Page 14 of Protected from Torment

Sensing my unsettled mood, Oscar bumps my leg with his head. Then he peers up at me with a questioning gaze.

Exhaling heavily, I pat Oscar’s head and say, “I’m fine, buddy. Just a little stressed, is all. But there’s nothing to worry about.”

He gives me an assessing look, like he’s trying to determine if I’m telling the truth. I force a smile to reassure him and give the spot between his ears a scratch. After a few seconds, he huffs out a little sigh and settles back down to rest his head on my foot.

Turning my attention from the episode I’ve barely watched, I look back at my half-eaten frozen dinner. Now that it’s cooling, the coagulating spaghetti sauce and limp noodles look even less appealing than they did fresh from the microwave.

“Ugh,” I say. “I think I’ll pass.”

Oscar lifts his head again, this time with a hopeful expression. I’ll take it, his eyes seem to be saying. You may not think it looks good, but I’m not picky.

I move my TV tray to the side so I can get up, then grab the remainder of my dinner so I can throw it away. As I head towards the kitchen, I tell Oscar, “Trust me, buddy, your food is better than this.”

When I reach the doorway to the kitchen, I turn back to look at him. Oscar’s expression clearly says, Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?

“I’ll get you a treat,” I reply to his unspoken question. “One of the fancy ones I got from the bakery in town. You’ll like that much better.”

His response is an eager wag of his tail. The fur whips back and forth like a golden flag. And despite my sour mood, I can’t help smiling at it.

Thank goodness for Oscar, I think as I dump the microwave dinner into the trash. No matter how crummy things get, he always makes me feel better.

And things have been pretty crummy lately. Not as bad as they were right after Vince died, or in the aftermath of my gigantic screw-up at the fundraiser. Back then, I was so down; it felt impossible that things would ever get better.

Back then, I felt so terrible, I might have considered hurting myself if I hadn’t known how disappointed Vince would be.

Now, it’s not that bad. And I have the coping skills to handle the bad days. I take Oscar on an extra-long walk by the lake. I check in with my counselor. I practice yoga and meditation. And I snuggle up on the couch to watch a marathon of The Office or Parks and Rec until things feel more manageable again.

So I’m not planning on letting the crap at work send me into a downward spiral. I’ve come much too far for that. Plus, my parents just moved to South Carolina to enjoy their well-deserved retirement, and I won’t do anything to mess it up for them.

With the frozen dinner in the trash, I head over to the sink to wash my fork. Once I set the clean fork in the dish drain, I reach into the cabinet to the left of it to grab one of Oscar’s treats. Selecting a bone-shaped biscuit with tiny paw prints drawn in icing all over it, I carry it back into the living room and hold it up for display.

Oscar leaps up from his spot by the couch, his ears perked and tail wagging madly.

My heart lifts. An involuntary smile curves my lips.

As I present the treat to him, he raises one paw, then the other. When I don’t hand him the treat right away, he rocks back on his haunches and sits up with both front paws outstretched.

“Throwing all the tricks out at once, huh?” I ask him with a chuckle. Then I hand him the treat, laughing as he swallows it in two large bites.

“Why do you buy him expensive treats when he doesn’t even taste them?” my mom asked me once. “You could just buy the cheap ones. He wouldn’t know the difference.”

“I would know,” I told her. “Oscar deserves the best, and I’m going to give it to him.”

Slightly cheered, I settle back onto the couch and begin watching The Office again. Now that dinner is over, Oscar hops up beside me—he knows he’s not allowed on the couch while I’m eating, but any other time is fair game. I stroke his soft fur as I focus on the antics of the characters. Whenever a memory from earlier today threatens to intrude, I comb my fingers through Oscar’s fur and concentrate on the warm weight of his body pressing against mine.

And it works, up until the end of the episode, when one of the characters decides to play a prank on his coworker. As I watch the downtrodden office employee get more and more frazzled, it strikes a chord in me. The things I’d rather not think about come rushing back.

Not just the unexpected package, but all the strange things that have happened in the weeks prior. First tiny incidents, like a missing folder I was certain I had put on my desk, or a staff meeting I never got an email about.

But then the incidents, as I’m calling them, started getting more serious.

Two weeks ago, someone called the office, claiming to be doing a reference check for a job I’d applied for. But I hadn’t. The idea of applying for another job was the furthest thing from my mind.

Then, nine days ago, my computer got a virus. The hard drive ended up corrupted, which meant staying late for the rest of the week while I redid all the work I lost. IT checked my computer, and they claimed I must have downloaded something. But I didn’t. I’m sure of it.

This past Monday, I came out to my car to find all the tires flat. Not slashed or punctured. Just completely flat. “You’ve got to check the air pressure regularly,” the guy from roadside assistance reminded me. “These older cars, they won’t tell you when the air’s low like the newer ones do. Get yourself a compressor, or stop by the gas station to check.”

But I do check my tire pressure. That’s one of the things my dad taught me to do—once a month, swing by the gas station to do a quick fill-up, if necessary. It’s better for fuel efficiency, he told me. And it’s quick enough to do it.