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Show Motherlunge a novel . 30 is hurting, maybe I should stay a while. Perhaps the big city is for me. My headache was lifting already. "And?" I asked Pavia finally. "Jack was happy, you say?" "Happy, yeah. And when he left, I got General. For some reason I was really wanting a dog. And you know, Great Danes only live three or four years." She, too, had brightened considerably and rapidly. "And your job?" Pavia and Jack worked at the same software company. Jack was sales, Pavia was leadership training. "Fine. Same. I got a promotion, too." Now Pavia reached down for General, who licked her salty hand noisily. "I've got to get him neutered. Can you believe he's still just a puppy?" She looked up at me and then glanced at the clock on the stove. "Hey, do you want to go with me to take him to the park before dinner?" "Well, yeah, sure. But Pavia," I said as she stood up and scraped her chair backward. "Seriously. Why is Jack gone?" She pulled her hair up behind her head, quickly twisting an elastic around it. "I asked him to leave. And he was heartbroken." I silently considered that: Jack's heart like a dessert plate dropped on the ground. "His words," my sister said over her shoulder. I followed her and her enviable ponytail out of the kitchen and back down the hall. She leaned down to pick up General's leash by the front door. "And I looked at all this"-she gestured vaguely toward the coat rack, up to the hallway light fixture-and I just, I just don't want to bring a child into this world." General shoved his way past her out the door. |