Starting Point (26 page)

Claude turned her big brown eyes to me. “Can you bring Oscar? Please. I can walk him and look after him and nothing will happen to him, I promise.”

I grinned at her. “I’ll see.”

So she turned to Kira. “Please, can he bring him?”

Kira laughed and put up his hands, palms forward. “Don’t bring me into this.”

Ruby pulled his sister out of the door, and, giving us a nod, they disappeared into the LA sunshine.

When I looked back at Father Michael, he was smiling. “Wow,” he said. “When you said you were running classes for kids, I didn’t realise it was so extensive. You should be proud of what you’re doing here.”

“Yes, he should be,” Kira added. “Though Matt’s not the type to take compliments very well.”

“Matt,” Michael said. He looked around the gym one more time and he sighed. “I’m going to make some phone calls. I have some contacts around town that might be interested in what you’re doing here.”

“Contacts?” I said. I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Sounds a bit like the Godfather. I mean, don’t get me wrong…” Kira gawped at me. I don’t know whether he was horrified or shocked. Possibly both.

Father Michael seemed amused. “Close. But I don’t threaten to have people’s brains on the dotted line.”

“No, of course not,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Michael laughed. “I find the suggestion of eternity in purgatory much more effective.”

Kira burst out laughing. “Nice.”

Father Michael smiled, but then he said, “In all seriousness, I do have some people in certain corporate circles who can help you. They quite often look for a good cause to help out financially. Especially around tax time,” he said with a smirk. “Leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can do.” With that, he said goodbye and went on his way.

I was a little stunned. “Can you believe that?” I asked Kira.

He smiled warmly and nodded towards the front doors. “Come on, we need to go. We need to see if our house has been trashed by a dog.”

“Oh.”

“And,” he added, “you’re on poo and piss patrol. If he’s crapped in the house, you’re cleaning it up.”

“How is that fair?” I asked as we walked out.

“I never said it was fair,” he stated. “I just said it was what was gonna happen.”

I pushed his shoulder making him laugh.

“He was your idea!”

“He better not have chewed up the new sofa.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” I said. “He’s a good dog. Anyway, you bought him every chew toy known to man.”

“Yes, but the new sofa might be the biggest leather chew toy he’s ever seen!”

I laughed and opened the passenger door of the car. “Just get in and drive.”

Kira kept looking at me as he drove, and a few blocks from home, it got the better of me. “What?”

“It’s just good to see you…happy.”

“I am happy.”

“It’s different though. Something else,” he said. He shook his head and thought for a moment. “Content. I think that’s a better word.”

I reached over the console and put my hand on his thigh. “That’s because I am. Content, that is.”

“These last few days,” he said. “It’s the happiest I’ve seen you in a long while.”

“I was only saying to Arizona that life at the moment is pretty damn good,” I admitted.

Kira pulled into the drive. “I’m really glad to hear you say that, babe,” he said. He smiled warmly and tilted his head, and just when I thought he was about to say something sweet, he said, “Because you’re on poo and piss patrol, remember?” He laughed and got out of the car.

When we walked inside, we found Oscar sprawled out on his bed, pretty much right where we’d left him. “Did he move at all today?” Kira asked.

I snorted out a laugh, and whether or not he could sense us, or smell us, he started awake. “Hey, boy,” I said soothingly, although it was of little use. He couldn’t hear, but I spoke to him anyway while I petted him. “Did you have a good day?”

“Why are you talking to him like he’s a baby?”

I looked from Oscar to Kira. “A baby?”

“Yeah, you spoke in a baby-voice,” he said, grinning beautifully.

I looked back to Oscar and touched my nose to his, while giving him a good pat. “Don’t you listen to him. He’s the bad dadda, I’m the good dadda.”

Kira laughed. “Well, the
good dadda
better go check the smell coming from the laundry.”

I did check the laundry, and cleaned up the mess on the newspaper I’d put down. It wasn’t too bad. The fact he was even a little housetrained told us he’d once had an owner.

How he’d ended up unregistered and unwanted in a rescue centre, was anybody’s guess. How he’d ended up with us was our gain.

After I was done cleaning up, I found Kira watching over him in the backyard. “He’s peed the Mississippi,” Kira said. “Poor guy must have been holding it in all day.”

