Alex was angry at us. “you can’t name the puppies!” he yelled.
Lucia, or Lucy, the scrappy stray dog, had her puppies, Rejick was faithful at her side but we all doubted he was actually the father. That had been rather traumatizing to see, all the dogs gathered around her, too interested in her suddenly one week. We were city kids, even in the small southern town in south Arkansas, we were still city kids. Our cats had been fixed, we had never seen nature in all it’s glorious action, Darwin smiling above as the strongest dog got his genes passed along to the next generation of starving, disease ridden pups. Stupidly we got sticks and tried to scare the would be suitors off. We were lucky we didn’t get attacked, actually, I think I did one time but I had on thick wool tights under my jeans so the bite didn’t break my skin.
Lucy and Rejick lived in the dumpster, nestled up in a pile of old newspapers. Lucy’s dark eyes seemed so sorrowful, her wet nose pressed against our hands. We always took our leftovers to her. Rejick had shorter hair, his tailed curled up and he limped always. He would snap at bees and eat them so I liked to have him around me all the time.
They both we strays but were singularly devoted to Sasha. They came when he called, they did what he commanded. Quite the heady power for a 10-year-old to wield. Sasha somewhat resented us for having such interest in his dogs, yet it gave him an “in” with us. We were the rockstars, remember.
But Lucy had her puppies. We were in love, the puppies were fluffy puff balls. The kids were all trying to give them to us, so the dogs would be well taken care of. We couldn’t though, we were leaving in a few months. Alex was in denial that we were leaving. He’d shake his head no and not want to talk about it, then his anger would erupt in silly little situations like us wanting to name to dogs.
We named them anyways.
Catch up on my adventures in Ukraine by clicking HERE.