Joanne asked the SPCA’s director about the puppy in the far corner of the cage.  A black Lab/Collie mix, the director explained. They’d rescued him from a plastic bag in the Royal Canal.  Joanne dropped to her knees and called the puppy over.
        The puppy lifted his head, his air cautious.
        Cormac appeared next to Joanne.  He placed his hand on her shoulder. “I want nothing to do with this.”
        Joanne stood up.  “Don’t be so grumpy.  I told you I’ll do all the work.”
    
Joanne followed Cormac into the kitchen, the puppy wiggling in her arms.  As soon as she placed him on the floor, he skittered under the table, whimpering. Cormac opened the back door. They had agreed the dog would live outside.
        “What do you think of Leo?”
        Cormac pulled the door wider.  “Call him whatever you want.”  He ordered the dog out.
        “Let’s let him settle in first,” Joanne said, closing the back door.
        Cormac dropped into his chair at the table.  As he reached for the newspaper, Joanne busied herself with the puppy, testing names aloud.  She decided on Leo, a short strong name with two syllables, just like hers and Cormac’s.
        Leo lapped water from his bowl.
        Cormac scowled as the pup splashed water on the floor.  “Look at the mess he’s making!”
        Leo lifted his head, his jowls dripping.
        Joanne giggled.  “He’s adorable.”
        “He’s a mutt.”
        She moved behind Cormac and wrapped her arms around his neck.  “Cranky. What’s got into you?”
        “Nothing.”
        She bent and kissed his cheek.
        He pulled her into his lap, kissed her mouth.
    
Joanne hadn’t the heart to let Leo spend his first night outside in his kennel, so she decided to let him sleep in the house.  When she returned to the kitchen with Leo’s bed tucked under her arm, she spotted the dark yellow puddle on the floor.
        She crossed the room and grabbed a roll of paper towels.  Cormac, cursing, lifted Leo by his scruff and carried him to the mess he’d made.  Leo pawed the air, yelping.
        “Put him down!” Joanne said.
        Cormac dipped Leo’s nose into the puddle before releasing him.
        Joanne scooped the puppy into her arms.  “How could you do that?”
        “That’s how you teach them.”
        “Teach them what?”
    
Later that night in bed, Cormac fitted himself against Joanne’s back.
        She pulled away.  “I still can’t believe you grabbed Leo like that.”
        He kissed the side of her head, stroked her hair.  “You’re making too much of it.”
        “No I’m not.  He was terrified.  Promise me, you won’t ever do anything like that again.”
        His arm tightened around her stomach.  “I promise.  Okay?”
    
A week passed.  Leo hadn’t settled in well and now slept in a corner of the master bedroom.  In protest, Cormac moved into the spare room.  The next morning, he entered the kitchen and stepped in Leo’s shit.  Joanne came running.  She laughed at the commotion while Cormac hopped in place, the bottom of his sock now a shade of ochre.
        “That’s it. We’re getting rid of him.”
        “Think again,” Joanne said.  “You can go before he does.”
    
The following evening, the argument escalated.  Cormac claimed he was allergic to the dog, and wanted him outside once and for all.  He faked a cough, rubbed his eyes, and slapped Leo’s hairs off his tailored pants.  Joanne refused to put Leo out into the chilly night.
        “I never wanted a dog,” Cormac said, his voice rising, “but you wouldn’t let up.”
        “What’s gotten into you?”
        Leo crept between them.
        “This is my home and I don’t want to share it—or you—with a dog.”
        She laughed.  So he felt jealous, was that it?
        It had gotten too weird, he said, the dog coming to mean more to her than seemed natural, as if she were substituting it for a child.
        How could he say that? Joanne asked.
        Well, what was he supposed to think—her saying that he could go before the dog?  They weren’t even trying for a baby yet.
        They would, she assured him, in another year or so, just like they’d planned.
    
Leo attended obedience school, graduating house-trained, whimper-free, and an outdoor pet, although Joanne still brought him inside whenever Cormac wasn’t around.  Cormac returned to their bed and sometimes joined her and Leo on their evening walk, and even occasionally played catch with the dog.
    

