Part 5
“Yes,” Dean said. “I do.”
Beth explained that the surrender allowed the county to consider placement, not skip its process. June still needed medical clearance, Dean’s foster record had to remain satisfactory, and adoption would make every future expense and setback his responsibility.
“I understand.”
“I believe you,” Beth said. “But Dr. Ortiz can’t promise how much the leg weakness will improve. The neck may scar, and fear can get worse after an animal has enough strength to express it.”
“Then put that in the application.”
Beth left the forms on the table and scheduled the next check.
Dean worked through every page that night and called the clinic for the estimates he did not know. At EMERGENCY CAREGIVER, his pen made the first slant of Owen’s name before he stopped. Owen knew the medication chart and the harness routine, but Dean had not asked him to take that responsibility.
The next morning, Dean arranged paid backup care with a clinic technician who boarded recovering dogs. Her rate equaled what he earned from two mower decks. He finished the two repair jobs he had already promised, referred the rest of the month’s weekend work to a shop across town, and blocked Wednesday evenings and alternating Saturdays through September on the wall calendar before he knew whether Owen would use them.
June wore the harness for the first time on Sunday. Dean had left it near her bed for days, moving it only when she was outside the room. That morning she smelled the chest strap and remained standing when he lifted one end.
He stopped after the first buckle. She looked toward the back door, then at him, and he waited until her weight settled evenly across her paws before fastening the second.
They went only to the grass outside the kitchen. June relieved herself, heard a truck on the service lane, and tried to reverse out of the harness. Dean knelt sideways, keeping the lead slack and the gate closed. When the truck passed, she returned to the house under her own power.
The following Wednesday’s dinner was baked chicken, potatoes, and green beans Dean cooked too long because he kept checking June. Rachel brought Owen and came inside with a container of salad. She had intended to leave, but Owen asked if she could stay long enough to discuss the schedule.
They ate at the same kitchen table where the divorce papers had once lain. June rested on the green fleece near the doorway, close enough to hear them without being under anyone’s feet.
Owen picked at the browned edge of a potato. “Mom says you want regular days.”
“I told her you and I were talking about it,” Dean said.
Rachel put down her fork. “One Wednesday isn’t a schedule.”
Owen looked from one parent to the other. “Can you both stop talking like I’m not here?”
Rachel leaned back. “Fair.”
Dean’s first impulse was to explain that nothing had been decided. He stopped. When a choice could disappoint somebody, he had often waited for Rachel to make it and called himself cooperative.
“I want Wednesday dinner every week,” Dean said to Owen. “And two Saturdays a month, whether there’s a bike, a dog appointment, or nothing planned. I’m asking because I want the time.”
Owen rubbed one thumb over the scrape on his knuckle. “Every Wednesday might not work once school starts.”
“Then tell me which ones don’t.”
“And two Saturdays is a lot with baseball.”
Dean could still say whatever was easiest and be done with it. He took a drink of water and let Owen finish.
“One Saturday for now,” Owen said. “Plus Wednesdays when I don’t have a game. No overnights yet.”
Dean nodded. “All right.”
Owen looked suspicious of how simply the answer came. “You’re not mad?”
“No. That’s why I asked.”
Rachel folded her napkin. “And next month?”
“We ask again.”
Owen’s eyes moved to the adoption papers on the counter. “Did you put me down for June?”
“No.”
“I could help if something happened.”
“I know you could. I didn’t know if you wanted that responsibility.”
Owen considered the distinction. “You can ask me.”
“Will you be her second contact after the adoption, if the county approves it? Not her daily sitter. Somebody they can call if they can’t reach me.”
“Yeah,” Owen said. “I want that.”
Dean wrote nothing yet. He left the form on the counter until Owen could read the wording himself.
Owen ate another piece of chicken. Rachel entered the first dates in her phone, and Dean copied them onto the wall calendar before they cleared the plates.
After dinner, Rachel carried the salad container to her car. At the curb she looked back toward the kitchen window, where Owen was kneeling beside June.
“He noticed you cleared Saturdays,” she said.
“I didn’t do it so he’d owe me.”
“Good.” Rachel tucked the empty container under one arm. “Just don’t expect one week to fix the last three years.”
“I don’t.”
She studied him as if waiting for defense. When none came, she nodded toward the house. “Pick him up when you say you will. Keep Wednesday open even if he cancels once. That’s what he’ll notice.”
Dean nodded and held the car door while Rachel got in. When he returned to the kitchen, Owen had pulled the wooden train bin from the keep pile and was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the room off the kitchen, fitting two curved pieces together while June watched from the doorway.
“These are probably worth nothing,” he said.
“Probably.”
“We should keep them.”
“Okay.”
They moved the last tax-record boxes to the hall. Dean took down the narrow shelf that had made sense when Owen was six and set it against the wall for later. He did not call the room Owen’s or ask where a bed should go.
Owen opened the top drawer of the old desk and found a brass key on a frayed blue cord. Dean had put it there after Rachel changed apartments, unable to throw it away and unwilling to name why he kept it.
Owen held it up. “Is this mine?” “It still opens the front door.” The key turned once around his finger. “Can I have it back…”
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