The old man met me dolefully when I returned from Kankakee for the weekend. “I just don’t know how it happened, doll. She’s always so good, always comes when she’s called, and this time she just tore away from me and headed down the street. My heart was in my throat, I thought my God, what if she gets hit, what if she gets lost or kidnapped, you know, you read about these labs that hire people to steal dogs off the streets or out of the yard, you never see your dog again and you don’t know what happened to her. I was so relieved when I caught up with her, my goodness, what could I ever have said to make you understand—”

I snarled unsympathetically. “And what are you going to say to me about this business? You haven’t wanted to spay her, but you can’t control her when she’s in season. If you weren’t so bullheaded you would’ve admitted it and let Tim run her. I’ll tell you this much: I’m not going to spend my time looking for good homes for her damned offspring.”

That brought a spurt of his own temper, which sent him back to his apartment with an angry slam of the door. I avoided him all day Saturday, but I knew we had to make up before I left town again—I couldn’t leave him in sole charge of a litter. Anyway, I’m too old myself to enjoy bearing a grudge. Sunday morning I went down to patch things up. I even stayed over on Monday so we could go to the vet together.

We brought the dog in with the angry tension of the ill-assorted parents of a wayward teenager. The vet cheered me no end by telling me that goldens sometimes have as many as twelve puppies.

“But since it’s her first litter it probably won’t be quite that large,” he added with a jolly laugh.

I could tell that Mr. Contreras was delighted at the prospect of twelve little black-and-gold fur balls; I did eighty-five all the way back to Kankakee, dragging out my business there as long as possible.

That had been two months ago. Now I was more or less resigned to Peppy’s fate, but I was much relieved that she seemed to be doing her nesting on the first floor. Mr. Contreras grumbled about the newspapers she shredded in her chosen spot behind his couch, but I knew he would have been unbearably hurt if she’d decided her den was in my apartment.