The Darkest Evening of the Year

Leading the dog, Amy went to the boy. She stooped beside him, spoke to him.

Brian couldn’t hear what she said.

The front door was open, as he had left it. With the dog prancing smartly at her side, Amy soon joined him on the porch.

Standing on the threshold, Janet said, “You were… amazing. Thank you. I didn’t want the kids to see… see it happen again.”

Her face was sallow in the yellow light of the porch lamp, and the whites of her eyes had a jaundiced tint. She looked older than her years, and tired.

“You know, he’ll get another dog,” Amy said.

“Maybe I can prevent that.”

“Maybe?”

“I can try.”

“Did you really mean what you said when you first answered the door?”

Janet looked away from Amy to study the threshold at her feet, and shrugged.

Amy reminded her: “You wished that you were me. ‘Or anybody, somebody.’”

Janet shook her head. Her voice lowered almost to a murmur. “What you did in there, the money was the least of it. The way you were with him—I can never do that.”

“Then do what you can.” She leaned close to Janet and said something that Brian could not hear.

Listening intently, Janet covered her split and swollen lip with her right hand.

When Amy finished, she stepped back, and Janet met her eyes once more. They stared at each other, and although Janet didn’t say a word or even so much as nod, Amy said, “Good. All right.”

Janet retreated into the house with her daughter.

Nickie seemed to know where she was going, and moved forward on her leash, leading them off the porch, to the Expedition.

Brian said, “You always carry two thousand bucks?”

“Ever since, three years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to save a dog if I hadn’t had the money on me to buy it. That first one cost me three hundred twenty-two bucks.”

“So sometimes to rescue a dog, you have to buy it.”

“Not often, thank God.”

Without command or encouragement, Nickie sprang into the cargo space of the SUV.

“Good girl,” Amy said, and the dog’s plumed tail swished.

“That was crazy, what you did.”

“It’s only money.”

“I mean letting him put the pry bar to your throat.”

“He wouldn’t have used it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I know his type. He’s basically a pussy.”

“I don’t think he’s a pussy.”

“He beats up women and dogs.”

“You’re a woman.”

“Not his type. Believe me, sweetie, in a pinch, you’d have whupped his ass in a New York minute.”

“Hard to whup a guy’s ass after he embeds a tire iron in your skull.”

Slamming shut the tailgate, she said, “Your skull would be fine. It’s the tire iron that would’ve been bent.”

“Let’s get out of here before he decides he should have held out for three thousand.”

Flipping open her cell phone, she said, “We’re not leaving.”

“What? Why?”

Keying in three numbers, she said, “The fun’s just getting started.”

“I don’t like that look on your face.”

“What look is that?”

“Reckless abandon.”

“Reckless is a cute look for me. Don’t I look cute?” The 911 operator answered, and Amy said, “I’m on a cell phone. A man here is beating his wife and little boy. He’s drunk.” She gave the address.

Nose to the glass, peering from the dark cargo hold of the SUV, the golden retriever had the blinkless curiosity of a resident of an aquarium bumping against the walls of its world.

Amy gave her name to the operator. “He’s beaten them before. I’m afraid this time he’s going to cripple or kill them.”

The breeze stirred faster, and the eucalyptus trees tossed their tresses as if winged swarms spiraled through them.

Staring at the house, Brian felt chaos coming. He had much hard experience of chaos. He had been born in a tornado.

“I’m a family friend,” Amy lied in answer to the 911 operator’s question. “Hurry.”

As Amy terminated the call, Brian said, “I thought you took the steam out of him.”