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fat make?
    “We could do this at the vet,” Alison said. “Maybe it would be easier for everybody, especially Sandy Ann.” Though she was really thinking of Robert. And herself.
    “That’s not honest. I know you love her, too, but when you get down to it, she’s my dog. I had her before I had you.”
    Sandy Ann had growled at Alison for the first few weeks, which she found so unsettling that she almost gave up on Robert. But he convinced her Sandy Ann was just slow to trust and would come around in time. Once, the dog nipped at her leg, tearing a hole in a new pair of slacks. Robert bought her a replacement pair and they spent more time in Alison’s apartment than at the farm. Alison bought the groceries and let him cook, and they did the dishes together.
    The first time Alison spent the night at the farm, Sandy Ann curled outside Robert’s door and whined. He had to put the dog outside so they could make love. They were married four months later and Robert was prepared to take the dog with them on their honeymoon, an RV and backpacking trip through the Southwest. Only a desperate plea from Alison, stopping just short of threat, had persuaded Robert to leave Sandy Ann at a kennel.
    “You got the eggs right,” Robert said, chewing with his mouth open.
    “Thank you.”
    He powdered his grits with pepper until a soft black carpet lay atop them. The dust was nearly thick enough to make Alison sneeze. He worked his fork and moved the grits to his mouth, washing the bite down with another sip of the laced coffee.
    “Maybe you can wait until tomorrow,” Alison said. She didn’t want to wait another day, and had waited months too long already, but she said what any wife would. She bit into her own bacon, which had grown cool and brittle.
    “Tomorrow’s Sunday.” Robert wasn’t religious but he was peculiar about Sundays. It was a holdover from his upbringing as the son of a Missionary Baptist. Though Robert was a house painter by trade, he’d kept up the farming tradition. The government was buying out his tobacco allocation and cabbage was more of a hobby than a commercial crop. Robert raised a few goats and a beef steer, but they were more pets than anything. She didn’t think Robert would slaughter them even if they stood between him and starvation. He wasn’t a killer.
    “Sunday might be a better day for it,” she said.
    “No.” Robert nibbled a half-moon into the toast. “It’s been put off long enough.”
    “Maybe we should let her in.”
    “Not while we’re eating. No need to go changing habits now.”
    “She won’t know the difference.”
    “No, but I will.”
    Alison drew her robe tighter across her body. The eggs had hardened a little, the yellow gone an obscene greenish shade.
    Sandy Ann had been having kidney and liver problems and had lost fifteen pounds. The vet said they could perform an operation, which would cost $3,000, and there would still be no guarantee of recovery. Alison told Robert it would be tough coming up with the money, especially since she’d given up her own job, but she would be willing to make the necessary sacrifices. Robert said they would be selfish to keep the dog alive if it was suffering.
    “Want some more grits?” she asked. Robert shook his head and finished the coffee. She looked at the fork in his hand and saw that it was quivering.
    Sandy Ann ran away when Alison moved in. Robert stayed up until after midnight, going to the door and calling its name every half-hour. He’d prowled the woods with a flashlight while Alison dozed on the couch. Sandy Ann turned up three days later in the next town, and Robert said if he hadn’t burned his phone number into the leather collar, the dog might have been lost forever.
    Sandy Ann was mostly Lab, with a little husky mix that gave its eyes a faint gray tint in certain light. The dog had been spayed before Robert got it at the pound. Robert’s mother had died that year, joining her husband in their Baptist heaven