Dog Eat Dog Read Free

A chill washed over my head and neck. For a moment I thought it was an omen; then I realized Davey had opened the Volvo’s back door.
    He got out and jammed his hat on his head. “I thought we were late.”
    â€œWe are.”
    Still I didn’t move, except to smile as I gazed at my impatient child. My son. In the space of an instant, his birth had transformed everything I thought I knew about love.
    Davey’s cheeks were pink with cold, his breath coming in small puffs of steam. He’d gotten the green knit cap on crooked, covering one ear but leaving the other bare. Sandy hair stuck out from beneath the rim. He had mink-brown eyes much like his father’s. They were heavy lidded and rimmed with long dark lashes. Someday he’d be a heartbreaker, I had little doubt of that. He already held my heart in his hands.
    For five years, I’d been the focus of Davey’s world and he of mine. I’d always thought I wanted Davey to have the opportunity to get to know his father; but now that it seemed he would, suddenly I was apprehensive about the prospect. When Bob reappeared, everything would change. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
    â€œCome on,” Davey said insistently. He wasn’t allowed to cross the parking lot alone. “Hurry up!”
    â€œI’m coming.” I gathered up my things from the seat, got out and locked the car behind me.
    â€œRace you to the door!”
    â€œDavey, wait! Take my hand!”
    Fat chance. We hit the school running and went inside to start the day.
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    My formal title is Learning Disabilities Resource Room Teacher. What that actually means is I’m in charge of special education. I work with all the elementary school grades at Hunting Ridge, taking aside in small groups any children who are in need of extra help.
    My job is varied, hectic, and often rewarding. On a usual day, I can barely cram everything I need to do into the time allotted. Tuesday was no exception. I had a small mountain of paper work still sitting on my desk when the last bell rang, and a Pupil Placement Team meeting scheduled for after school.
    Davey was going home on the bus with Joey Brickman, a friend from down the street. I’d arranged for him to stay through dinner, as that evening was the monthly meeting of the Belle Haven Kennel Club. I was too new to dogs to be a member, but Aunt Peg had invited me to attend the meeting as her guest.
    Peg Turnbull can be hard to say no to under the best of circumstances. When she thinks she’s doing something for your own good, she’s apt to roll over opposition like a Humvee in low gear. I had only the vaguest notion of what went on at a kennel club, and no idea at all why anyone would want to join one, but it seemed I was going to find out. Aunt Peg was picking me up at six.
    When I got home, Faith was waiting at the door. I threw my gear in the hall, snapped on the puppy’s leash and took her for a long walk around the neighborhood. Flower Estates is a small sub-division in north Stamford: compact houses on tiny plots of land, built in the fifties and meant to appeal to the young parents who were busy producing the generation of children that would come to be known as baby boomers.
    Those families are long gone now. Luckily for us, Flower Estates remains. With its outdated design and air of weathered practicality, the neighborhood is a haven of relatively affordable housing on Connecticut’s gold coast.
    We’d completed our walk and I was in the kitchen mixing Faith’s dinner when the puppy ran from the room, raced through the hall and skidded to a stop by the front door, barking wildly. That’s one benefit of getting a dog: guests never arrived unannounced. Aunt Peg was already letting herself in by the time I got to the hall. Standing five foot eleven and swathed in scarves and gloves and boots, she bore more than a passing resemblance to Nanook of the North.
    â€œCut out that