“And now it’s your job?”
“Just part-time. Because I enjoy it. Dogs deserve to be well trained. I think it makes them happy. I know it makes them social. And it makes a good family. Frustrated dog parents are unhappy and unhappy parents are sometimes angry. That’s no good for anyone.”
“Why don’t you teach people how to train their dogs?”
“I do that, too. But not everyone has the right temperament. It takes a certain kind of confidence. For me, it’s satisfying to turn over a well-behaved pet or partner…”
“Partner?”
“I train hunters and support animals, too. They’re working dogs.”
“And guard dogs? And police dogs?” she asked.
“No. Canine officers should train their own dogs; it’s part of the bonding experience. I don’t like the idea of guard dogs. Get an alarm. Or just an ordinary dog will bark at just about anything that stirs. Most people want guard dogs that will scare people, even attack. That’s not what I do. I want to work with people who want happy dogs. That’s a tall enough order.”
“And you have many other things to do,” she said. “I’m very curious about all your art. But I’m more curious about your experience with this town. How long have you been here?”
“I grew up here. It was just me and my dad. This was his property. I was little when he and my mother got divorced. She went back to the city and we stayed here. He was a lineman with the county—back then it was power lines.”
“So, you spent almost your whole life right here?”
“Not all, no. I went to college in San Francisco, lived there a few more years, before I decided I didn’t have to pay those high city prices. What about you? Where did you grow up?”
“Southern California. Newport.”
“One of those California beach girls…”
Before long, he began the second beer while she sipped her wine. They talked about areas of the state they liked, the differences between the northern mountains and the southern beaches. She told him she’d been married, though briefly, and had been divorced for nine years. He mentioned that he had been married eleven years ago, that his hadn’t worked out, either. It was one of those pleasant, superficial, just-getting-to-know-you chats. She heard her phone ringing in the house and decided whoever was calling could leave a message because she was enjoying this time with her landlord.
They parted ways as the sun was getting low over the pines and a small chill was settling over the land. “We’ll have to do this again,” he said.
“By all means,” she said.
When she was back inside, she checked her phone. It was Howard, her father. His voice was a little hysterical.
“Kaylee, where the hell are you? I’ve left messages, you haven’t returned my calls, so I stopped by the house and there’s a strange couple living there! They said you’d moved to Northern California for the rest of the year! Call me or so help me God, I’ll come looking for you.”
She sighed deeply. It was tempting to just ignore the message, but clearly he was going to keep calling. She didn’t understand the urgency. He seemed to have spent much of his life avoiding her until Meredith got sick. Then suddenly he was calling frequently, wanting to see her, wanting to form a family with her.
There just didn’t seem to be a polite way to tell him he was much too late.
Kaylee had grown to hate the words, “Well, he is your father.” From the time Howard had left them, he had not been an attentive or doting father. In fact, he rarely visited her. He would come to the house occasionally, and even at the age of seven or eight she knew he was coming more to see Meredith than her. It became more evident as the years passed that he regretted leaving Meredith, and on his visits he would spend a great deal of the time visiting with her, not Kaylee. Kaylee would say hello and then go watch TV, and Howard and Meredith would sit at the kitchen table and talk like old friends. By the time Kaylee was a teen she had come to understand Howard wanted to talk to his ex-wife about his unsuccessful relationships.
“Doesn’t that make you mad, that he complains to you about his wives or girlfriends?” she once asked her mother. And Meredith said, “No, sweetheart. It makes me very grateful that he left me.”
Meredith was fine with his visits, given they weren’t too frequent. Because Meredith was classy. Her heart no longer ached for the marriage that fell apart and she’d had plenty of gentlemen friends in the years since the divorce. She had a good social life.