She looked at the pictures again doubtfully.
“After eating dinner, I carried Hailey out to the backyard, because she wanted to see the dogs. It was pitch dark, but Uncle Larry was feeding them, so I thought they’d be distracted and Hailey could just look at them. But then one of them jumped up, in an ‘I’m-a-big-dog-and-I-want-to-smell-the-top-of-your-head’ kind of way, and Hailey was squealing in an ‘I’m-a-crazily-excited-and-slightly-freaked-three-year-old’ kind of way, and then I’m suddenly wondering why I’m outside in a ‘These-motherfuckers-are-the-size-of-polar-bears’ kind of way. Larry heard the barking, and settled the one dog down as I was backing off toward the door. But then another dog must’ve thought I was an attacker, because it jumped up and bit me in the arm that I was holding Hailey with. (In an ‘I-would-like-to-pull-you-to-the-ground-so-I-can-chew-your-nose-off’ kind of way.) I knew I’d been bitten, but I also knew that if I screamed for help Hailey would freak out and I might lose my grip on her, so I bit my lip and turned around so my back was to the dog and Hailey was blocked from him. Then I felt another bite on my arm as I slid open the back door and pushed Hailey through. I was afraid that the dog was trying to get at her, since she was squealing with excitement, so I blocked the door with my body to give her time to get farther in, and that’s when the dog bit me in the back. He latched on and yanked, and for a second I thought I was going to fall to the ground, and in my mind flashed all of those news stories about women killed in freak dog accidents. I put my leg back to steady myself and made sure Hailey was safely in, then pulled hard to rip my back out of the dog’s mouth and slammed the door behind me.”
Lisa looked at me in silence for a moment. “Dude. Was everybody freaked out?” she asked.
“No. No one even realized it had happened. I swooped Hailey up and checked her out all over, looking for blood and bites that I knew she must have gotten, but she didn’t have a scratch on her. It was weird. Then Mom assured me that I was overreacting and that everything was fine, and then she saw the blood and realized that I’d been bitten. Uncle Larry hadn’t even realized what had happened, because I’d been so quiet when it happened. The two bites on my arm were so deep that you could see a bit of fat poking out of them, and on my back you could see the dog’s teeth marks, like some sort of doggie dental impression. I spent the rest of the evening in the emergency room being stitched up, getting a tetanus shot, and wishing I’d had my camera with me so I could send pictures to Victor to show him what he was missing while he entertained clients with lobster dinners.”
“So, what did they do with the dogs?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m sure if I’d asked them to, Larry and Theresa would have put the dogs down, but they’ve been around Theresa’s kids for ten years with no problem. I think they saw a large, screaming, unfamiliar object approaching their master in the dark and were trying to protect him. Besides, it kind of felt like I’d asked for it. Taking your three-year-old out in the dark to see giant strange dogs while they are eating is bewilderingly stupid.
“Oh, and we’d just eaten, so I probably smelled like KFC.
“Plus, I’m kind of delicious. It was like I was wearing a perfume designed to get me mauled. But in a bad way.”
Lisa nodded slowly. “That’s gotta be in, like, our top-ten worst family stories ever.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Okay,” she admitted. “Top fifty.”
“It wasn’t that bad, really.” I explained: “It was kind of a learning experience.”
“Right,” she agreed. “And the lesson was, ‘Dogs eat meat. People are made of meat. You do the math.’”
“Okay, that’s not a lesson. That’s a word problem. A really bad one. No, I learned that I could put someone else’s life before mine. I always thought that I would, of course, give my life for Hailey, but in the back of my mind was always a sneaking doubt that if the time came I wouldn’t be able to physically force myself to go into the burning building for her, or step in front of an angry dog to save her, but that day I found out that I could. It was scary as hell, but in a way it’s reassuring to know I could do it if I had to.”
“Aw,” Lisa replied. “That’s pretty profound for a dog bite.”
“I also learned that seeing your own fat poke out of you is disgusting and is good motivation not to eat that third drumstick,” I added. “Oh, and that when a hot doctor comes in to tell you he really wants to ‘irrigate your holes,’ you shouldn’t laugh, because apparently that’s a real thing and not some sexual innuendo. Oh! And when they did it they found a tooth in my back.”