LAST CHANCE By Susan Isla Tepper

 

You try lifting Sammy but something strong has chewed off most of his sturdy front leg, it hangs, you can see straight inside to the bone.  The big dog rolls his eyes in a way that would be funny under different circumstances; then he goes to sleep forever.  This is what you tell the kids:  Sammy has gone to sleep forever.  Buster shrieks and runs behind the yew bush like he could catch death.  

“Buster, come back here!” you shout.  Not because you’re insensitive, but because he has run away before, long distances, once by bus to another state.  That time he got picked up by the cops.  When they brought him back home he’d hung his head calling it his last chance like some old prisoner.  He’s only nine.  You understand his need to go find his father, and you want to comfort him.  But there’s too much blood in the grass.  

“Come where I can at least see you.”  Now you’re bargaining with a nine year old.  Even Sammy must’ve run down his options in that final moment of dog horror.  

Wailing, Amelia drops to her knees in the grass getting blood on her shorts and long legs.  Fourteen and already a beauty and doesn’t she know it.  You have to keep her away when the men pick you up for dinner or a movie.  They see her, and you see their eyes start to glow.  It exhausts you and frightens you.  But then you reason: who wouldn’t get excited?  Amelia has excited you upon seeing her naked in the tub; despite that you’ve never had a woman or even wanted one.

They’re not yours but Ted’s kids.  By the time he left you’d gotten used to them.  Lucky them.  Buster wants to follow his Dad— that hunger is on his young face all the time.

“Look, we have to get Sammy back to the house,” you say.  Buster is still invisible behind the bush and Amelia is screaming I can’t do this, don’t ask me to! You stand there next to the dead dog and your mind wanders a moment to pie crust.  You wonder if ants have crawled into the flour.  You left the bag open on the counter near the window with the torn screen.  It was intended to be an apple pie, but Buster had whined for chocolate cream and Amelia wanted peach.  Funny, but Ted never cared for pie.  One less mouth to appease.  And now there was Sammy; who’d mostly stayed under the table waiting for crumbs to fall.        

  
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Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty year writer in all genres. Her stage play "Crooked Heart" will be featured in Origin Theatre Company 'May Play Festival', NYC.