“Looks like we have a mama dog,” he said.
“Yeah, but where are the babies?” I asked. She was too engorged to have them weaned.
“God, she’s fucking skeletal,” Remy said, getting close and offering the back of his hand.
“Those babies have been taking all you have to offer, huh, Mama?” I asked, rubbing her under her neck. “Can you maybe show us where the babies are?” I asked, carefully getting to my feet.
“Here, baby, you know the drill,” he said, handing me a flashlight and pepper spray combo. “I gotta pull this car to the side of the road and I’ll be right behind.”
It wasn’t long until the sweet skinny mama dog had me following her behind an old dumpster where she had her babies hidden as best she could under a soaking wet cardboard box.
While the mama had been able to dry off after the storm, the babies were all huddled in a big puddle, freezing and whining, but alive. Mama dog might have been skinny, but she truly did give it all to the puppies, each plumper than the last.
“You’re a good mama, girl. You knew you needed some help, huh?” I asked, reaching for the smallest puppy and wrapping him up in my skirt, trying to get some of the water off of him. “We’re gonna take all of you home and get you all warm. And you, my girl, get the new rescue mama treatment. Which means daddy is going to go to the food store and get you a nice big steak.”
“I think half our grocery budget goes to welcome home rescue steaks,” Remy said, coming up behind me.
He’d had the foresight to bring one of the collapsible travel carriers we kept in the car and a couple blankets to boot.
“It’s gonna be a tight fit. Mama has some thick babies,” I told him, handing the first one back.
We did that until we had all five of them, then brought mama back to the house with us.
We would have to take another trip to the vet in the morning.
But we spent the night feeding the mama, then watching the mama feed the babies, before tucking them in all safe and sound.
“I was just thinking,” I said as we stood at the vanity in the bathroom at our respective side-by-side sinks in the bathroom with tiled walls because of Remy’s shaking off like a dog shower habits, just going through our nightly routines.
“About?”
“About how you’d think that with every loss, your heart would just kind of shrink from the grief.”
“But it somehow just keeps getting bigger?” Remy asked, walking up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, and pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“Exactly.”
Every year, my heart just manages to get bigger and bigger.
And every gosh darn inch of it loved him.