Page 32 of Family Affair

Coco shook her head. “How can anyone not like art? It is so beautiful, in any form. Well, most of the time,” she had to caveat her statement, recalling the bizarre creations Rosa sometimes took in and billed as “avant-garde.”

“I didn’t say I hate art.” Another unreadable glance. She started to really dislike his sunglasses. “Personally, I have little aptitude for it.”

She leaned back against her seat.

Their conversation just didn’t flow. She felt self-conscious and tongue-tied. He was resistant to small talk. And, despite his occasional displays of good-natured humor, Cade was intense. No kidding about it.

She quit her attempts at social graces and looked out of the window.

Chap chose this moment to whine, and Coco noticed that he was awake and standing in his crate. Seeing that he had her attention, he wagged his tail. She scratched his head through the crate bars. The silly dog must’ve finally felt relief from the laxative taking effect.

Laxative… taking effect…

Chap spun in a circle inside the crate.

She sat up straighter. “How much longer do you think it’ll be?”

“Hard to tell. The traffic’s pretty bad.”

Chap whined again. She chewed on her lip. “I think Chap needs to be let out.”

“He can’t be let out here. We are on a highway,” Cade explained as if she didn’t know that. “He’s crate trained, right?”

“He is. But the problem is, we went to see the vet for his constipation problem. It’s been so bad he hasn’t gone… you know, gone potty, for ten days.”

Both of his eyebrows rose above his glasses as he glanced at her. “If he held it for ten days, he can hold it for another twenty minutes.”

“They gave him laxative. I think it’s beginning to work.”

At the word “laxative” Cade gave Chap a wary once-over.

"As soon as I see an exit, I’ll make a stop,” he promised.

Chap spun around again, then shook all over, yelped, and passed gas in a manner of a backfiring truck. The acrid smell spread from the crate.

“Shit.”

Cade turned the blinker on and made way to the shoulder two lanes over.

When he slid the low-slung car on the thin grass shoulder and hit emergency lights, Coco had the crate door opened and the leash attached. She threw the door open and jumped out, yanking Chap after her and practically tossing him on the grass.

Cade came over from around the car and stood a few feet away.

They waited. Chap sniffed the ground, lifted his leg, trotted to the side. Then looked up at her and wagged his tail.

“What? All this mad dash was for nothing?” What a stupid dog who couldn’t stay away from chocolate. “I guess he isn't ready yet. I’m sorry I overreacted.”

“Wait, I think he’s up to somethin’.”

Chap sniffed some more and found a good spot where he squatted and strained. Then strained harder. Then really hard.

The first batch containing that week-and-a-half-old chocolate fell out of him like a ton of bricks. Coco was surprised the ground didn’t crack. And then he went, and went, and went for what seemed like forever.

The visual display represented an array of stool colors you wouldn’t find in medical encyclopedia, and the consistency changed gradually from solid to soft to mushy to liquidy. The smell emanating from the dog could be used in biological warfare to incapacitate the enemy troops.

As the blockage cleared, the pent-up gasses made the last, liquid matter spray out of Chap as if he was a shaken up bottle of soda, forcing Coco and Cade to leap back to avoid being fertilized.

“Mortified” was too mild a word to describe how she felt. She couldn’t look at Cade, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. Or better yet, swallow Chap and his mess.