Cat Deck the Halls (28 page)

Joe would hear, later, how Clyde had gone shopping before he picked Ryan up at the hospital, would hear all about Clyde's agonized thoughts that had accompanied this decisive move, how Clyde had wanted to ask Wilma to help pick out the ring, wanted a woman's opinion. Or maybe Charlie. Or Ryan's sister, Hanni—except that Hanni's taste ran to pizzazz and dazzle, and that wouldn't suit Ryan. Joe would hear about how Clyde thought, should he ask Joe first, to make sure it was okay? And
should
he buy a ring? Or should he just ask Ryan first, and pick out the ring together? Was he
sure
he wanted to do this? And how would this go down with Joe Grey? Clyde would tell Joe how, when he'd thought about not asking her, a terrible loneliness had gripped him, an emptiness that he had never before experienced.

Clyde did not usually share his dilemmas so freely. Joe would listen patiently to all the mental suffering involved in this commitment; he would hear how, after Clyde had bought the ring, he debated about whether to keep his secret from everyone, in the event that, after all, he would be obliged to return his purchase.

But now the deed was done, and apparently the ring had been accepted, the decision had been made by both parties, and this early Christmas morning, beside the Christmas tree, Joe Grey looked at Ryan, and she looked at him. And the two of them shared a secret that even Clyde didn't yet know. There they were, the three of them sitting beside the Christmas tree. Joe and Ryan looking at each other. Clyde looking from Ryan to Joe, puzzled—and it was then
that Rock bounded in through the dog door, from the back patio, skidded through the kitchen, and crashed into them, licking their faces, licking Joe Grey in the face as happily as if the big hound had a new toy for Christmas.

We'll see about that,
Joe thought, pushing away Rock's nose with a velvet paw.

But for a long time afterward, that moment would remain frozen in Joe Grey's memory like some treasured family photograph. He and Ryan and Clyde and Rock, on this early Christmas morning, all together before the Christmas tree, frozen in time as permanently as the preserved images from Pompeii—a Christmas memory to last, perhaps, for all his nine lives.

And then Clyde raised his coffee cup in a toast. “Merry Christmas, Joe. Merry Christmas, Ryan. And Rock. Merry Christmas to all of us, to a brand-new family.”

The word hound is used to denote dog, not to imply that the Weimaraner is a member of the hound group; this breed is a member of the sporting group.

Jacket design by Barbara Levine

Jacket illustration by Beppe Giacobbe/Morgan Gaynin Inc.