Sometimes it’s hard to come up with a beginning. It all started with a little girl with blue eyes and black hair who was going to have a little brother any day now. Or maybe it started when a man looked across the room at the teacher, who was young and pretty and training his work group on the new network protocol. He wasn’t really looking, and she wasn’t at all certain, but four years later, they had a little girl and a little more than eight ninths of a baby boy. Or maybe it started with the puppy.

The puppy was a bribe. That’s what it boiled down to. In spite of all the prep work they did, Cadee was uncertain and a bit jealous of the baby who had stolen her mama’s lap and her daddy’s attention. It was Daddy’s idea—as he put it, “They’ll distract each other, and we’ll be able to focus on baby Eric.” Mama wasn’t at all convinced, but the doctors had told her to stay in bed, and Daddy had taken Cadee out for the afternoon, and so the puppy joined the family.

He was a tiny black and white dog with one deep brown eye and one clear green eye, who Cadee inappropriately christened Cleo, after a cartoon dog that she adored. Cleo and Cadee chased each other around the kitchen, her three-year exuberance a perfect match for the puppy.

Because Mama was confined to bed and Daddy was distracted, the pair spent the next few days confined to the kitchen. Daddy put down newspapers that Cleo promptly ignored and Cadee ripped to shreds. Cleo was perfectly willing to share his water bowl and food with his new child, but after a nibble of kibble, Cadee was even more willing to share her human food with her new friend. At night, Cadee slept in Cleo’s doggie bed and Cleo curled up in the hollow of her tummy, his nose touching his tail.

And then there was the night when Mama got sick and she and Daddy rushed to the hospital to find Cadee’s baby brother and Grandma came to stay. Grandma was a very proper lady, with clear ideas about the proper places for little girls and little dogs. Cadee cried herself to sleep in her lonely bed, and Cleo whined and yipped in the kitchen all night. But Grandma was unrelenting.

The next morning Cadee and Cleo decided to run away. Cadee packed all the essentials, her teddy bear and Cleo’s ball and a fruit roll up for when they got hungry. And they headed out to the backyard to her purple clubhouse and stayed there, even though she got a bit hungry around lunchtime. Cleo was the perfect confederate, barking at attacking birds and guarding Cadee when it was naptime.

And that’s when Mama and Daddy and Eric came home. Mama and Grandma settled in to holding the baby and counting his little fingers and toes, and Daddy went to find Cadee.

Cleo greeted Daddy like he had been gone for years, bouncing and yipping and wagging his tail. Daddy picked Cadee up and she curled closer to him in her sleep, yawning, opening her eyes.

“Cadee, are you ready to meet your new baby brother?”

Cadee looked around. “Cleo too?”

Daddy nodded, and they headed inside for their next adventure.

"Puppy Dog"