Chapter 8

Rapunzel wanted to mend a pineapple-shaped decorative pillow their not-too bright chameleon had mistaken for lunch. Eugene went to grab her sewing kit from the shelf in the hall closet. He opened the closet door and a mound of dirt slid over his boots.

"What the - -" He stopped abruptly, reminding himself he wasn't supposed to use swear words anymore.

On closer inspection, he noticed it wasn't just dirt covering his spats. There were flower petals too and shards of pottery whose pattern looked suspiciously like the ones their fussy neighbor kept in her front yard. This was bad, this was very, very bad.

###

At first James remained stock-still when his father confronted him in his room with the terracotta remnants. It was as if he thought Eugene would forget he was there and go away if he just didn't make any sudden movements. But when the man crouched down to his eye level, the floodgates opened and so did his mouth.

"I was hitting the baseball in the front yard using the tee," he said in between hiccups. "I didn't mean to do it. It just sort of happened." He paused for breath. "The ball went over the hedges. I climbed in after it. That's when I saw it had hit her flowerpot and cracked it in pieces and then I panicked so I took it, all of it." A big gulp of air. "And then I hid it in the closet downstairs and that's why there's dirt on your shoes," he said wiping his now runny nose on his sleeve.

Eugene was still trying to make sense of the jumble of words he'd just heard, but James wasn't done talking yet.

"Please don't send me back!" He said, gripping the front of Eugene's button-down shirt.

"What- -"

"I can't! Please. I'm sorry. I'll do anything." The boy actually sounded scared.

Eugene hugged him and then tightened his grip when the little boy in his arms started crying harder.

"You're not going back. You're my son and I love you." These were simple truths, but perhaps they needed to be said out loud.

"Look. We all make mistakes. And sometimes people get in trouble, sometimes people get grounded for well, let's see - destroying private property, trespassing, stealing and then hiding the fruits of their crime." He counted off the offenses on his fingers for dramatic effect, before turning serious again. "But there is nothing, nothing you can do that will get you kicked out of this family. Understand?"

James looked at him like he couldn't quite believe that, but he nodded anyway which was a good first step, Eugene reasoned.

"Good. Now let's get cleaned up. We'll go buy a replacement pot and then apologize to that curmudgeon old bat."

On their walk back from the flower shop, Eugene turned to his son and said, "You hit it over the tall hedges and everything?"

James nodded.

The tattoo artist whistled in approval, then tried to squelch down his fatherly pride.

###

Eugene had read in one of the many baby and parenting books that now cluttered the built-in bookshelves in the master bedroom that some babies were able to sleep through the night as early as three months old. Claire was apparently unacquainted with such research.

On some nights she'd howl and scream until he raced into her room at break-neck speed and scooped her out of her cradle, his chest pumping and his hands shaking in fear. He felt like he was having a heart attack.

Other nights he'd hear her babble nonsense through the baby monitor that he always kept on his nightstand and he'd wake up gradually, with a smile on his face.

###

Eugene Fitzherbert walked into The Snuggly Duckling with his children in tow as he tried not to think about the fact that he was probably the world's worst father. Thankfully they didn't sell mugs for that, at least he'd never seen one.

He had brought an eight-year-old and a four-month-old into a bar, and a shoddy one at that. He was just there to pick up a dozen cupcakes for Rapunzel who had started painting again. That was it. He'd walk in, pick up the box from Attila and walk straight home.

He was expecting to see a smelly old goat at the door, a pub mascot of sorts, that liked to follow him around whenever he visited the place.

Eugene was familiar with local ordinances because he needed to keep his occupational license up to date to run his parlor next door. He was pretty sure there was an ordinance prohibiting live animals in an establishment that sold food and drinks. He supposed the reason no one had complained about the goat was because you couldn't legally call the food here fit for human consumption.

Instead of the goat, he was greeted by the ugliest dog he'd ever seen. Its fur was the color and consistency of dryer lint and he was just as dull.

Instinctively, the former thief pushed the boy whose hand he'd been holding back and stepped in front of him. He held the baby a little higher against his chest. The dog's ugliness wasn't contagious, but he was unsure what the mutt's predispositions were and he wasn't taking any chances with his family.

"Whoa!" He heard James exclaim from behind him and he didn't need to look back to know the boy's eyes were as wide as saucers at the sight of this quilt-patch of a dog.

Big Nose walked over to greet the family.

"Hey there pretty lady," he said to the baby.

Claire babbled back.

James moved around Eugene's body so he could pet the dog behind its ears. The stray (something like that couldn't possibly be domesticated) wagged its tail in delight. "What's his name?" he asked the thug.

"It doesn't matter what his name is, he's not coming home with us." Eugene interrupted, seeing the scenario that would likely unfold a mile away and trying to cut it off at the pass. He could easily envision where this was headed and he was going to nip it in the bud before James got any bright ideas.

"His name is . . . uh." Big Nose scratched his thinning hair for a moment, looking at the dog like it was going to answer the question for him. "His name is Ribbon," he said finally. "But you can call him Ribby, for short."

"More like Rabies," Eugene grumbled to no one in particular.

Big Nose introduced Ribby to the boy, ignoring the boots wearing grump in the room.

Eugene suspected Big Nose had made the name up on the spot judging from the scraggly red bow someone had hastily tied around the dog's neck to spruce him up a bit and make him more presentable, the same ribbon whose ends the dog had already chewed up. Stupid mutt.

The baby too wanted to get in on the dog petting action. When she tried to reach for the dirty, smelly pooch, her father gave her a look that said don't even dream of it kid and wondered if they sold baby-sized hazmat suits.

