“Especially another trainer?”

He nodded again.

“So why don’t you take this fabulous teacher named Finch back over the barrier and stay him, and let’s try again.”

This time she had him stand across the mow beside Finch with a short lead attached to his collar, and she performed the recall. Edgar ran alongside Finch and made sure he jumped the barrier-he only needed one correction in three trials. Then they switched and she ran alongside him for three more trials, while Edgar did the recall.

He thanked Finch each time for teaching him something. In return, the dog’s eyes glinted, and he tried to put his feet on Edgar’s chest and lick his face. Quite happily, Edgar let him.

DOCTOR PAPINEAU CAME for dinner several nights later.

“Here it is,” he announced, as he walked in. He was accompanied by a blast of cold air and a white bakery box, held aloft like a prize. A longtime widower, Doctor Papineau patronized the cafés and bakeries between Park Falls and Ashland. He held strong opinions on who served the best of his favorite foods, from eggs over easy to strawberry cheesecake.

“Lemon meringue,” he declared. “I bought it by hand.” This joke was part of the tradition as well. “I told Betsy down at the Mellen Bakery to set aside the best she had. She did, too-she’s got a little crush on me, I think, ever since I heroically removed her cat’s kidney stones.”

Edgar’s mother lifted the box from Papineau’s hand. “Well, she’ll have to get in line behind the waitresses down in Park Falls,” she said, smiling. “Cold enough for you, Page?”

“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “I’d like to see it colder than this.”

“Oh, really?” she said. “Why’s that?”

“Because, when I’m soaking in the Florida sun I like to read the newspaper and check the weather here. If I don’t see solid minus signs, I feel cheated.”

“Ah yes. The annual migration.”

“Ah yes. I enjoy it more every year.”

They spent dinner talking about the kennel. Edgar’s mother had taken one of the older dogs to see Doctor Papineau that week and he had diagnosed hypothyroid. They talked about the medication. Then he inquired about how she and Edgar were holding up, commenting obliquely on how tired they looked. Trudy put him off. Things had been hard, she said, but they were under control. They had a schedule worked out.

Edgar’s mother embroidered their success a bit. While it was true that things were slowly returning to normal, it also wasn’t unusual for her to be in the barn until nine o’clock, with another hour spent over paperwork at the kitchen table. Edgar worked evenings as well, pulling out dogs for grooming and training. He’d negotiated for two hours with them each night; Trudy said there had to be time for schoolwork, and if he was efficient, an hour and a half would be plenty for training. Saturdays were the exception-they slept as late as they wanted and ran errands in town. But even then, if Edgar happened to wake first, he’d sneak out to the barn and start the chores, hoping that, just once, his mother would open her eyes and realize there was nothing to do. Often, before he’d worked even twenty minutes, the barn doors would open and she would walk in, puffy-eyed, weary, and looking thinner every week. On top of it all, there was the cough she’d developed. It doubled her over sometimes.

“You two are doing an amazing job,” Doctor Papineau said. “I can’t believe how fast you’ve got back on your feet. I remember what it was like when Rose died. I wasn’t fit for anything for months.” He looked thoughtful. “I’m just wondering if you can keep up the pace.”

“Why couldn’t we?” his mother said. “It won’t be long before the weather turns, and things get so much easier when we can train outdoors. Then school lets out for the summer. That’s going to make a big difference.”

“And a couple of months later, it’ll start up again,” Papineau said. He knew where the plates and silverware were and he had dished out slices of pie-he liked to serve the desserts he brought.

“Well, what else can we do?” his mother said, looking cross. “There’s only the two of us here. Maybe we’ll have to skip a litter in the fall. That would make things tight, but I’ve been going over our finances and we could make ends meet. I’m sorry if that means your share is going to be a little smaller, but it’s the best we can do for now.”

Papineau waved her comment aside with his fork.

“What I’m wondering is, have you considered that maybe the real solution involves three people?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there’s a Sawtelle boy in town who knows this kennel inside and out.”

“Claude is hardly a boy,” his mother said. “And you know how things ended between him and Gar.”

“Water under the bridge, isn’t it? He’s been helping me out at the office, Trudy, and I have to tell you that he still has a gift. I remember what he was like twenty years ago.”

“And we both know how he learned all that. You don’t get good at ministering to torn-up dogs unless you’re around them a lot.”

“Okay, okay. I didn’t come here to debate Claude’s past. The thing is, where is the slack in your schedule, Trudy? There’s no room for anything to go wrong, and eventually something always does. Look at the last year. How many things that happened could you have planned for? I’m not talking about Gar, I mean in the kennel. Your barn was hit by a tornado. Did you plan for that? I seem to recall at least one nursing mother last year with mastitis, and we both know how much time bottle-feeding takes. Have you planned for that?”

“All right, Page, here’s a question: suppose we hired someone to help out. How would I pay them? The money isn’t there. We make ends meet. We pay our bills. We have a little savings. Period. That truck isn’t going to last much longer and when it’s time to buy a new one I don’t want to be firing hired help to do it. I won’t even start down that road.”

“It was just an idea, Trudy,” Doctor Papineau said. “I’m trying to help.”

“It was a bad idea,” she said. “Is that why you’re here? To protect your investment?”

It finally began to dawn on Edgar what the references to Doctor Papineau’s “share” meant. He signed a question at his mother, but she shook her head angrily and stood and stalked around the table. She ended up standing by the counter where Doctor Papineau had left the pie tin, and in a single swift motion pitched it into the trash.

“I may not have been born here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how this place operates after twenty years. Twenty years, let me remind you, during which Claude was most definitely not here.”

Edgar’s mother was forty-one years old at that moment. He knew she could mask her feelings perfectly when she wanted to because there were dogs who misbehaved expressly to get a reaction, not caring whether it was pleasure or anger. Oftentimes it wasn’t until much later that he understood a dog had gotten under her skin. She was certainly capable of that same self-control during a dinner conversation, and yet there she stood, giving herself over to her anger, almost reveling in it. The dark circles under her eyes had disappeared; her shoulders had dropped into a relaxed readiness, her posture suddenly sinuous and limber, like a dancer or a lioness. She looked as if she might as easily spring onto the table as curl up to sleep. Partly calculated, he supposed, to look as far from helpless as possible, wholly in control of their fate, but partly also a surrender to her own willfulness. He thought he ought to be scared by such a magisterial fit of temper, but in truth, he’d never felt safer in his life.

Doctor Papineau, however, was entirely daunted. He tipped his chair back onto its rear legs and held his hands out. “Whoa,” he said. “Your decision. I’m not suggesting you do anything that doesn’t feel right. But think about this: eventually, something will go wrong. What are you going to do then? That’s all I’m saying. What are you going to do then?”