* * *
NICK PULLED HIS cruiser into the driveway, killed the engine and sat for a minute, looking at the lights from the living-room windows of his neatly landscaped three-bedroom ranch. He dreaded going inside. Ben’s first soccer game, and he’d missed it. It was all his son had talked about for days; shin guards and footwork, free kicks and headers, strikers and defensemen. The expansion of his vocabulary alone was enough to make Nick endorse his participation.
Ben wasn’t a very physical kid, at least until now. He talked too much like an adult and spent more time with books and computers than most eight-year-old boys. The idea of him joining a team, mixing it up with other kids, and learning the basics of fair play was reassuring. And Ben had enjoyed sharing his newfound enthusiasm with his dad—recounting what happened at practices and begging for additional sessions in the backyard.
With his long hours, Nick wasn’t always able to help that way, but had done his best to encourage him. And he had promised to be there for Ben’s first game, cheering him on from the sidelines.
Then he’d come across the dogs.
He dragged himself out of the cruiser, locked it up and was met at the front door by a pair of warm brown eyes in a face filled with understanding. His mom stepped back to let him enter and shook her head as he silently removed his service belt and stowed his gun in the lockbox on the top shelf of the entry closet.
“How is he?” he finally asked as he turned to face her.
“Hurt. Quiet.” She winced at the misery in his face. “Of all the days to be late, Nick.”
“I ran into a situation...” He blew out a breath, knowing the best excuse in the world couldn’t cover this failure. After a moment, he squared his shoulders. “Where is he?”
“In his room. He already finished his homework.”
Nick paused and looked at his mom. Sarah Stanton’s short hair was fashionably cut, graying in streaks that she augmented with highlights at the salon. She carried a few extra pounds, worked out twice a week and made sure they all ate healthily. She was a listener, a guide and a genuine and caring woman; the epitome of what a grandmother should be. It weighed on him that she had to be more mom than grandmother for another generation of Stanton men. He grieved even more that she seemed to relate to his bright, serious-minded son better than he did.
“Just talk to him, Nick. Explain. He’ll understand.” She read his anxiety like a book. She always had. “He needs his dad.”
That came like a punch to the gut, even though he was sure she hadn’t meant it that way. Ben needed his dad all the more because he didn’t have a mother. Not for the last four years.
His next steps, through the family room and down the hall to his son’s room, were among the hardest he had ever taken. Anxiety kept his shoulders square and his expression taut; it was only on the inside that dread softened him to a slump. Why was it that after four years he still felt like every interaction with his son was some kind of a test?
He stood in the doorway for a minute, preparing himself. It was a typical kid’s room in most ways: twin bed, posters on the walls, bookcase stuffed with books, rock collection and robot models, and a huge toy box spilling action figures, vehicles and train parts onto the carpet. On the desk near the window were a crystal-growing experiment in progress, a small microscope beside an ever-expanding bug collection and a telescope. The poster on the wall beside the desk was a chart of constellations in the northern hemisphere sky. How many eight-year-olds could tell you where the Pleiades were?
Ben looked up with a frown and then back at the Tyrannosaurus rex he was assembling. Was that look concentration or disappointment?
“Hey. How did the game go?” He settled on the bed across from Ben, who sat sideways in the chair at his desk, the half-assembled T. rex skeleton on his lap. Doing something with his hands always seemed to calm him; Nick had seen him rebuild that very dinosaur a dozen times.
“Okay.”
“Just okay?” Nick groaned. It was going to be one of those talks where every word he got out of Ben would be like pulling a tooth. “So did you play a position?”
“Yeah.”
“Which one? Defenseman? Striker? Goalie?”
“Defense.”
“Get any good assists in?”
“No.”
“Get any good shin bruises?” He looked Ben over with a half grin.
“No.”
Silence fell. This was pointless. Nick braced and changed tactics. Best to just come right out with it, a frontal assault of the problem.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it, Ben. I had a situation come up, a problem on one of the county roads—” almost as an afterthought he added the rest of it “—with some dogs. I had to take care of—”
“Dogs?” Ben’s head came up, and he searched his dad’s face with wary interest. “What kind of dogs?”
“Well, I think they were strays. They were thin and pretty dirty—like they’d been on their own for a while. One got hit by a car and was lying in the middle of the road. I had to stop and pick her up and take her to that new shelter on Curlew Road. It turned out the dog needed a vet.”
“A hurt dog?”
“Yeah. She had a broken leg and some bad cuts.”
“What kind of car hit her?” Ben set the dinosaur back on his desk.
“I don’t know. I came along later. She was blocking the road, so I had to pick her up and clear the highway. She had lost a lot of blood.”
“Did you get blood on you?” he asked, scanning Nick’s uniform.
“I don’t think so.” Nick looked down and then back at Ben, surprised to see new light in his son’s eyes. “I was careful. I covered her with the blanket I carry in the cruiser, and I drove her to the shelter.”
“’Cause you’re a vet, and you’re supposed to help people and dogs.”
Nick realized the connection Ben was making and smiled. “I’m a veteran, that’s true. But she needed a veterinarian—an animal doctor.”
Ben nodded, digesting that and frowning at his mistake. “What color was she?” He transferred to the bed beside Nick. “Was she a big dog, or a little one?”
“Well, a golden retriever—I think—so, sort of big. The other dog was a German shepherd. He didn’t want anyone to touch his friend, so I had to stare him down to get close enough to help.”
“Did he try to bite you?” Ben was more fascinated than alarmed.
“No.” Nick chuckled and ruffled Ben’s hair, surprised by Ben’s desire for every ghoulish detail. There was an eight-year-old boy in there after all. “He and I came to an understanding pretty quick.”
“So, you took the hurt dog to a hospital? What did they do to her?”
“Well, it was late and the other doctor wasn’t available, so I helped the vet do some surgery to fix the dog’s leg and hip.”
“Like a real doctor does? With blood and everything?”
“Yeah, like real surgery.”
“So she’s better now, and she’s going to be fine?”
“The vet was good and she did her best. But the dog has a ways to go before she’s really well.”
Ben thought about that