By Hannah Newswanger
Chips of faded blue paint flaked off the door when Aaron closed it behind himself and his wife, Katie.
He stared out across the big yard he’d grown up playing in. Even the cawing of crows in the pine groves was familiar to him. His old dog lay by the steps, stretched out on the worn boards. She was dozing lightly in the saturating autumn sun. A chill breeze sent wavelets through her golden coat. She was panting. Her wasted frame heaved with every breath. Her mouth hung open, pink tongue lolling out, yellow-white teeth exposed. The left incisor was broken. Aaron remembered the day he got her. She had been his eighth birthday present. It was bitterly cold that day, and he struggled to hold the squirming yellow puppy with his numbed fingers. His laughter pierced the quiet of snowfall as her warm, wet tongue thawed his nose and licked snowflakes from his wet eyelashes.
“Dodie,” Aaron called. She didn’t react at first. Her hearing wasn’t what it used to be. He could see her nose twitching in the breeze. She smelled him. Her head swung around to look at him, and it almost looked as if she smiled. The golden retriever stood up with an understated struggle and gave a low moan as she stretched. Aaron placed his hand on the top of her domed head and pushed his fingers into her fur.
“You’re just as silver as you are gold anymore, aren’t you, old girl?” he spoke softly. The dog returned his gaze just as intensely as if she really knew what he was saying.
Katie rubbed his back with a look of empathetic sorrow on her face. “Hey, hey Aaron,” she whispered in a tone meant to soothe. She would be a good mother.
“She was my best friend, Katie,” he said. Aaron crouched to Dodie’s level and moved his hands down her back and sides, trying to ignore the lump growing there.
“I know.” Katie leaned into him. Her knees pressed into his back and her hands landed on his shoulders.
“It’s gonna kill me to let her go.” Aaron didn’t take his hands or eyes from the old dog.
“I know.” Katie squeezed his shoulders. There was nothing else to say. There was nothing she could have said that would have fixed his hurt.
Aaron’s hands trembled against Dodie’s body. Dodie tensed with typical canine intuition. She licked his chin comfortingly with her warm tongue, the same way she had licked her pups.
Katie turned her wrist up to look at her watch. “Aaron, we have to go or we’ll be late.”
Aaron put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up with a sigh. He pulled a leash out of his pocket and hooked it to the dog’s collar. “Come on, old girl. Let’s go see this place,” he said.
In a matter of minutes the young couple and their dog had packed into the small car and were headed down the gravel lane from Aaron’s parents’ home. They drove into the city where the cars were loud and horns blared. People shouted, some in anger, some in excitement. It was a blur of muted, confused noise to the old dog’s ears. They drove into an orderly neighborhood near the edge of the city, and Aaron stopped the car in front of a neat little house. It had a neat little path leading to a neat little porch and a neat little wreath hanging on the bright red door.
They got out of the car, and Katie turned to Aaron. She clutched his arm in excitement.
“I think this is finally the one!” she said. Her flyaway hairs caught the brilliance of the evening sun and rimmed her face in gold. “Isn’t it perfect?” she breathed.
Aaron returned her squeeze and smiled at her beauty.
“Perfect,” he agreed. Dodie sat on his feet. Her expressive face perfectly captured a look of bewilderment. To her everything smelled of paint and motor oil.
A dark-haired woman in a pencil skirt and heels stepped out of the little house. “There they are!” she said with artificial cheerfulness. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Keller, are you ready to look at your new home? Well, potential new home.” She laughed a canned laugh. She paused, frowning at the dog on Aaron’s feet. “Oh, Mr. Keller, about the dog. There will be no pets in this house.” She gave a little smile that squinted her almond-shaped eyes and wrinkled her nose but conveyed no real pleasure. “It’s just a little policy”—she held up her thumb and forefinger to show how small the policy was—“so I can rent to people with allergies.”
Aaron nodded and stroked one of Dodie’s silky ears. “I know, Ms. Kiyoe. It won’t be an issue.” Katie took his hand. “She won’t be with us much longer,” he said.
“All right then, you two come on in!” She gave an exaggerated gesture with one arm and opened the door for them. “Make yourself at home.” She laughed at her own cleverness as they entered together, leaving Dodie sitting in the tiny yard.
Katie held her husband’s hand tightly as they walked through the house, mostly ignoring Ms. Kiyoe. Aaron nodded and made an affirmative hum at each pause in the landlady’s stream of one-sided conversation. For the most part, Ms. Kiyoe was content to answer her own questions.
The couple paused in the doorway of a small corner room toward the back of the house. It had three windows. Two in the east-facing wall, one facing north. It was completely devoid of furniture.
“Ms. Kiyoe,” called Katie. The landlady came back. She had continued chattering without noticing that the Kellers had stopped. “What was this room used for?” Katie asked.
Ms. Kiyoe thought for a second. “This was Mama’s plant room,” she said finally. “Mama had a huge collection of house plants. She had a bookcase just there with books and books on keeping potted plants, hanging plants, that kind that just needs air; bonsai plants too.” Ms. Kiyoe gave the room a long glance, and for once Aaron thought he saw genuine emotion on her face. “Mama loved her plants. She’d just come in here and look at them. Sing to them.” Ms. Kiyoe shed the memory like a skin, and the mask of cheer was back up, squinting almond eyes and all. “Come, there is another room I want to show you.” Her heels clicked away down the hall, but Katie lingered, gripping her husband’s hand even more tightly.
