sausage, the next it was dried apples.  Again, Terry and Taya attested that this was perfectly normal.  But it did little to settle anyone’s confusion.

By the end of about five weeks, Luna was extremely fat even though her owners had started locking the pet door at night to prevent her midnight snacks (and, although Mr. Calvin never mentioned it to anyone but his wife, to minimize the chances of Luna dying away from home).  She was heavy with puppies, and had begun having mood swings.

The evening when that began, the three were eating as usual from their bowls.  Luna’s was placed in the closet with her so she wouldn’t have to leave her “den,” as the family had started referring to it.  Toby’s was just outside the closet because of his extreme reluctance to leave her unattended.  For although he never voiced his worries, he had developed a growing sense of dread about Luna’s condition.  He had no way of knowing the vet’s concerns, and his own faith in the certainty of a good outcome prevented him from consciously perceiving what his sub-conscious had started to guess.

In any event, Luna was certainly eating well, although she kept a wary eye on Toby and Arrow and growled if either of their heads came too close to hers or her dishes.  Expecting mother dogs are sometimes very touchy, as you have probably seen if your dog ever had pups.  And of course interfering when a dog is eating is never a wise move.  Indeed, there might have been a disaster if Arrow hadn’t piped up.

“Mom, why are you growling at Dad?”

Luna, surprised by the realization, blushed.  “I… I don’t know,” she admitted.  “I just feel strange when he gets close.”

“You always feel that way,” he pointed out.

“No, not good strange,” she replied, shaking her head.  “Bad strange.”  Her ears slid back and she hung her head.  “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Maybe she’s still got some effects from that time she hit her head back when you were dating,” suggested Arrow.  Toby and Luna gave her a look, and her ears and tail drooped.  “Well it’s possible, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I hope not,” Toby replied.  “But I’ll see what I can find out when I get the chance.

Toby was not the sole victim of Luna’s mood swings.  Several times she drove Arrow out of the closet at bedtime, often with near-violence.  Toby tried to comfort the pup, reassuring her that it wasn’t over soon.  But Arrow, who until meeting Toby and Luna had known little but the things she was experiencing now, had grown to in some sense depend on their daily shows of affection even more than she did on air and water.  Playtime, a comforting word, a warm place to sleep, all these things were gradually being removed, leaving her to wither like an uprooted tree.  With even her respective owner, Eugene, often paying more attention to Luna than to her, Arrow was slowly becoming convinced that once the puppies arrived, there would be no place left for her.

On the evening of one of Luna’s episodes, Arrow decided to go out for a while.  The fact that neither Luna nor Toby, who was busy trying to calm Luna down, tried to stop her further damaged her already battered sense of security.  As she wandered the quiet streets, she wondered what it would be like to go back to living on them.

As she passed by a lonely corner, she saw a yellow-tinted dog sitting on the porch of one of the stores staring out at the street.  He looked to be older than Toby, but not so old as Rex and Terry (or Grandma and Grandpa, as she called them).  Curious, she walked up to him.  “Hi,” she said tentatively.

The dog glanced at her, apparently decided she wasn’t of too much interest, and resumed his vigil.  “Hi,” he said flatly.

She sat down.  “Mind if I sit here?”

Without so much as a shrug he replied, “It’s a free country.”

Arrow had never seen or even heard about the Royal Guards in England, but if she had she probably would have concluded that this dog made them look like Russian dancers.  “What are you doing?”

He snorted, at last showing some sign of emotion.  “Mind your business,” he grumbled.

“I was just asking.”

He rolled his eyes and answered, “Remembering.  What’s a squirt like you doing out here?”

Trying not to bristle at being called a “squirt,” Arrow replied, “I, uh, needed a little time away from my parents.”  She followed his gaze into the street as if that might reveal some clue as to what memories haunted this dog.  “What are you remembering?” she asked.

He sighed, whether out of sorrow at the memory or exasperation at her persistence she didn’t know.  “My Dad,” he said simply.

“Oh.”  Arrow had memories of her own father- her biological father, that is- but she had tried not to think about him since she had been adopted.  “What happened to him?”

“Dead,” he growled.  “Right out there.”  And he gestured to the street.”

“My parents died when some old wood fell on them.”

“I thought you said you came out here to get away from them.”

“No, my other parents,” she explained.  “I’m adopted.”

By way of reply, the yellow dog gave an anemic “Hm,” and kept staring.  After a minute he remarked, “My Dad died in a sledding accident.”

“Was he a sled dog?”

“The best.”  Arrow caught a hint of positive tone in the dog’s voice now.  “He was a champion racer, lead dog of his team.”  Then his voice caught.  “They were racing for the job of mail carriers, and he tripped.  The rest of his team piled up and he…” he choked.  “His neck broke.”

Arrow winced.  “Ouch,” she whispered.

The dog spat.  “I’ve hated this time of year ever since,” he remarked.  “September, when he died, and December.  Christmas is the worst.”

“Why Christmas?”

“Because he said he would start training me that Christmas,” he replied.  “After the holiday rush was over.  That’s all I ever wanted, to spend time with him.  To be like him.  And now…” he sighed.

“Did that make your mom sad?” asked Arrow, trying to imagine how upset Luna would be if something like that happened to Toby.

He snorted hatefully.  “Nah, she just went and had pups with some creep from down south,” he spat.  “She didn’t care, not even after living with Dad for years.”  His voice began to rise now, finally coming to a shout that echoed up and down the streets.  “I lost both my parents, and NOBODY STINKIN’ CARES!”  On the last word he smashed his foot down on the boards.

Arrow cringed.  “Uh, well, I think I hear my Mom calling,” she fibbed.  “See yah.”  And with that she dashed off.  After running a good distance from the enraged husky, she stopped to catch her breath and mull over what he had said.  ‘If his Mom could just forget about his Dad,’ she wondered with a sense of overwhelming dread, ‘How hard could it be for Toby and Luna to just push me aside?’

A few days later, when Luna was about due to give birth and Toby was taking as much care of her as he could without triggering her “instinct,” as they had begun to call it, Arrow made her decision.  While Luna was busy trying to determine if she was having a contraction or a random muscle cramp, and Toby was worrying that it might be both, Arrow quietly slipped out the door.  She walked several yards from her house, then looked back with a desperate longing to just go back in and find everything normal.  But she knew it wouldn’t happen.  “It’s better this way,” she said quietly.  She didn’t know where to go, or who would want a pup like her if Toby and Luna didn’t.  She guessed she would just keep walking until she found a place in this world, or perhaps the next.  So she walked off, her paws already feeling chilly from the snow as a passing wind bit through her fur, into the months-long northern night.

There’s no telling for sure how long it was until the pain in Luna’s side subsided, and they