Good Deed Unpunished

Kate felt as drab, soggy, and unendingly gray as the Virginia late winter mist she drove through. The landscape rarely varied; the smaller houses adorned with bigger satellite dishes she passed were splashed here and there with dirty snow the color of old nickels.

At the recent end of a break up, where her ex had told her “she was too good for him” (but the woman he left her for apparently wasn’t), Kate would shudder occasionally in the seat. She knew she was “better off” and “deserved better”, as the cliches always bleated, but the sadness still sat heavy in her middle like a fat sleeping wombat. At 58, driving a 10-year-old sensible SUV, working as an Accounts Payable Specialist, a fancy title for a job doing basic spreadsheets for a tiny dental practice, and living in a nondescript, outdated townhouse needing repairs, Kate was pragmatic enough to understand that, sometimes, the steady reliable agreeable lady carrying some extra pounds and many extra wrinkles wasn’t exactly setting rooms alight and fighting off suitors. Sometimes “the better” doesn’t materialize, no matter how much it’s deserved.

From a small family, Kate’s only remaining relative was Mabel, a great-aunt in the middle of Virginia, who called Kate occasionally to complain about the media, Antifa, her rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes, not necessarily in that order, and always through a hacking cough that sounded like a wet, hoarse milk steamer.

A member of the church had called and left Kate a voicemail; Mabel had been found dead, and through her late husband’s benefits (a taciturn veteran Kate remembered vaguely meeting once) had been buried by Smith’s Funeral Home. Mabel had no one to clear out her house, and, apparently, she also had a dog named Jackson no one knew what to do with. Kate didn’t particularly know Mabel well, had nowhere to store a lot of extra stuff, let alone what to do with a strange dog, but she understood that it was expected and kind to help out her last family.

When she finally arrived at the unremarkable box of a house, she let herself in with the key left by a neighbor in the mailbox as instructed, a bit nonplussed by the booming “Roo ROOO!” she heard behind the door. “Jackson”she called out nervously, opening the door. She heard a skittering of claws, and then a hound the color of Autumn scrambled around the corner, carrying a ridiculous large fleece turkey leg. “OOoo OOO” Jackson crooned, his jowls proudly around the leg, the only other noise the rhythmic thumping of his tail against a table in the otherwise silent house. For the first time in what seemed like years, Kate burst into astonished, belly-purging laughter, and she suddenly felt lighter somehow. Jackson sashayed over, bumping her with his toy, and then he slid his sleek body to a full lean against her legs, raising his front leg in a charming, almost beseeching gesture. Kate stroked his back and gave his side a pat, admiring his eyes, reminiscent of a glass of root beer lit through with a sun beam. His ears drooped as soft and fuzzy as a lamb leaf. Kate looked around; Mabel’s house was cluttered but not dirty-looking, which reassured her. The furniture was not her style, and she would be giving it away. The church member had mentioned a group of young men who would haul away the furniture on behalf of the church and donate it to needy families, but its drawers all had to be emptied and the house devoid of trash.

Jackson ticked and padded away, standing at what turned out to be a back door, staring expectedly at Kate. Kate looked out to a medium-sized chain link-fenced yard, and opened the back door. Jackson dropped his turkey leg and bounded down some steps, peeing for a while before disappearing around the corner, presumably to poop. He returned, stared at Kate, launched into a spastic play bow, and joyously ran the perimeter of the yard, his right ear flipping over, his gangly legs splaying and churning through the snow patches. When he came back inside, he drank water and stood by a metal bowl; Kate saw his eyebrows moving, as he looked down at the bowl then back at her. Kate looked through the kitchen and found a bag of dog food stored in a metal trash can, along with a plastic cup with a faded black line drawn across in black magic marker. She dumped the measured kibble into the bowl. As the dog snuffled and crunched, his ears mantling over his eyes, Kate retrieved the lawn and leaf garbage bags she brought and started bagging up perishables to leave out for the trash collectors. She also bagged up rice, cans of peaches, condensed milk, and deviled ham to donate to a food pantry. Jackson groaned and lay down, watching her. Every room she went to, he got up, stretched, and followed, and when she sat down on the corner of Mabel’s bed bagging up personal effects of a woman she’d only met twice as a child, she hitched a breath and started to cry. The dog barreled into her legs and tried to catch every tear with Hound-y kibble-smelling slobber. Not sure if she was sad over Mabel’s lack of closer family, her own yawning loneliness, or even over the dog, Kate nonetheless hugged Jackson and sobbed into his neck, the latter’s tail beating a muffled cadence on the bed’s dust ruffle.

The house was small, and Mabel’s life seemed similarly small, and Kate only had one last desk to clear out. Exhausted, she pulled out Mabel’s bills for the electric, her tiny monthly dunning for a landline, bank statements (Kate assumed; they were addressed from Wells Fargo) and her basic cable. She found no other bills. Mabel seemed to not have had a credit card, cell phone, or internet. Kate next pulled out a little black notebook, and opened it. In Mabel’s spidery, shaky handwriting, Kate, the Accounts Payable Specislist, recognized rows and columns that showed Mabel had been a surprisingly meticulous ledger-keeper of expenses. In neat numbers, the final balance ended at $20,002.64. Kate flipped through the pages to the front of the book, imagining that Mabel would need her final expenses and/or church donations settled. What she found instead made her sit down, this time on the desk’s squeaky chair in shock. “Whatever is left in this account, please give it to my great-niece Kate Ellen Dunleavy. Kate: save some to care for Jackson. Sell the damn house”

Kate turned to Jackson and cradled his velvety snout, smiling, realizing she had a brand new friend along with a brand new $20,000, and suddenly she thought of herself as impossibly rich and lucky, with a life full of possibilities. The dog smiled back with his tongue lolling lopsidedly, and Kate knew it was crazy, but he seemed to agree.

The End