The Dogs Approved This Message

My dogs turn in smug unison when the door clicks shut on the guy they can’t stand. The collie lifts his chin like he just won a courtroom case; the golden narrows her eyes with the glow of someone who escaped a family Zoom call.

“Don’t gloat.” I nudge the collie’s rump with my foot, and he absorbs the tap like a weighted pillow with opinions.

A chuckle drifts from the kitchen, warm as the overhead light pooling against the dark windows. “The minute he raised his voice, they went full Avengers, and he bolted for the door. You’re welcome.”

I step into the kitchen. Dad leans against the counter, his grin lifting like he upgraded to VIP just to watch the breakup.

“You egged them on. I would’ve sent him packing.”

“Oh, you’d have booted him. But you kept giving him chances. My girl doesn’t take crap—except when she does. Someone needed to give you and him a push. And that collie of yours hated Trent on sight. All it took was a nudge.”

A laugh punches out of me. I reach for the kettle. “So you admit it. Want some tea?”

“Tea?” He snorts. “That’s leaf-flavored disappointment. You got coffee?”

“It’s almost eleven. Mom would blow a gasket if she knew I gave you coffee this late.”

He waves a half-eaten cookie like a judge dismissing a weak argument. “Let her. Your mother didn’t believe in late-night anything. Did you know she threatened couples counseling over my drinking a second cup after dinner? That woman thrived on running others’ lives.”

My dogs trot in with the synchronized energy of backup dancers waiting for applause. One gives the air a suspicious side-eye; the other lets out the self-satisfied grumble of someone who chased a man out of a house and expects a medal.

“You two are as impossible as he is.” The golden rolls her eyes like she agrees.

I slide onto a chair. Dad reaches for the coffee tin and measures grounds with the ease of someone who’s been in this kitchen a thousand evenings. Anyone watching would assume we live together like two night owls with a pair of overeducated dogs.

The kettle hums. The collie keeps an ear angled at the shadowed corner until I rub behind his ears and he melts.

“Settle. It’s just us in here.”

Dad glances over. “Smart little fur grenades. Loyal too. I didn’t sic them on Trent. I just reminded them you deserve better.”

My throat tightens at the turn of the evening. “I wish you could hold me.”

The words drop out before I can catch them.

Warmth moves through the air, steady and thick, the way his arms held me when thunderstorms cracked open my childhood nights.

The dogs exhale together, soft and sure, as if they sense something I pretend I don’t. My hand drifts into the empty space between us. I let myself believe it’s full.

“I hold you every night. You don’t always feel my arms. You feel courage. That’s me.”

“Then stay,” I whisper. “Just for a little.”

After the kettle clicks, Dad glances at the dogs—both pretending they’re asleep with one eye open.

“That golden,” he says with a crooked smile, “has the judgment of a retired school principal.”

“She learned from you.”

His grin softens. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

The air warms, faint as a hand brushing my shoulder, and then he fades. The room quiets to its smallest heartbeat. The windows show nothing but black glass and my reflection leaning toward a father who no longer casts one.

He always leaves before dawn. Not far—just wherever ghosts go when their kids finally fall asleep.

BIO: Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry, a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and a nominee for Best Microfiction, founded "Real-life Writing," https://bit.ly/45lNbVo and publishes a monthly "Writing from the Cabin" blog, https://bit.ly/3tazJpW and a weekly "dear Abby of the workplace" newspaper column. Curry has published eighteen short stories; four poems; one article on writing craft, and six books.