“Do you hear that?” Nick whispered.
She nodded.
“You don’t think…” she murmured. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“What do you think? I’m Catholic.”
She thought about pointing out to him that she was too, but this miffed her. She’d always felt that Seb and the rest of his family considered her faith not as solid as their own because she’d converted. She hadn’t been born into it, baptized as an infant, and schooled in the catechism. Part of her wanted to shake her finger and scold Nick. As the jingling drew closer, another part of her wanted to run and hide behind his strong back.
A fuzzy gray dog emerged from the shadows. He poked his head around a monolith and studied them with dark eyes. With his matted fur and apologetic expression, he reminded Adrienne of a dust bunny that skitters to hide beneath furniture with every breath of wind.
“Aww.” Adrienne dropped to her knees to bring herself to the dog’s level. “Come here, boy.”
The dog bolted and the jingling, once loud, faded.
Adrienne slowly stood. “I always wanted a pet.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you get one?”
“Seb’s allergic.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Nick said.
“Besides, I work, Seb works. Neither of us is home very much. It wouldn’t be kind.”
“Maybe I’ll get a pet and he can live with me at the Bar. You can visit.” Nick balanced his guitar on his knee and plucked a few strings, tuning it.
“I wonder what the health department would say about that.” Adrienne didn’t take Nick seriously. He was always making over-the-top generous gestures that no one in the family ever took him up on. Adrienne sank back to the ground and sat cross-legged on the frigid concrete. She pointed her phone at Nick. “Ready?”
Nick strummed his guitar and the tune floated through the air. Gently, he began to sing.
“But the summer faded, and a chilly blast,
O'er that happy cottage swept at last:
When the autumn songbirds woke the dewy morn,
Little 'Prairie Flow'r' was gone.”
The dog crept out from behind a monolith and inched toward Nick as if afraid of being run off. Adrienne widened the scope so she could include the creature in the video. The sun too edged out of hiding and tinged the morning air with pink.
“For the angels whisper'd softly in her ear,
'Child, thy Father calls thee, stay not here.'
And they gently bore her, rob'd in spotless white,
To their blissful home of light.”
Beside Nick, the dog rested his head on his outstretched paws, and closed his eyes as if in prayer while the sun cut through the shadows.
“Though we shall never look on her more,
Gone with the love and joy she bore,
Far away she's blooming in a fadeless bow'r,
Sweet Rosalie, 'The Prairie Flow'r'.”*
