinese food drifts through the house. God, this night feels bizarrely, infuriatingly normal.
How can everyone just… carry on?
I’m working to distract myself, helping Janie fit a corner piece into her puzzle, when I hear distant barking. I freeze, straining to listen, and then I hear it again. Janie hears it, too—she looks at me with eyes like discs.
We leap up and run, holding hands, for the front door. I fling it open to the sight of my dog, stretching to get through the open front gate. Mati’s behind her, holding firmly to a length of rope looped through her collar. He lets her go and she gallops for me, jumping up to put her paws on my chest; she nearly knocks me down. I hold tight to her, blinking back joyful tears. Janie giggles as Bambi graces my face with dozens of slobbery kisses.
My mom and Audrey come outside to the commotion. While they give Bambi greetings almost as enthusiastic as mine, I sneak a look at Mati, still standing at the gate, holding the makeshift leash loosely in his hands. He looks satisfied, and at the same time, profoundly sad.
It takes a minute for my mom and Audrey to notice him.
“Where did you find her?” Aud calls across the yard.
Mati scuffs the sole of his shoe against the sidewalk. “She was waiting at our cottage when I returned from the beach.”
She misses him, too. Oh, Bambi.
I’m watching Aud because it’s too hard to hold Mati’s gaze, and her expression confuses me, hovering somewhere between remorse and gratitude. She gives him a tight smile. “Thank you for bringing her home.”
“I was happy to,” he says.
My mother turns her back and shuffles into the house. Audrey follows, tugging Janie along by the hand.
I’m still stooped over Bambi, running my hand down her silky back, but I feel Mati’s attention settle on my shoulders like a physical thing, heavy with penitence. I glance up because it’s impossible not to and find him smiling at the sight of my dog and me, reunited.
I mouth,Thank you.
He nods once, pivots, and walks away.
I take Bambi into the house, fill her water bowl, and feed her too many treats. My pulse is racing with the adrenaline of reclaiming my dog, combined with the heart-shredding experience of looking Mati in the eye.
Eventually, we sit down to dinner. Mom talks about her manuscript (almost done), Audrey gripes about her job at Camembert (always busy), and Janie chatters about her latest preschool accomplishment (shoe-tying—yay). Aud asks about Ryan and, in an effort to connect—to at leasttry—I tell them about Xavier and Iris and the interrupted make-out session. Aud laughs. Mom cracks a smile.
Nobody mentions Mati, or what just happened in the yard.
After dinner, Janie passes out fortune cookies. Our tradition seems particularly frivolous tonight and my stomach’s somersaulting, but I play along for Janie’s sake. I put on a smile as she breaks her cookie open, then slides it across the table to Audrey. “What does it say, Mama?”
Aud gives her throat a theatrical clear. “‘Your fortune is as sweet as a cookie.’”
Janie grins. Through a mouthful of crumbs, she says, “What about yours?”
Aud splits her cookie in half, skims her fortune, then laughs. “‘You are the controller of your destiny.’ Yeah, right,” she says to her bit of paper. “My destiny is so far out of my control it’s not even funny. I’m just riding the wave.”
“You’re doing a good job keeping afloat,” my mom tells her.
She smiles. “Read yours, Jocelyn.”
I’m thinking about Aud’s fortune, about destiny and whether any of us are actually in control, as my mom reads: “‘If you have something worth fighting for, then fight for it.’” She laughs, too, waving her slip of paper like a white flag. “I’m fighting to finish my book, and I hope it’ll be worth it.”
Cookies and destiny and fighting… They’re notmyfortunes, but they’re burrowing under my skin. I think of Mati and the way he looked at me earlier, wistfully, entreatingly, regretfully.
I wish… I wish I would have spoken to him, thanked him aloud, at the very least.
My chest constricts, and I shift in my seat. Bambi, who’s lying under my chair, nudges my ankle with her muzzle, a show of doggy support.
