Protecting Marie by Kevin Henkes

arranging candles on Henry’s cake.
    â€œNeed help?” Ellen asked.
    â€œNah.” Fanny looked up at her mother.
    â€œHang in there,” said Ellen. “I think he’s ready to explain what happened.” She pecked Fanny’s forehead. “I’ll get a knife and forks and plates. But we don’t have to wait for the coffee—that machine is so temperamental. It’ll be a while.”
    Fanny could hear the plates rattle down the hallway. “Be right there,” she called after her mother.
    While the coffeemaker spit and hissed, Fanny worked on the cake. She had begun a border with the candles, but changed her mind when it was halfway completed. She pulled the candles out, smoothed the frosting with her finger. Instead, she wrote the word HOME across the cake in capital letters using all the little candles she could find. She was careful not to interfere too badly with the iced lettersthat said HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HENRY, or the dense, sugary roses.
    Fanny peered at the cake. Something is missing, she thought.
    Just prior to lighting the candles and marching out to her parents, she drew the letters D and G vertically in the frosting with her finger, combining them with the letter O from the word HOME to spell the word DOG. The words formed a cross. “Dog. Home,” Fanny said out loud.
    In the dark room with only the light from the fireplace and the candles, she didn’t suppose anyone would notice.

7

    I t happened the way a sneeze happens. She could feel it creeping up. It was abrupt and swift and involuntary. There were little explosions going off all over inside her. If she hadn’t had skin holding everything together, she was certain parts of her would have ended up on the ceiling and under the bookshelf. It happened in a flash, and when it was over, she had fallen completely in love with Dinner.
    How could she not?
    Dinner stayed beside Fanny throughout the course of the evening, pushing her chin onto Fanny’s thigh and keeping it there for long periods of time. Her tail wagged; her eyebrows danced. Dinner’s soft, thick, brindled coat was mostly a creamy tan color withpatches of black and brown across her back and on her tail and sides. The hair on her paws was white. Fanny held her hand so that it resembled one of her mother’s gardening tools, her fingers rigid and spread out, and raked patterns into the tufts near Dinner’s neck—swirls, hearts, figure eights. Fanny didn’t seem to notice Dinner’s unpleasant breath, or mind that whenever she bent down to kiss Dinner on her head, Dinner reached upward quickly and licked Fanny’s face.
    It couldn’t have been a better scenario if Fanny had written and directed it herself. The living room was shadowed and toasty. Light from the fire flickered on the walls and every place Fanny looked. The walls seemed to converge, drawing in toward the fireplace, the room filled only with good things, the right words. For minutes at a time Fanny felt removed from it all, as though she were watching it from afar and envying the girl she saw sitting with the dog.
    When they had finished their cake, the coffee cups were empty, Henry’s birthday giftshad been opened, and the wrapping paper had been balled and flipped into the fire, Henry told the story of Dinner.
    â€œI had known about her for a few weeks,” Henry began. “Diane, the secretary at the art office, told me about her. She belonged to a friend of hers who had recently gone through a divorce. The woman needed to move to a small apartment. She couldn’t keep the dog, couldn’t afford her anymore.”
    â€œWhat about the husband?” Fanny asked.
    â€œAccording to Diane, he’s already living in California. Out of the picture,” said Henry. “At first, Diane wanted Dinner herself, but she couldn’t persuade her husband to agree to having