Page 31 of Unyielding (Poplar Springs #3)

THIRTY-ONE

DECLAN

“ Y ou gotta do something, son,” my father, Bill, said, his voice rising a few worried octaves as he pointed to the chubby beagle stretched out on the exam room floor.

Based on the rainbow of splatters on his T-shirt, he looked like he’d come straight from painting.

“Poor Bailey is suffering. I hate to see her like this.”

The beagle was on her side, panting with her eyes at half-mast. I could tell she was uncomfortable from whatever she’d eaten, but I needed more information before I could come up with the right treatment plan.

I glanced back and forth between my parents wearily.

It wasn’t the first time Bailey had gotten into their groceries, and I’d repeatedly told them how dangerous it could be to leave the bags on the floor while they ran off to dive back into their latest projects.

They always said that they couldn’t predict when their muses would arrive, but they always seemed to show up when there was work to be done around the house.

Stuff like laundry, cooking, or putting away the groceries.

Then there were all the missed school functions all the way up to my graduation from vet school.

Everything always seemed to take a back seat to following their passions.

When they’d brought him in, my parents had guiltily told me that Bailey had chewed through the bag and eaten half a loaf of bread, two sticks of butter, and, most troubling, chocolate.

Her bellyache was obvious, but I needed more information from them to try to determine exactly how much of the chocolate she’d ingested.

“I’ve told you a million times that chocolate can be toxic to dogs,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. “Why would you leave it on the floor if you know she gets into your food? Is it so hard to set the bags on the counter?”

“Well, the counter was full of your father’s paints and it wasn’t like the bags were going to stay on the floor,” my mother, Linda, answered.

She was in her typical Earth Mother attire, from her Birkenstocks to the pale pink woven cardigan draped around her shoulders.

“We both just got wrapped up in our projects. You should see the new bowl series I’m working on, it’s?—”

“Mom,” I said in a sharp voice. “We’re here for Bailey. Focus!”

“Right, of course. Our poor, sweet Bailey girl.” She dropped to her knees beside the dog. “You’ll be fine. Your brother is going to take good care of you!”

“Did you bring the chocolate wrapper? I need to know what kind it was. That’s very important.”

My parents looked at each other sheepishly.

“We didn’t know we were supposed to,” my father said.

“Okay, well, do you remember what kind it was?”

“I bought it for a new cookie recipe I want to try,” my mom said, squinting her eyes like she was trying to see it.

“The cookies have a mix of three different kinds of chocolate in them, and I already had the other two in the pantry, so I only bought the one type. It was in a light blue wrapper, and it had white lettering on it.”

“You can’t remember the brand?”

She shook her head and I saw a flash of confusion in her eyes. As frustrated as I was, I still worried that there was something more to her forgetfulness lately.

“Was it in a bar or chips?” I asked, continuing the game of twenty questions.

“I wasn’t a part of this new baking project, so I have no idea,” my dad said, throwing his hands up.

“It was a bar,” Mom answered. “I was going to pound it up into pieces.”

I sighed. “That’s not a good sign. Bars usually have higher concentrations of theobromine than chips. How much did she eat?”

“Nearly the whole thing, but then I think she sniffed out the butter and got to work on that instead.”

“Shit. Okay, it sounds like I have to get started with the activated charcoal treatment, and I’ll put her on IV fluids too.”

“She’s such a little garbage can,” Mom said, stroking the dog on her side. “She’s certainly not picky. I think she’s the only one in the house who’d eat plain white chocolate like that!”

I paused. “Wait, what?”

She glanced up at me. “Your father and I don’t like white chocolate by itself. I only bought it because the recipe calls for it. I figured it would taste okay all mixed up in a cookie with the other types. Oh, and the recipe calls for some nuts too. Walnuts or almonds.”

“You’re telling me that Bailey ate white chocolate, not dark or milk?”

My parents nodded in unison.

I dropped my head and rubbed my eyes. “White chocolate isn’t great for a fat, old beagle, but it’s certainly not going to poison her like the other kinds of chocolate.

This isn’t a crisis. She’s probably going to have an upset stomach and a whole lot of diarrhea.

I’ll treat her for upset, but we can skip the charcoal and fluids. ”

“Really? Oh, that’s wonderful news,” Dad said, joining my mom on the ground beside Bailey.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t change the fact that you left food out for her to get into, again, and then you couldn’t even identify what she ate!

” I exclaimed, frustrated that my parents still didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of their mistake.

“You got lucky this time, but what if it had been dark or bittersweet chocolate in that bag instead? Or what if she ate something with xylitol? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? How many times are you going to let this happen? For all you know, next time she might get into something that could really hurt her. As it is, she’s going to be in pain for the next few days, not to mention what she’s going to poop out as it all passes through her system.

It’s not fair to her to be so careless.”

I stopped short when I realized that I was almost yelling at them. I worked so hard to keep my emotions under control and avoid losing my temper, but their selfishness was infuriating, and I hated that Bailey was the one suffering because of it.

“Well, we’re trying,” my father said meekly. “It’s just so easy to get distracted.”

I grumbled at him and started the hands-on portion of the exam. I couldn’t fix my parents, but at least I could fix poor Bailey.

I carried Bailey out to their car and listened to their promises that they would do better.

I didn’t believe them for a second. This was a common pattern with them—one that I had seen play out again and again for my entire life.

Both Dahlia and I had to learn how to take care of ourselves at a young age.

At this point, though, a part of me worried about whether they should be living on their own given their general absentmindedness and our mom’s growing forgetfulness.

I was starting to doubt that they were still able to take care of themselves adequately.

I contemplated talking to my sister about setting up some sort of schedule to check on them regularly to make sure they were eating and the house wasn’t falling apart around them without them noticing.

I frowned as they drove away. I didn’t have time for this and it was unfair to push it all on my sister.

More importantly, what would happen if Ruth decided to sell her practice to someone else?

I wouldn’t be close enough to reach them in an emergency.

The reasons for staying in Poplar Springs were growing.

No matter what it took, I had to make this work.