“Not all day,” I said. “I had poo and pee to clean up.”

“We’ll have to install a doggie-door,” he said. “We can get one this weekend.”

Oscar was sniffing around the yard, looking rather pleased with himself. “How about we leave him out here for while we get dinner ready. Then we can take him for a run, come back, eat and have a quiet night in.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “Any elaboration on quiet?” he asked suggestively.

“Actually, I want to snuggle up to you in front of the TV and watch some crap movie until you take me to bed.”

Kira smiled warmly. “Sounds perfect.”

“That’s because I suggested it.”

He laughed, and it was a sound I would never tire of hearing. He kissed the side of my head and walked inside. I followed him in and we spent the night just as I’d suggested.

After we went for a run, had showers and dinner, Kira sprawled on the sofa. I made myself the little spoon, wiggling into his side until we both fit lying on our sides facing the TV.

It wasn’t long before Oscar wandered over and stuck his nose in my face. “I think he likes me the best,” I said.

Kira dug his free hand in my ribs, then reached over and petted Oscar on the forehead. “He’s a good dog.”

“Of course he is. He’s ours.”

Kira kissed the back of my head, and Oscar sat himself in front of us, rested his head on my arm so he could get pats from both of us. When it got late, Kira took Oscar outside for one last pee before he put him to bed. Then he took me to our bed.

It was the perfect night.

Except for the TV show Kira had made me watch. It was crap.

* * * *

The next morning, Arizona and I were having an early warm-up session skipping rope, when Claude and Ruby came in. Claude was clearly upset. I threw my rope to the wall and met them at my office door. “Claude, I can’t bring Oscar here,” I said, thinking that was the reason she was sad.

“S’okay,” she said softly.

Ruby gave half a shrug and walked off towards Arizona, presumably to start his day of training.

“You okay, Claude?” I asked.

“Some kids took my bag,” she said. Her bottom lip started to tremble. It was her one worldly possession. “It was the bag you gave me. With my shirt in it too. The shirt you gave me, Matt, and the bag. You gave ’em to me and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t be sad. We can get you another one.”

“I don’t want another one. I want that one. You gave it to me. It was special.”

“Oh, squirt,” I said. I gave her a hug, which only seemed to make the tears come harder. “We’ll get you another one. You can pick it. And I need to get a present for Arizona’s new baby, too. You wanna help me?”

She wiped her tears, but thankfully was distracted enough to nod.

“Then we can go pick up Oscar. Okay?”

I got a watery smile and a sniffle. “I’m not going back to Gina’s. I know it was real nice of you an’ all, but they took my bag and I don’t wanna go back.”

“Claude…”

She shook her head defiantly. “It’s not safe there, Matt. I don’t feel safe there.”

“But you do when you sleep in an alleyway, or in an undercover parking lot?” I asked. “Claude, they’re not safe.”

“But at least we don’t get our stuff stolen. Those bigger kids picked on me and they took it. I didn’t tell Ruby because he’d fight ’em and he’d get into trouble and I don’t want him in no trouble.”

“They picked on you?”

She nodded. “They stood all around me and took my bag.”

“I can go see Gina and get it back.”

She shook her head and her eyes welled with fresh tears. “Please don’t make me go back.”

I pulled her against my side again and patted down her unruly curls. “It’s okay, squirt.” I wondered when the last time was this kid was hugged, or when she had had some human contact that was not her brother. The one thing I’d learned from depression and isolation, is that human contact, human touch, can heal a wounded soul. “Do you need a hug?”

Her eyes widened, and she blinked a few times, but then her lip trembled again. I leant down so I was closer to her height and pulled her in for a big hug. I think I shocked her at first, but she soon relaxed.

“I’m sorry I lost your bag.”

I pulled back and kept my hands on her shoulders. “Don’t you apologise. It’s not your fault, okay?”

She nodded eventually, but was still sad.

“Come on, we have a lot to do today,” I said, trying to brighten her mood.

Claude was still quiet as we got into the car, and after we’d driven a few blocks of silence, she said, “How come you’re driving?”

“I drive sometimes,” I reminded her.

“You not been dizzy lately?”

