While I was away, my children sold my dog. I stood in the doorway of my silent home, travel bag still in hand, staring at the empty space where Max should have been bounding toward me, all wagging tail and sloppy kisses. The house felt wrong, hollow in a way that had nothing to do with its physical dimensions.
“Brenda, Steven,” I called out, dropping my bag and moving deeper into the house. The silence that answered told me everything. My children were hiding, which meant they’d done something they knew would infuriate me.
At fifty-five, I had developed a finely tuned radar for their misbehavior, even now that they were supposedly adults. I found them in the kitchen, huddled at the table like conspirators. Steven, my thirty-two-year-old son, was nursing a beer despite it being barely noon.
Brenda, twenty-nine and still sporting the effortless beauty that had always made things too easy for her, was fidgeting with her phone, refusing to meet my eyes. “Where’s Max?” I asked, though I already knew the answer from the guilty flush creeping up Steven’s neck. They exchanged a look, the same one they’d been sharing since they were children, caught raiding the cookie jar.
“Mom,” Brenda started, her voice honey-sweet in that way that always preceded bad news. “How was your retirement paperwork trip? Everything finalized okay with the hospital?”
“Where is my dog?” I repeated, my voice flat and cold.
Steven sighed, taking a long pull from his beer before answering. “We needed money fast. An opportunity came up that couldn’t wait.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me.
“You sold Max, my dog, without asking me.”
“Technically, he’s the family dog,” Steven countered weakly. “The family dog that I rescued, that I pay for, that sleeps in my room every night,” I replied, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “The dog that has been my constant companion since your father decided his secretary was more appealing than his twenty-year marriage.”
“Look, it was a good situation,” Brenda jumped in, her tone defensive.
“This guy Paul really wanted a Belgian Malininoa, and Max looks exactly like one.”
“Max is a mixed-breed rescue who happens to resemble a Malininoa,” I corrected sharply. “I’ve told you that countless times.”
“Well, nobody can tell the difference,” Steven shrugged. “Even that dog breeder at the park thought he was purebred.”
I stared at my children—these strangers who had somehow emerged from my body, whom I had raised alone after their father abandoned us, whom I had supported through college and beyond, whom I had allowed to move back home temporarily during their latest financial setbacks.
These people had sold the being who loved me most in the world without a second thought. “How much?” I asked quietly. Another exchanged glance.
“Eight thousand,” Steven admitted, a note of pride in his voice. “The guy was desperate for a Malininoa.”
Eight thousand dollars. That’s what they’d valued Max at.
That’s what they’d valued my heart at. I didn’t shout. I didn’t throw things.
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