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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 and
leaving the farm to their sole heir. Sandy Ann had survived
thirty-seven laying hens, two sows, a milk cow, one big mouser
tomcat that