By L. Mack

A weak breeze floats past the peeling beeches marking the western border of Miss Donna’s yard, carrying the suggestion of bus fumes and something sweet she can’t quite name. Cicada chirrups fill the taffy afternoon as they did the day her dog ran under the wheels of a speeding car.

Perched on her chipping stoop, Donna has lost track of how long she’s been talking to this girl on the sidewalk, but she’s glad of the company, even if the girl does keep looking over her shoulder like she’s got somewhere better to be.

“Just about broke my heart when he died. He was a sweet little dog.” Donna’s cigarette is cold in the saucer, though she doesn’t remember smoking it. Time is a slippery thing.

“He only came up about this high, and he’d hop right up onto the couch and snuggle into your lap, just the sweetest thing. Now what was his name?”

How they got to be talking about that old dog, Donna can’t remember. The girl looks like a teenager. Antsy. Brown curls. Tight shirt. Doesn’t seem familiar, but maybe she’s a friend of her son’s? Facts and faces muddle in Donna’s mind.

“I used to let him out in the yard to do his business, and one day he just ran out and got hit, right there.” She gestures toward the spot, in front of the Everett house. Now when did that maple get so tall?

The girl exhales brusquely, like she’s heard this all before, and shifts sideways.

“He was a sweet little dog.” Donna absently strokes the air. “Just about broke my heart when he died—and I said no more dogs for me, thank you! Because you love them too much.”

Donna reaches for her cigarette, but it’s just the butt, cold ash trembling on the lip of the saucer. “He only came up about this high, and you know what? He’d hop right up onto the couch with you and snuggle in your lap.”

The Everetts’ front door squeals open, and Donna hears keys jangling and Melissa Everett call out, “be back soon.” Borrowing her mother’s car again. The door slams shut behind a stout woman, hair freshly braided, pushing a stroller toward a blue minivan in the driveway.

Too old for Melissa, but the woman greets her with Melissa’s voice. “How’re you today, Miss Donna?”

She’s too tired to yell across the street, and Melissa is already fussing with the stroller straps, so Donna waves to her back.

The Everetts’ sprinkler revolves in a constant loop, shick shick shick, and the teenager gazes at it as if longing to sprint beneath it and far away.

“I had a lot of sorrow already after my sisters died, and I said that’s it. No more dogs and no more kids.” Somewhere in the mist, a treacherous shape begins to coalesce, and her mind rushes past it, water over a stone, and settles on safer terrain. “I loved that little dog. A tiny little—well, now, I don’t remember what kind. Brown. About this high. I thought I’d go crazy, losing my sisters and my dog and my son, and I only had the one. Just that one boy.”

The girl, who has been edging away, halts suddenly and rests a hand on the retaining wall. A furry bee, black as a plum, hovers above the phlox border between them.

Donna’s house looms empty behind her. The memory resolves in sudden, inescapable clarity, and rolls over her like a stone.

“He was a good boy.” Donna’s voice quavers. “Always helping out with the soccer team up at the school, so patient with those kids. It was in December, right before Christmas. Lights and tinsel everywhere. And what killed him was, uh…”

Donna places a palm on the warm planks of the stoop for support, her heart seizing with the agony of memory. The shiny green package she could not bear to unwrap. Poinsettias and lilies at the homegoing. Mr. Everett and the baritones in white gloves. The hospital bill in its flimsy envelope and little drummer boy stamp.

The girl leans forward, startling the bee, which drifts away and out of focus. Donna draws a ragged breath, and then another. Her thoughts shimmer like the summer heat.

“I loved that sweet boy. You know, he used to hop right up onto the couch, and he was only about this high.”

The teenager sucks in her breath and turns away. “I gotta go.”

Donna waves, bemused, as the girl jogs past the blue minivan. Where is she headed in such a hurry? And when did Melissa Everett get so big? And where is Donna’s son? If he doesn’t hurry down, they’ll both be tardy—but no, that’s not right. Donna closes her eyes, trying to work it out. A door slams shut. With a desolate purr, the minivan backs into the street and disappears toward the highway.

“Summer,” Donna says, disquieted by the empty street. “No school.” The answer to a question she’s already forgotten. Her pulse settles.

Somewhere nearby a lawnmower cuts out, and the evening fills with the languid chirr of insects. It’s dinnertime, and the house behind her is too quiet.

Her cigarette has burnt out. A warm breeze pushes the ash over the saucer’s edge and rolls it, crumbling, over the rough stoop. She watches it dissolve with vague unease, then, squinting into the muddled twilight, Donna slaps her hip twice and whistles to the empty lawn.

“Here, boy!” she calls.