Hate You Not

She slaps me so hard and fast, I never see it coming. I’m holding my throbbing cheek right after, gaping at her through my fingers.

“The question is, who’s gonna believe I slapped you? Eh?” She jabs my chest with one finger, and I step backward down the screened porch steps. June whirls on her heel and stalks into the house’s door.

I laugh, a harsh, low sound. Then I turn toward my car. “I’m gonna make you pay for that, sweetheart.”Chapter 4JuneHe’s an awful man. Just terrible.

He must have more money than God, because it’s only two and a half hours later that the first of his retaliations shows up on my porch. Someone he paid. I know it must be, because the devil drove up in a fancy sports car, but the person who drops it off is in a truck.

By the time I reach one of the front windows, I see an F-250’s taillights glowing in a dust cloud that’s tinged orange like the sun-streaked sky. Whoever it was left a cardboard box. I hear it whining as I step outside.

“Oh no he didn’t…”

But he did. That mothertrucker left a trucking puppy at my house—or, rather, he paid someone to. There’s a note taped to the box.

Oliver and Margot, I came for a visit. You weren’t here, but that’s okay. I’ll come see you tomorrow. I’ll bring a surprise. This is my surprise for tonight. They are AKC registered German Shepherd puppies. What are you going to name them? One girl, one boy—just like you.

Love, Uncle Burke

What the mothertrucking truckness is this?

I open the box with my jaw on the floor, and there they are. I pick one up, and then the other.

“Oh my gosh, you’re butterballs, aren’t you? Barely old enough to leave your mama. Who is mama? Who around here has a litter of pups?”

Oh, they’re so sweet. I lift one up to my face and sniff the puppy scent.

“You have two big doggo siblings. And a human brother and sister. Who will be so excited…if I keep you. Should I keep you, though?”

I set the pups back in the box and drag it over by the door that leads into the living room. Then I go in, shut my big dogs in the laundry room with treats, and bring the pups into my living room.

“I’m gonna kill him. Yes I am,” I puppy talk them. “It’ll be murder.”

They’re so precious. Their little ears are sort of soft and floppy. Their sweet noses are all warm and damp. I set them on the rug before I think about it, and they bound around the living room.

“Dangit! Don’t pee!” Just as I catch one of them and lift the puppy to my chest, he or she does just that—pees all over me. I look at my phone, over on an end table. I don’t have his number, do I?

I text Leah instead.

LEAH. Come now!! I need you!!! (If you can’t, it’s okay, it’s just a puppy crisis).

PUPPY?!?

Come, I tell her.

I take the puppies out to potty. So nice of Dickwad to buy supplies for them. The pups bound down the steps, and that’s when I spot their stuff in the yard. Crates, collars…all of it.

So what?

He’s still a dickwad.

I get them collared and leashed, and by some miracle, they seem to know it’s time to potty. When they’re finished, I grab a pack of pee pads from the pile of supplies and spread one in the screened-in porch. If I don’t want to keep the pups, I’ll need to send them off with Leah before the kids get home from community center art class at 6:45 PM.

If I send them off, he might tell the kids I did. He wouldn’t do that, though, would he? I don’t know him.

I check my phone for a text from Leah. Instead, there’s one from an unknown number.

What do you think, Mama? You can handle four, so what’s two more?

He knows about my other dogs? How creepy.

You have problems, I say.

Only one, he replies.

I hate you.

I can be gone tomorrow. All I need is two small humans.

Dream on. I do have two small doggos you can take, though. Two doggos for one son of a bitch.

I’ll give you two mil.

My stomach rolls. You’re really trying to buy the kids? That’s disgusting.

Puppy piss on your clothes is disgusting.

I suck a breath in, then look through the screens out at the night. Are you watching me right now?

Bwahaha. Just a lucky guess. Did one of them really get you?

Should I be scared of him? Is he watching right now? Maybe he’s unstable. He must be reading my mind because he texts, If you really did get pissed on, don’t be freaked out. I didn’t know that. I’m in Albany right now.

He shares his location with me, and I feel a tinge better.