So when he finally did ask me out (sober, mind you) I accepted, thrilled. And I do not regret anything I did after that. I just wanted it to be me and him, I didn’t want those awful people around, I didn’t want the bonfires and the four wheelers and dip spit cups, the beer cans pitched into fires. I was only there ’cause I had to be. His friends may hate me, but that’s because they lost their mascot. Gail told me they had a game they played. If they saw a bug, they would all try to catch it. Whoever caught the bug would bring it to your father, and he would eat it. They talked to him like he was shit. He let them do it. He liked it. You wouldn’t guess it now, but your father just wanted to be liked. He got drunk, he fought, he drove drunk even, with a childlike innocence. So I took him, I made him a better man. I made him a man good enough to be with me. He never fell asleep in a lawn again. And you know what? He wanted it. He wanted me to tell him what to do. If you don’t believe that, honey, I don’t care. If you ask your dad about it, I don’t care what his answer is either. He’s always been the last one to know what he wants.”

“This isn’t what this is about. This is about the dogs,” Carrie said.

“About what? The dogs? I don’t want to talk about the dogs,” her mom said.

•••

At one thirty, in the free hour, Emery stirred from his recliner in half-sleep to the barking of dogs. It was the steady, consistent, deep bark, the alarm bark, of a dog that thought he was a hero. Emery lumbered out of his house without displaying emotion, slipping into some sandals by the door, shuffling toward the pen he kept his dogs in at night (a formality, really, it’s where he kept their food and a small constructed doghouse his brother-in-law had made, but the dogs had long since displayed the ability to jump the fence at their leisure).

Free time, Emery thought.

If this hour was a fish I’d throw it back.