I didn’t answer.

“I said I’d be back,” Momma said. She let out a long whine, like she was nervous or something.

When I opened my mouth, it was big enough for a train to pass through. Words tumbled out, written in half cursive, half print. “Go away,” they said.

• • •

Thunder over the house, maybe in the front room, rattled me awake.

Right next to me, there in my bed, though it wasn’t allowed, was Thelma, our pup who hasn’t been a pup in six years.

“Get off me, girl,” I said, pushing her body away. She refused to move as the sky lit up and thunder crashed in the front room again. Instead, she tried to get under the pillow. I could feel her shivering.

“You know Nanny doesn’t like you in the bed. Neither do I. You get your hair all over me when you get up here. Plus your breath stinks.”

Thelma let out a sigh of her own.

We Fletchers are a family of sighers.

“Fine,” I said, then scooted over some so Thelma could slip into the slight slump in the middle of the bed.

Thelma Dog, Part Two

When I woke up the next morning, Thelma had near about pushed me all the way out of the bed. Plus there was a black dog hair in my mouth.

“Geez, girl,” I said. She opened an eye at my voice. One of her paws was on my shoulder, the other on my hip like she had meant to snuggle with me or something. Her nose dug in my throat. “You are a bed hog.”

Thelma gave me a doggie smile, and I couldn’t help but grin right back at her. I got me a soft place in my heart for my own dog. I picked Thelma up at a Sinclair gas station when a guy come driving up, saying he was gonna dump her off in the woods to fend for herself.

I’d left the house that day for cold RC for me and a pack of cigarettes for Nanny and come home with a dog the size of a hoagie.

Thelma Dog, Part Three

This here girl is my best friend. Including Patty Bailey.

I never tell Patty that, but Thelma knows the truth.

Continue Reading…

Signed, Skye Harper

Carol Lynch Williams

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