Waiting at the Door *By Barbara J. Crocker*
My grandmother became a widow in 1970. Shortly after that, we went to the animal shelter to pick out a puppy to keep her company. Grandma decided on a little terrier that had a reddish-brown spot above each eye. Because of these spots, the dog was promptly named Penny.
Grandma and Penny quickly became very attached to each other, but that attachment GREw much stronger about three years later when Grandma had a stroke. Grandma could no longer work, so when she came home from the hospital, she and Penny were constant companions.
After her stroke, it became a real problem for Grandma to let Penny in and out because the door was at the bottom of a flight of stairs. So a mechanism using a rope and pulley was installed from the back door to a handle at the top of the stairs. Grandma just had to pull the handle to open and close the door. If the store was out of Penny''s favorite dog food, Grandma would make one of us cook Penny browned beef with diced potatoes in it. I can remember teasing my grandmother that she loved that dog better than she loved her family.
Before he went indoors he walked round to the seaward side of the house to check the black-out. He could hear the mur-mur of Louise’s voice inside: she was probably reading poetry. He thought: by God, what right has that young fool Fraser to despise her for that? and then his anger moved away again, like a shabby man, when he thought of Fraser’s disappoint-ment in the morning - no Portuguese visit, no present for his best girl, only the hot humdrum office day. Feeling for the handle of the back door to avoid FLASHing his torch, he tore his right hand on a splinter. He came into the lighted room and saw that his hand was dripping with blood. ‘Oh, darling,’ Louise said, ‘what have you done?’ and covered her face. She couldn’t bear the sight of blood. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ Wilson asked. He tried to rise, but he was sitting in a low chair at Louise’s feet and his knees were piled with books.
‘It’s all right,’ Scobie said. ‘It’s only a scratch. I can see to it myself. Just tell Ali to bring a bottle of water.’ Half-way upstairs he heard the voice resume. Louise said, ‘A lovely poem about a pylon.’ Scobie walked into the bathroom, dis-turbing a rat that had been couched on the cool rim of the bath, like a cat on a gravestone.
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