“Imagine,” she said breathlessly, “a rocker just there between the windows, and the bassinet goes there. And,” she grew more excited, “and here on the wall, a shelf for her stuffed animals and dollies.”
“Her?” Aaron asked turning Katie to face him.
“Or him?”
“Or him. Either way,” Aaron said, “I’ll be the happiest man alive.”
“Mhmm.” Katie hugged him.
Aaron continued to stare around the room, envisioning it as his wife had described it. He held her close and imagined he felt a second, tiny heartbeat within her. “Yeah,” he said, “this is perfect.” He pressed his lips into her hair. “It’s even worth putting up with Kiyoe as a landlady.”
“We can live here?” Katie asked.
Aaron nodded.
“This is all too good to be true. We’ll finally have a place of our own. Just the two of us … three of us.” Katie smiled as she spoke and nestled closer to his chest.
…
“I’d been hoping to move into our new place before the weather turned,” said Aaron. He traced the frost patterns on the window pane with his eyes.
“Hmm, these things take time.” Katie glanced over her shoulder at him from where she sorted clothes from their closet.
“It’s different for you,” Aaron said.
“Why?” Katie shot him another quick glance. She continued to rummage in the closet for a few moments then answered her own question. ”Because I ran out on my dad at 18 and you’ve never moved?”
“I went away to college.”
“That hardly counts.” Katie spun around, slapping the tee shirt she held in one hand against her thigh. A moment passed. She dropped the shirt and relaxed her stance. “Anyway, most of our stuff is in the city already. I say one more trip, and we’re finished moving.”
Aaron sat down on the bed and studied his wife, memorizing every move she made.
It’s our two year anniversary soon, he thought as he watched Katie stretching with her hands pressed into her lower back. She was starting to show. She didn’t notice him watching her as she packed what was left of their personal belongings into cardboard boxes. Her hair was frizzed out and curling with the humidity. The clothes she wore were worn thin and splattered with paint. If she could see herself, she would have complained about her looks, but Aaron didn’t see any of that when he looked at her. When he looked at her he saw the young woman he had fallen in love with that rainy night in Nashville. It had been an open air venue, and almost no one showed up due to the predicted storm. But Aaron and Dodie were there. They were young and full of life, swept away by Katie and her fiddle, drenched by the downpour. Katie had given him and his dog a ride home. A year later she gave up performing to marry him.
Katie’s hands came round to rest on her growing stomach. Aaron was in love with that little life. He had a sudden stab of fear. “I’m a father.”
Katie laughed at his abrupt statement. Her laugh turned into a cough that shook her. “Yes.”
“I have to take care of our baby. I’m not rich, Katie.”
Katie hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “I know. I knew that when I married you. You’ll do just fine.” She sat on his knee, and together they surveyed the small room scattered with cardboard boxes. “Step one is moving out of your parents’ house.”
“You said this is the last of it, right?” asked Aaron.
Katie nodded.
Aaron stood, pushing Katie to her feet with his hands on her hips. “Come on, then. Let’s pack these up and get out of here.”
Aaron grabbed a box and marched out of the house, Katie close at his heels. He descended the two porch stairs hesitantly. The wood was slick with a thin sheet of ice, and the box blocked his view of the steps. He set his box down and took Katie’s from her before she could get to the steps.
“Aaron, I’m fine,” she said.
“I just don’t want you to slip, okay?”
Katie rolled her eyes, but she used the rail when she came down. A single snowflake landed on her pink cheek and melted. Katie smiled at the sky and lifted one hand to catch the scattered white flakes.
“Snow,” she said.
“The second snow,” Aaron said.
Katie tilted her head back so that the snow dotted her face.
The first snow of the year had been nearly two weeks ago. The frozen ground had made digging the grave more difficult. That day Aaron did not notice the snow until it powdered his hair and melted into his scalp. He stacked river stones over the the freshly turned earth. He crouched over the grave, his eyes on the pile of stones. Warm fingers brushed the snow from his hair, and Katie pressed a hat onto his head.
“Hey, Aaron.”
Aaron took her hand and cradled it to his chest. He looked up and smiled at her. Tiny wrinkles webbed out from the corners of his eyes.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Cold,” said Aaron.
“I’ll miss her,” said Katie. She lifted her face from his to the headstone. “She was such a good dog.”
“She was.” Aaron stood and wrapped one arm around her. “Old dogs like her don’t belong in the city. She lived her life happily.” He squeezed her shoulder and rubbed her arm. “We should do the same. Come on, let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
Aaron closed the trunk on the last box as Katie dropped it into the car. Together they looked back at his childhood home. Aaron’s parents had come out to watch them go. His mother was in socks. His father had his arms around her, and they both beamed with pride. They loved him enough to be happy to see him go. Aaron gave one last glance to the headstone in the yard where Dodie lay beneath her favorite tree. Then he got into the car next to his wife and started the engine. The car sputtered to life and carried them away, hiding the little headstone with a spurt of gravel dust.
Hannah Newswanger is a creative writing major. As a small person coming from a small town, she firmly believes in the importance of small things and attempts to give attention to the small, oddly specific details of life.