Page 44 of Lift Me Up

After filling out our respective paperwork, and Mary arranged a drop-off for our foster home starter kits and Birdie’s meds to my house, we jailbreak Bennie and Birdie like we’re on the run. They’re both great on leash, no tugging or pulling or any cause for concern. Bennie and Birdie walk side by side, and despite her best efforts to be opposed to the 50 pound lug head of a dog, Franny hasn’t seemed this excited in a while.

I can only imagine how happy I look based on how I feel. Having Birdie feels like a lot of responsibility, but it also feels like something that was missing is starting to make perfect sense. She looks back at me as we walk, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, her ears perked up straight and excited. She doesn’t even look like the same dog in the kennel, and I like to think that the reason for her change, is me.

We don’t go home, we go straight to the pet shop to spoil them rotten. We let the dogs pick anything they want to bring home, not that they have any idea that they are going to a home instead of four plain white walls of sadness. Of course, Bennie goes straight for the bully sticks, pulling at the dried treats with great excitement that makes Franny laugh and play tug with him. Birdie is much more reserved in her energy, sniffing this and that but never truly picking anything. I crouch down and give her scratches and ear ruffles and she kisses my cheek gently.

“It’s okay, pick something!” I encourage her, showing her toys, treats, and anything she could possibly want.

“Are you not a toy sort of gal?” I ask her as she sits patiently at the end of the toy aisle waiting for Bennie to be done. She looks up at me with what looks like a smile on her precious face, the perfect pittie smile I can’t even handle. It's too cute.

At the other end of the aisle, Bennie pulls a toy from a bin. Franny looks a little frazzled, but her eyes are wide with excitement and a shimmer of something I haven’t seen in a while. I know in my heart I did the right thing by pushing her into this.

“Maybe we should go look over here.” I say thoughtfully. Birdie follows me without hesitation. I kneel by her and pull some doggy wear off the shelves, “What about these?”

I let her sniff the new harness/leash combo, and she smiles at me again. “I’ll take that as a yes. Do we like pink or blue?” She sniffs the former. “Pink? Done deal.”

Her eyes light up and she gives me a light tug toward another rack. “What is it?”

She sniffs excitedly, her tail wagging so hard her butt wiggles. I reach for the item she’s looking at, and nearly snort when I realize she’s found the dog bandanas and headbands. “Oh, you like these, huh? Are you a little diva? Should we try one on?”

She sits and waits for me to pull the white headband with a bright pink bow off the test rack. As if she knows exactly what to do with this, Birdie wiggles like the cute little house hippo she is and lets me put the headband on her head, the elastic sitting comfortably over her ears. She positively beams at me when I pull away and make cooing noises, because oh my god, she’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen babies before. She’s cuter. I take a photo and show her because who wouldn’t want to see themselves dressed up?

I begin to wonder what it is she likes about the headband so much, and it’s only when I take it off to try another one on her that I realize why that is. Her scarring on her face is predominantly around her ears, the back of her head and on her belly. Her belly isn’t as noticeable, but it’s like she knows her ears and head are the things people see first when they look at her. My heart jolts in a pang of sadness, and then again in a jolt of happiness. I can’t change the past, I can’t take away the scars of her past life and her PF, but I can fix this sadness now and give her a little bit of joy.

I pick at least twenty different headbands for her. She has to have variety. If this is one thing I can do to make her happy, I am going to do it. Bows, flowers, vintage looking knotted headbands, the whole lot. I keep the bright pink bow one on her, seeing how much of a difference it already makes in her happy hippo body, her little trot of a walk. I meet Franny at the cash register, laughing when I see her basket full of toys.

“He couldn’t be stopped.” She says with a shrug. I gesture to my basket and give her a sheepish grin.

“We’re terrible at self control as dog parents, it seems,” I say with a chuckle.

She looks to the two dogs in their silent conversation with each other. “They deserve it.”

After everything they’ve been through to get to this moment, yes, they absolutely deserve all this and more. I keep reminding myself that this is a foster situation. Birdie is not mine; Bennie is not Franny’s. We are simply showing them what life can be like in a forever home.

But damn it, it’s hard to remember that when this feels perfect right now.

I expect there to be a grace period of rebellion or a period where Birdie isn’t the sweetest thing to grace this planet. Isn’t that what always happens with rescue pups in new homes? But the moment we get home and I set everything up for her, she watches me cautiously to see what she should do. The moment I settle on the couch, I pat the spot next to me.

“Come on,” I call to her, coaxing her to come sit on the couch with me.

Still hesitant but slightly excited, she hops onto the neighbouring cushion and sits in front of me, waiting patiently.

“This is your home for now,” I tell her as I scritch and pet her, watching her melt into my touch, “We’re going to find you the bestest home, and you’re going to be someone’s forever pet. But for now, sweet girl, you’re mine and we’re gonna have the best time and get through all this together, yeah?”

Her sigh of contentment is all I need in the way of a yes. We need each other. We understand each other better than anyone else could.

This is going to be a good thing. I can just tell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

GEORGIE

It’s as if nothing could break the cloud of good looming over me. Things are going scarily well. I have very few flares. It’s a nice reprieve from the monsters of the previous week, and I welcome the break. Birdie and I get along like two peas in a pod. I find out she is a snuggle monster, enjoys curling up under blankets and only eats when I am eating.

This is a cause for concern because after this weekend, I have no idea what our new routine will be when I go back to work. Will she eat when I am not here? I always leave some dry kibble down for her to munch, but she flat out refuses to eat it unless she sees me eating too. Franny has already agreed to take the ‘happy hippos,’ the term we’ve affectionately labelled Bennie and Birdie as a dynamic duo, for walks and to the dog park on the days when I am working, so I don’t have to worry about her destroying the place.

This entire weekend, I kept the secret that I am fostering Birdie. Noah has been working hard at Get Crafty on a very large custom yarn order anyways, so he hasn’t had time to notice. But he always makes the time to call me. We video chat at night, and I make sure to keep Birdie off the screen. I don’t know how to surprise him with the news, but video call is not how I want him to find out.

And then there’s my mom. She calls me and asks me why I haven’t been to visit her, if I’ve ended up in the hospital again, and I have to reassure her with a visit that I am not in fact in a hospital or laid up from a secret surgery I didn’t tell her about. Needless to say, the moment she opens the door and is greeted by Birdie’s wiggling butt and my sheepish grin, she seems to understand.