Free Dead Little Dolly by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli Page A

a daily story, I came home to a note tacked to my screen door:
    GOT THE WEDDING PLANNED YET?
    Under the single question were numbers. One through three had lines drawn through them. Four stood alone. That meant Harry had been over four times for an answer while I was gone. If I hadn’t returned when I did, who knows how many times he’d be visiting in that vehicle of his or walking up his drive and down mine to see me.
    I’d have to call Eugenia for a menu and a price.
    So many complications. I wanted to sigh and pack it all in.
    When I walked in the door Sorrow came bounding across the living room to greet me—which shouldn’t have happened since I’d closed him out on the screened porch, but there he was and there was the porch door wide open. My amazing Houdini of a dog.
    And then he piddled his happiness on my hall rug, which called for a bucket, and a scrub brush, and a rag, and me down on my knees, swearing and scrubbing as Sorrow stupidly stuck his nose in my ear.
    But who can get mad at anybody so happy to see you? I sat back and scratched his ears and patted his black shaggy head and talked baby talk to him because I figured I was always going to be one of those women who maybe should have had a baby but got a dog instead.
    At least it wasn’t a dozen cats.
    Yet.
    I poured myself a full glass of Pinot Grigio and ambled down to the lake to sit and watch the loons dive then make bets with myself as to where they would surface. A fun game for the end of an uneventful day.
    For a while I tried to think about nothing but Sorrow barking at the beaver and the beaver slapping the water hard with his tail, neither one of them settling anything with their aggression. And that led me to think of Middle East wars where one side slapped a tail and then the other and they all grumbled for a hundred years until one slapped a tail again.
    And that led me back to Dolly, who was slapping her tail in every direction she could think to slap in.
    So wearying, seeing Dolly Wakowski turned inward, and churned up and mad and thoughtful but maybe not thinking at her best. This wasn’t the Dolly I used to know, before Baby Jane. All I could think about as I set my empty glass at the edge of the dock was what a strange metamorphosis motherhood brought on some women. Like, all of a sudden they stopped thinking about themselves completely and there’s this new person with needs; a being depending on them for life. Dolly would die before letting anything happen to Jane. Not only die, but first launch her body like a missile to protect that tiny, kind of boring, person. I liked the kid all right. But give my life for her? I’d have to think about that one.
    I sat down beside my empty glass and stuck my bare feet into the water, creating circles moving off into the growing darkness. It was getting cold, though the day had been a warm one. After a time of stillness, tiny fish came over to take a look at my skinny feet until I wiggled a toe. Another great game.
    I wasn’t thinking about much of anything so there was room for other worries to slip in and Jackson came to mind. I had to call him. He wasn’t one to be ignored for long. One day there would be a barrage of calls, or he might come zipping down my drive in a hail of gravel, angry with me for making him worry.
    All of that got me up off the dock with a shiver, a wave to the angry beaver and the dispersing loons, and then back into the house to face the dreaded answering machine.
    I hit the play button and hoped against hope it wasn’t somebody wanting to sell me a cemetery plot, which on more than one occasion had ruined a perfectly good day.
    “Emily, this is Madeleine Clark . . .”
    My heart sped up. It was my agent. Agents only called when there was something important to say. Rejections came by mail or email. This was a phone call . . .
    “We have an offer. Please call as soon as possible. I would like to discuss this with you . . . eh . . . well . . . Call me. I’m