“Not much,” Ethan says. “The company party is the grand affair. When Christmas Day comes, we usually just laze around all day and have dinner together.”
“You don’t exchange presents?”
“Not anymore.”
I guess it’s hard to give presents to people who can buy everything they want.
“What about you?” Ethan asks me. “What did you and your family use to do for Christmas?”
“On Christmas Day? We’d start by exchanging presents around the tree, then I’d help my mom start preparing dinner. We’d usually have it early, like around five, so that we could watch movies afterwards.”
Ethan nods. “Sounds like fun.”
“Yeah.”
Those Christmas days really were. Oh, what I’d do to bring them back.
Ethan places his hand over mine.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up the past and make you sad.”
I shake my head. “I’m not. Those were happy memories, the ones that no one should ever forget.”
They’re the proof that my mother and father existed and that they’ll always be with me.
“But I’d rather hear yours,” I tell Ethan. “Surely, you must have a few.”
He leans back in his chair. “What do you want to know?”
Everything.
“Whatever you want to share,” I answer before eating another spoonful of my dessert. “I’ll just sit here and listen.”
Ethan taps his fingers on the table. “Let’s see…”
~
“I don’t believe you,” I tell Ethan as we continue our conversation on the balcony.
In the distance, the city lights gleam against the night sky like gems in a mine.
“It’s true,” he says. “That dog could climb trees, and in seconds, too. I actually wondered if he was a squirrel pretending to be a dog.”
I chuckle. I’ve heard of dogs climbing on top of furniture like cats. But dogs climbing trees like squirrels?
“Speaking of squirrels, I had a dog that ate a squirrel once. I thought he was going to be sick but he turned out fine. The weird part is he died years later from a chicken bone.”
Weird, indeed.
“How many dogs did you have growing up?” I ask him.
Ethan starts counting on his fingers, first on his left hand and then on his right.
Don’t tell me he had ten?
“Eight that I remember,” he answers.
Still a lot.
“You said you had one, right?” he asks me.
I nod. “A Labrador. We got him from the shelter when he was a year old. He was mostly my dad’s dog, but sometimes he would sleep at my feet. He was pretty normal, didn’t like to climb trees or eat squirrels, though he was friends with the neighbor’s cat.”
Ethan grins. “I had a Labrador, too, but the one who followed me around everywhere was a…”
He stops suddenly, his attention clearly caught by something. Curious, I turn around and realize he’s staring at a fluffy white dog sitting beside a boy of about five or six years old.
I touch my chin. What’s that breed again?
“Samoyed,” Ethan provides the answer.
“Right, that’s…” I pause as I realize he’s smiling. “Oh. That’s the same breed as the dog you had?”
“He looks just like him, too,” he says before starting to walk towards the dog and the boy.
Wait. Is he going to pet the dog?
I keep my distance, watching and hoping that nothing goes wrong. The boy looks a little scared. The dog, however, looks interested.
Ethan kneels in front of the dog and starts to speak to the boy in German. I don’t hear half of it and don’t understand the rest because Ethan is talking too fast. I guess he asked the boy permission to pet the dog, because moments later he tries to do exactly that. He extends his fist. I hold my breath. The dog sniffs it, then gives it a lick as it wags its tail. I let out a breath of relief.
The dog climbs onto Ethan and licks his forehead. Ethan laughs. I smile. Somehow, I feel like I’m catching a rare glimpse of how he was as a boy, carefree and adventurous.
And even more lovable.
Suddenly, the boy cries. The dog goes back to him and licks his face. Ethan approaches him, too, but backs off when two adults arrive. I’m guessing they’re his parents.
They talk in German but only briefly, the child’s parents in a hurry to whisk him and the dog away. Ethan lets out a sigh.
I stand by his side and touch his arm. “Are you okay?”
He says nothing. He doesn’t look okay. In fact, he seems upset. Is it because the dog’s gone?
I squeeze his arm. “Hey. It’s fine. You can get a Samoyed when you get back to Chicago.”
He can probably afford a hundred of them.
“I don’t have time for a dog,” he replies.
Right. If I don’t have time to take care of a dog, Ethan has even less.
“Well, at least you were able to pet this one,” I say. “And he seemed to really like you.”
Or was it a she? I wasn’t able to tell.