The Release

“You should just own your jealousy,” Lucy suggested. “It’s healthier. Besides, I’d be hate-filled and moody if you were taking off for two weeks and leaving me to fend for myself in the trenches.”

“I’ll keep good notes on all major events.”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“When you come back it will almost be Spring Break. Do you know what happens in April?” Salem asked with mock-excitement.

“It stops raining.”

“It never stops raining.”

“It will be our last full month of high school?”

Salem nodded, “Yes. That. Then May. And then prom. It will be our senior prom.”

Lucy groaned and reached for the handle. Dresses and corsages, awkward conversations with boys who needed remedial dating lessons from their mothers—the whole institution of prom was a frightening prospect, but at some point in her attempt to be a quality best friend, Lucy had agreed to attend with Salem. Sometimes she would lie awake at night already regretting the evening.

Salem’s phone broke out into a pop ballad about feeling trapped in love. It was the ringtone she selected for her mother. She held her finger up to deter Lucy from sneaking away and answered the call.

“Hello Mom,” she said. In the quiet of the car, Lucy could hear a shrill and riled voice; Mrs. Aguilar barked on the other end of the line with indecipherable syllables of anger and grief. Salem looked confused, then worried, but soon she erupted into full shock—her mouth a slack O—she gasped and bit her lip. “Ay Dios mio.” She shook her head. “Mom. Wait. Mom. Are you sure?”

Lucy leaned in, concerned for her friend. “What?” she whispered. “What?” But Salem turned her face to the driver’s window; she kept her back to her friend, and it was then when Lucy noticed that Salem was shaking. Small tremors rippled down her back and her hand couldn’t keep the phone steady. Fear and concern overwhelmed Lucy. Instinctively, she placed a comforting hand on Salem, waiting for the conversation to end. Lucy was self-aware enough to know she was ill-equipped to traverse the delicate minutiae of other people’s grief. Something big was happening with Salem, and she sat there like an awkward lump, already hoping that there would be appropriate words to say.

“I’ll be right there. Mom. Mo-m. I’ll be right there,” Salem finally got a word in. She hung up the phone and dropped it into her empty cup-holder. Her eyes were wet when she turned to Lucy.

“Sal,” Lucy started. “What’s wrong? I’m so sorry. What’s wrong?” She heard her own voice waver and she took a deep breath to steady it.

“It’s Bogie,” Salem replied. Lucy let out a slow breath. Bogie was the Aguilar family dog; he was a Rottweiler beagle mix whom Lucy had known since he was a puppy. Bogart was a prized possession, a member of the family. He was young and healthy and every night he slept curled up at Salem’s feet. Salem loved that dog more than anything, and Lucy searched for perfect words of comfort while gearing up for tragic news.

“Oh. Sal. Please...don’t tell me...”

“My mom came home and found him...just gone.”

“Missing?” Lucy held her breath, hoping that maybe he’d just gone exploring, he’d return. Catastrophe averted. Histrionics u

Salem let out a small sob. “No Lucy...gone. Gone. Like, dead. Just in the middle of the kitchen floor, like he was asleep. But he wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving. My mom looked around, thought maybe he had eaten something bad for him.”

“And?”

“Lucy, I don’t know. I don’t know!” She stared at her friend wide-eyed and frantic. “I mean…what’s happening? What is this? Some cruel joke?”

“I’m so sorry,” was all Lucy knew to say, and she reached out again to put a hand on Salem, but Salem pulled away.

“No! You don’t get it! Listen to me. They just are all gone. All of them.”

There was a pause and Lucy stopped. She gathered her hands into her lap and wrapped them in a ball; dread formed in her stomach, uneasiness replaced pity. “What do you mean?”

“My mom called the vet, but the line was busy, so she went over to our neighbor's house. She was distraught, right? And our neighbor opened the door just sobbing.”

The car fell quiet. Outside a motorcycle roared passed. Its engine grew louder and then faded away.

Salem turned to Lucy. “All the dogs, Lucy. All the dogs are dead.”

CHAPTER TWO

24-hours after the Release

Matriarch Mama Maxine King was short and stocky with wide hips and a helmet of full-bodied brunette hair. Her home was run with military precision; mixed with equal parts tenderness, unabashed sarcasm, and a healthy dose of profanity (usually directed at people on the television, rarely her kids, but sometimes her kids). Her kids’ ages spa

Strangers liked to ask Maxine, in grocery lines or at restaurants, about the size of her family, usually to offer sainthood or astonishment disguised as praise. Maxine would smile and say, “After you’re outnumbered it doesn’t really matter how many kids you have. And I certainly don’t deserve an award for having a well-used uterus.” It was her oft-repeated line to strangers that made each kid groan with embarrassment not only because they never wanted to hear their mother say the word uterus, but also because they wished she would come up with a different joke.

But while Mama Maxine, as friends of the King kids affectionately called her, handled her six children with tough-love lectures, peppered with facetiousness, she was also the picture of equanimity. And love. Mama Maxine loved each child who entered her home as her own, prompting scores of Pacific Lake teenagers to declare an unyielding allegiance to the woman.

Lucy had handled the news of the nationwide dog crisis with panic. What had been deemed a “Targeted Dog Massacre” by local reporters, the televisions networks exacerbated the story even further, which catapulted the craziness to the Internet, which led to conspiracy theorists pontificating about doomsday scenarios. For di

And when Lucy was caught texting and messaging Salem into the wee hours of the morning, comforting her weepy and inconsolable friend, Maxine made a surprise visit and threatened to confiscate the phone. Even through her agitation and worry, Lucy allowed her body to sleep and dream about lounging on white sandy beaches and working on her tan.

She awoke to the rambling of her mother’s to-do list as her mother stood by the foot of her bed, pulling her comforter off her body and exposing her skin to the cold house.

“I need your carry-on bag and your monogrammed tote in the hall in twenty minutes. Hair-brushed, breakfast eaten, schoolwork packed. Limo arrives in an hour to take us to the airport and I will not be delayed. Lucy Larkspur King, I swear to the Lord Almighty that I will leave you behind. Do you hear me? I let you sleep in beyond all reason. Now get your bony ass out of this bed and into gear. Come child. Chop, chop.”

Then she was off, her feet clomping down their carpeted hallway like a whole herd of mothers, off to rouse her next child with empty threats of abandonment.

Lucy rubbed sleep out of her eyes and swung her feet down to the floor. She leaned over and grabbed her phone—as per her morning ritual—checking for late-night missed texts from Salem, but there was nothing new from her friend.

But a second-glance at her feed made Lucy gasp. Tragedy abounded. The dogs, and now other beloved pets, were falling to some mysterious illness, and someone’s grandma had passed on during the night too while a few others complained of an impending flu. Several people linked to an article about the animal deaths and someone suggested contaminated drinking water was the cause. The feed was a veritable plethora of honest-to-God sadness and bandwagon melodramas.