Weeks into the happy arrangement, Joanne asked Cormac to accompany her to the vet.  The pup was due his booster shots.  Cormac reacted as if she had just asked him to cut himself; but in the end, he agreed.
        They sat is the vet’s waiting room, the space huge and white and fluorescent, the animal odors masked with disinfectant. Cormac fidgeted on the
wooden seat, tight-lipped.  Leo stretched in the aisle between them, showing off his pink tummy.
        Cormac looked sweaty, Joanne noticed, and he continually shifted in his seat. She touched his arm.  “Are you okay?” she asked.  He jumped.  What was wrong with him?
        The receptionist called Leo’s name.
        The vet, stroking his dark beard, talked about Leo’s excellent health and development.  Joanne,  distracted by Cormac’s sickly pallor, only half-listened.
    
Cormac asked Joanne to drive them home.  He always drove.  Joanne pressed him.   “What’s going on?”  He refused to talk, just stared through the rain-splashed windscreen.
        They stopped at a traffic light.
        “They should have put stones in the bag,” he said.
        “What?”
        “The idiots who tried to drown Leo. They should have put stones in the bag.”
        Her stomach tightened.
        “I’ve done that, lots of times.  Drowned pups and kittens, kicked back their mothers when they tried to defend them.”
        “Stop it.”
        “You wouldn’t believe how they thrashed and squealed inside those bags—blind and stupid—yet still they could smell death.”
        Someone beeped his horn.
        Joanne hit the accelerator.
        Cormac stared at his fists, laughing.  “I’ve castrated bulls and strangled turkeys.”
        “Please stop,” Joanne said.
        Cormac covered his face with his hands.
    
Joanne stood at her office window, struggling with writer’s block while watching Leo play below in the garden.  He swatted his chew toy, chased and nipped it. Downstairs, the front door opened.  Cormac was home.  He’d taken to working later in the evenings.  She sensed more than heard him remove his coat, place his keys on the hallstand.  He no longer greeted her when he got home, not since that day at the vet.
        To her surprise, he appeared in the garden.  She ran downstairs.
        When she approached Cormac, trying to appear casual, he searched her face.
        “You don’t trust me, do you?”
        “What?  I can’t just come out and say hello?”
        Leo jumped up on her, barking.
        Cormac kicked the chew toy across the lawn.  Leo raced after it.
        “You’re a liar,” Cormac said.  He went inside.
        Joanne found him in the living room. The TV blared.  She turned it off.
        “You’re right,” she said.  “I’m not being honest.  We’re not being honest.”
        She understood that was how it was back then, the things he’d had to do on the farm.  But his cruelty toward Leo?  That’s what she couldn’t get past.
        She loved him, she did, but she loved Leo, too. Surely there was enough room for that.
        “I want you to find Leo a new home.  I want us to have a baby.”
        She drew back.
        He looked stricken.  “You think I’d be a terrible dad, don’t you?”
        “No,” she said.
        He paced the room.  She couldn’t think he’d be as intolerant of their baby, could she?
        She shook her head.  “Of course not.”
        He grabbed her arm.  “Get rid of Leo and let’s start over.  Let’s make a baby.”
        She pulled her arm free and left the room.
    
Later, Joanne found Cormac in the kitchen, watching Leo sleep.  He wore that haunted look again.
        She touched his arm.  “He needs us.”
        “Yes,” he said, “yes,” sounding as if he were someone who had just found his way.
                                                                        @@
    
                       About the Author
     
        Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Ethel Rohan now lives in San Francisco. She received her MFA in fiction from Mills College, Oakland, CA.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary magazines, including Cantaraville, SUB-LIT, Word Riot, Prick of the Spindle, Miranda Literary Magazine, Identity Theory, and mudluscious.  She is a brazen chocoholic.  She invites you to visit her blog: www.straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com.
  
    
                                          Copyright © Ethel Rohan