“I haven’t, no.” I thought about how long it had been. “It’s been a while.”

“Is you cured?”

I smiled at her. “Nah. Just something that comes and goes as it pleases.”

“What makes it happen?”

“Sometimes if I turn around too quickly, sometimes if I’m stressed or upset, or sometimes when I do nothing at all.”

“So, pretty much any time.”

“Pretty much.”

“But you been good lately?”

“I have. Everything’s been pretty good lately,” I said.

Claude gave me a small smile and nodded, and I realised how hard it must have been for her to hear that my life was perfect, when hers was…really not.

“So,” I said, changing the subject. “Shopping first, then we go and collect Oscar. How does that sound?”

“Good,” she said, smiling a little more genuinely this time.

“Excellent. Because I want to buy a present for Arizona and Lashona’s baby and I don’t know where to start. So you’re in charge of that, okay?”

Now she grinned. “Cool.”

So that’s what we did. Claude picked out a teddy bear for the baby, and I threw in some tiny onesies that were marked for a newborn. The sales lady suggested a diaper bag to put them in, and so I bought that too. We checked out backpacks for Claude, but she screwed her nose up at all of them. I did manage to get her to pick out some new pyjamas. I told her the old T-shirt I gave her probably wasn’t too suitable so, begrudgingly, she chose some new ones. They were a pink and flowery shirt and shorts set, and very girly.

The kind of PJs a little girl should have.

When we got back to my house, Claude went straight for Oscar. I don’t know which of them was more excited. As Claude played with the dog out in the yard, I looked through the wardrobe in the spare room when my cell phone rang. It was Yumi.

“Matty, I was thinking about your new dog.”

“Um, why?”

“Well, he be at home all by himself.”

“He’s fine,” I started to say.

“No he not,” she said, cutting me off. “He could be scared.”

“Yumi, I’m at the house right now. He’s just fine. We took him for a run this morning—”

“What you home for? You not at work?”

“I have to go back soon,” I said. I found what I was after in the closet and threw it on the bed, then shoved everything back in and shut the door. “I have to finish at six and then pick up Kira.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, then I was listening to a dial tone.

I sighed, and slid my phone into my pocket. I didn’t have to wonder where Kira got his stubbornness from. Yumi was all of five foot nothing and an absolute force to be reckoned with. I adored her.

I picked up the bag off the bed and walked out into the backyard. I shook the old backpack out, giving it a good shake. “Here, Claude, what about this one?”

I held up Kira’s old gym bag. It was an old Nike one, plain black with a small logo on the front and a dicky zipper. “The zipper doesn’t work very well,” I said. “But you can have it.”

Her whole face lit up and I knew we’d found the right backpack. “For real?”

“For real. It used to be Kira’s, but he has a new one now. This was just a spare. It’s all yours.”

“Will he mind?”

“Not at all.”

Claude raced over and took the bag. “It’s cool, and kind of like the other one I used to have. Like your old one, the one you gave me.”

“Well, now you got a new one. And listen, Claude, sometimes things get taken. It sucks and yeah, it’s not fair, but it happens. Don’t worry about the bag or the kids that took it. Forget about ’em. They’re not worth getting upset over.”

Claude shrugged, still looking over the bag. “It don’t matter none. I ain’t goin’ back to that place. It was real nice of you trying to help us out. Don’t think we don’t appreciate it, ‘cause we do, it’s just that place weren’t for us.”

Oscar lay down on his stomach in the shade and scratched his belly on the grass. He looked very pleased with himself. Claude laughed. “What’s he doin’?”

“He’s scratching his tummy on the grass. How about you go do it for him? And on his chest and neck. He likes it.”

“Matty?” Yumi’s voice called out from the side of the house. “You out there?”

“Yes, Yumi, come through. The gate’s not locked.”

“I knocked and you didn’t answer,” she said as she walked through, “then I heard laughing.” She stopped when she saw Claude. “Oh. Hi, Claude. I think Oscar likes you.”

Claude waved. “Hi.”

“She had a bad morning,” I signed to Yumi, so Claude wouldn’t hear me talking about her. “So I bought her with me. She loves the dog.”

Yumi smiled and patted my arm. “You such a good boy.”