“I want my own room with my own toys,” she says, sounding like she’s two seconds away from a total toddler meltdown.
“I’m sorry, honey. We will get you some new toys, but we all have to share this room for now.”
”I want to go home,” she says, staring at the floor.
How do you tell a kid she no longer has her home anymore?
I explain the best I can, but Harper is only four years old and I know she doesn’t fully understand and also doesn’t want to accept that the home and bedroom she had just two days ago no longer exists. I can barely accept it myself.
And now we have this awesome new dog, but everyone else gets to play with him. I can’t blame Brooke for liking Arko so much, but even I start to get annoyed as the week goes on.
My in-laws don’t have a fenced in yard. It’s just acres of land that borders the family dirt bike business next door, and this has never been an issue before but now with a dog, it’s hard to have a yard that’s not enclosed. Sure, he’s a highly trained dog, but none of us trust that Arko wouldn’t take off running away from us while he’s still getting used to his new family, so he can only go outside on a leash. He’s also on the Alden K9 schedule, and I guess those guys like waking up at the butt-crack of dawn because every morning, Arko wants to go outside to pee at five a.m..
When Brooke offers to take him out on his early morning pee breaks, we agree, just so we can get some precious hours of sleep. But after a few days, it’s like she thinks Arko is her dog. She tries to feed him and walk him and do everything with him, often doing it just before Harper gets to help. It’s creating a tension that I’m not sure how to solve.
And Arko thinks being on a leash all the time is freaking stupid.
“I don’t blame you, buddy.”
It’s been a week of living here, and Arko is acting super annoyed after his dinner. He keeps finding his glow-in-the-dark ball, no matter where I hide it in the house, and then he brings it to me with a look on his face that’s begging me to throw it for him. His little pleading eyes melt right through me and I can’t take disappointing him anymore.
“You need a fenced in yard,” I say, ruffling the fur on top of his head. “And I don’t have a fenced in yard for you right now.”
Chills prickle over my arms. “Actually…” He tilts his head, like he’s reading my mind, or like he’s just smart enough to know what I’m thinking. “I technically do own a fenced in yard…it’s just attached to a house that burned down.
The fence didn’t burn. The back yard is still there. Technically.
“Let’s go.”
I jog back into the house, Arko happily jogging beside me on his leash. “Jett!”
I find him sitting on the floor next to Harper, his attention focused on trying to put together one of her new puzzle toys. “What’s up babe,” he says, brows squishing together as he focuses on attaching two pieces.
“Arko needs a yard. Let’s take him to our yard.”
“Huh?” he says, then about two seconds later he realizes what I mean. “You think so?”
“Why not?” I say with a shrug. “We still own the property.”
“True.”
So what’s what we do—we load into Jett’s truck and drive across town to the rubble of our home. Except, it’s not rubble anymore.
“Wow,” I say, stepping out of the truck with my jaw basically on the ground. “How did they do that so fast?”
“Beats me,” Jett says. The burned rubble of our home has been cleaned up all the way down to the concrete foundation. Everything is gone.
I knew a construction type cleanup crew was supposed to do that, but I guess I didn’t know how fast they can do such a thing. It looks so much nicer, now. But it also stirs up that pain in my chest again, knowing that all of our stuff is gone, and the home we have so many memories in is gone forever. At least the memories will stay with us, even if the stuff didn’t.
Technically the yard is only seventy-five percent fenced in since the area where our house was is now a concrete slab, but it feels safer with these three walls than it did at his parents’ house.
We get his glow-in-the-dark ball and walk Arko to the back yard. Harper runs around, arms out at her sides like she’s an airplane. Maybe we’ve all felt a little cooped up lately.
I unhook Arko’s leash once we’re in the back yard. “All right, boy. Now you can run!”
Jett throws the ball and Arko takes off like a rocket ship. His happiness is abundant in the way he chases after the ball, tail wagging the whole time. Caleb had told us that two balls was the trick to playing with a working dog. You throw one ball, and while he’s bringing it back, you have another ball in your hand to throw. After just a few throws, Jett and Arko slide into an awesome rhythm. It’s like a dance, in a way. Arko runs after the ball, returns it at Jett’s feet, then takes off for the next ball.
“You want to try, Mommy?” Jett says, holding out a ball for me. I don’t know why, but it’s sexy when he calls me that. I take his place at the corner of the yard and toss the ball. It’s fun, but one thing Caleb did not tell us—the ball gets slobbery! My hand is sticky and gross after a few throws, and I make a mental note to get some rubber gloves or something next time we play fetch, especially here where there’s no sink to rinse off.
