The waitress—Maude, according to her nameplate—squinted and shaded her eyes, then looked back at the two of them, deciding what to do. She glanced at the register, where the balding manager in a green vest stood pecking at a calculator.
“As long as it’s quiet y’all can stay, but once it starts yapping you’re out of here.”
Kit nodded.
“And I swear to Jesus if he makes a doody I will pick you both up by the scruff and toss you out myself.” Maude touched her bouffant as if to make sure nothing had mussed it during the excitement. “Now what can I getcha, sweetheart?”
With the pup nestled between her thighs, snuffling and whimpering from time to time but keeping quiet enough, Kit sawed into a stack of pancakes half a foot tall, buttered and syruped to saturation. She alternated bites of bacon and cakes and then got wise and tucked a piece of bacon between each pancake and the next.
“I think I remember you from yesterday,” Maude said, sliding in the booth across from her and placing the bill on the table. “You look like you haven’t had a bite in days.”
“I’m just built like this,” Kit said through a sticky mouthful. The waitress looked her over then down at the pup. He was beginning to wiggle and yip. Kit figured he was hungry. She took a strawful of milk like a dropper, her thumb over one end, and fed the coyote. He lapped it up and chomped at the end of the straw, massaging his gums.
“See, he’s quiet now. He just needed something to eat.”
Maude didn’t look convinced. Kit wadded forkfuls of pancakes and finished the last of her bacon, determined to get her meal before something went wrong.
“You know, sweetie, you can’t keep a wild animal like that. He’s cute now but he’ll turn on you soon enough. When I was your age, I used to rescue every one of God’s creatures that passed through our yard.” The waitress held out her forearms and rotated them to show the scant design of scars, thin and pearly. “Some friendlier than others, but most of ’em died anyway, and it broke my heart in two every single time. I think maybe they would have been better off just fending for themselves, letting nature decide what became of them instead of me.”
Kit couldn’t respond; all she could think was it couldn’t be wrong to love a thing. It couldn’t.
“So, where’s your daddy?”
Kit shrugged, amused by the thought of Manny being her daddy.
“You don’t know?” Maude said gravely. “Well, that’s not good.”
Seeing the alarmed look on the waitress’s face, Kit said, “I mean he just went to pick up some stuff for me. He’ll be right back.”
Kit started to worry about Manny again. Where had he gone, and why not tell her he was leaving? It bothered her to feel tethered to someone she didn’t even know. For now, she just needed to keep the waitress from raising flags.
“I almost forgot—he asked me to order him some pecan pie and a glass of milk.” She checked her cash and looked at the total on the bill, already more than she had brought with her. The waitress sucked her teeth skeptically, stood up, and turned on the heels of her white sneakers toward the kitchen.
Just as Kit was about to slip under the table and take off for the motel, she heard boots scuff up to the table and a voice say, “You ate without me?”
Kit looked up to see Manny, smiling, cool as a mint. It took all her strength to hide how relieved she was to see him.
“She was real hungry, sir,” Maude said, accusation on her brow, as she walked toward them with the pie and a frothy glass of milk.
“You’re telling me!” Manny ribbed Kit and winked at the waitress. “She’s eating me out of house and home.”
Maude shifted her weight onto one hip and crossed her arms, evaluating the pair. Kit looked down at the pup and wished the waitress would take her skeptical eyebrows and go away.
“Who’s this little fella?” Manny said, scratching the pup under the chin. “Is he for me?”
Another waitress swept past Maude and handed her a tray full of dirty dishes. “Can you finish busing six for me, hon?” the waitress said, then whispered, “I gotta run for a maxi pad.”
Maude’s new burden seemed to take precedence, and she left the two with an updated check and a pair of green and red peppermints. “Y’all take care, now, hear?”
Kit sighed and pulled the kicking pup under her chin. “Where were you?” she asked.
“Why, did you miss me?” he asked. She looked up quickly and met his smiling eyes, so blue against his dark lashes.
“No,” she said. “I was just making sure I still had a ride to my aunt’s.”
“Cute little guy,” he said. “I don’t know shit about animals—you got plans to take care of him?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“You think your aunt will be all right with him?” He said aunt like she was a fictional character.
“I don’t know . . . probably not. The waitress said they turn mean when they grow up.”
“Huh,” he said, finishing off the last sticky bite of pie. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You can’t deny an animal its nature.”
They walked back to the motel in silence, the noon sun high and hot. The coyote followed them in short sprints, stopping after each run to gnaw an itch, bite at a flower, or sit down to rest. When they approached the carcass of the pup’s mother, Kit scooped him up and held him to her chest. When he thrashed and cried against her arms, she felt ill thinking that he had recognized his mother’s passing scent, was trying to get back to her.
“Look, no pressure,” Manny said. “But do you want another day to think about what you’re gonna do with the pup? I don’t have to be anywhere—why don’t you sleep on it and I can still take you where you need to go tomorrow. He seems awful sweet on you.”
She said nothing at first, then nodded, relieved, yet burdened with the thought of making a decision at all. When they got back to the room, she made a bed for the pup in the bathtub with a pillow and filled a clean ashtray with water for him to drink.
“I gotta step out again for a few hours. You gonna be okay?” Manny tossed the remote on the bed. “Nothing on but soaps, I don’t think. Sorry.”
She rolled the pup on his back and scratched his chin. “We’ll be fine.”