Claire gave daddy an affronted glare that could wilt flowers and started to cry.

"He's looking for a home," Big Nose hinted none too subtly over the infant's wails.

"Really?!" James gasped, green eyes rivaling the moon. You'd think Big Nose had just announced Christmas had arrived early this year. "Can he detect ghosts? You know, like a pirate ghost."

"Sure, he can," Big Nose responded like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Eugene rolled his eyes. He could kill that old sea captain. Thanks to that ball of yarn the old man had woven all those months ago when James had tried to runway from the orphanage, he had to check under the poor kid's bed every night for seafaring apparitions with an appetite for eyeballs before he left for work. Looking back on it now, painting his son's room in a nautical theme had been a very bad idea.

"For the last time," Eugene interrupted the two of them. "There's no such thing as a pirate ghost with an eyeball fetish." He said to James.

"What's a fetish?" the boy asked his father.

"Never mind that," he said shifting a now fussy Claire from one hip to the other and trying to shift away from that awkward conversation which he was hoping to have with his son exactly never.

Still balancing a fidgety baby on his hip, Eugene turned his attention to the homely thug, before James asked any more questions he didn't particularly want to answer. He could tell his time here was coming to an end, Claire was about to blow a 10,000 decibel gasket.

"Well why can't you keep him?" He asked.

"Billy doesn't like him."

"Billy who?" He was sure he knew all the thugs by now, unfortunately, and unless they'd started procreating, banish the thought, not one of them was named something normal like "Billy."

"You know Billy." Big Nose tried to point with his large aquiline nose, but Eugene wasn't following.

The handsome rogue shot him a blank stare.

"The goat!" Big Nose blurted out, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"So the goat doesn't like him, huh?" Eugene, rubbed his goatee with the hand that wasn't holding Claire and smiled to himself. That was the first good thing he'd heard about the mangy mutt.

###

He left the pub, dog in tow, with the sinking realization that he was becoming more and more of a push over with each new addition to his growing family. Claire's wails captured his sentiments exactly. Eugene too felt like crying.

He knew the moment he'd been defeated. He replayed the conversation back in his head.

He's like me, James had proclaimed.

Eugene had turned to his son, his on-going argument with Big Nose over the dog already forgotten. He's like you? How?How is this mangy mutt like you? I mean look at him. He's like Big Nose, in the difficult to look at department - - HEY! Big Nose had protested - - , but he's nothing like you.

He doesn't have a home or a family, James had said, as if the reason was glaring obvious. He doesn't have anyone to love him.

Eugene felt liked he'd been sucker punched. His heart ached, lurched in his son's direction. Those things were not true about James, not in the least bit. You have a home. A really nice home with a room overlooking the bay and a tree house. And parents who love you. And a little sister who adores you, he'd told him because all of those things were true. Every bit of it and James needed to know that, immediately. Claire, as if on cue, as if to illustrate the point made grabby hands at her big brother.

James's response had nearly broken Eugene's heart. I didn't have those things before. Before, I was just like Ribbon.

Eugene had never lost an argument so quickly and so thoroughly in his life. Just like that he knew this dog was their dog now. He knew this dog now had a home and a family who would love him and take care of him, because not too long ago his son hadn't had that. Dejectedly he took the chewed-on leash from Big Nose.

Eugene apparently sucked at disciplining his kid because while James was still serving out his sentence for the broken flowerpot, he'd gotten the boy a dog.

Still, he wasn't about to let this mangy flea bag into his home, not before he'd been disinfected at the groomer's and de-wormed and de-whatever else was wrong with him at the vet's. Luckily the two establishments were next door to each other. He knew exactly where to go because it was the same place he'd just taken Pascal to last week after a bout of pineapple-shaped throw pillow indigestion.

###

The vet who'd taken care of Pascal all these years was all too eager to welcome a new Fitzherbert patient. He must've recognized a moneymaker when he saw one because he immediately began to rattle off a list of services which were, in his opinion, indispensable to ensure the optimum health and longevity of this fine canine.

". . . And of course you'll want to get him fixed," the doctor said as he caught his breath. It had been a very, very long list.

"Fixed?" James who'd been silent all this time piped up. "He doesn't need to be fixed. He's already the bestest dog in the whole world," he exclaimed.

The mangy mutt in question puffed his chest out and sat up a little taller beside his new master as if he were trying to confirm the undeserving accolade that had just been bestowed upon him.

Eugene cocked a skeptical eyebrow. He certainly didn't agree with his son's lofty pronouncement. As far as he was concerned, there was a whole litany of things wrong with this dog. At the top of that heap was the fact that he could multiply at any moment and then he'd be stuck with a whole litter of smelly, ugly, unruly, disobedient puppies.

"Well, we can't have him running around making puppies, can we?" The vet chuckled.

James laughed as if the man had made a very funny joke. "He can't have puppies. Only girl dogs have puppies. He's a boy."

The vet cleared his throat uncomfortably and quickly changed the subject. "You can leave him here overnight. He'll be ready for you in the morning."

Eugene lost track of whatever it was the doctor was spouting and scrutinized the boy beside him like he was trying to solve a riddle. How young was too young? He tried to think back to when he was that age, but all he could remember about being eight was that his parents had drowned and that he'd been brought to that miserable, dreary place to live.

He came to the conclusion that he couldn't remember when he knew but it was definitely something he'd picked up off the streets and like many of the things he'd picked up off the streets it was grimy and misinformed. He didn't want that for his son. Still, perhaps it could wait a little while longer.

###

The following morning, he and James went to go pick up the pooch. To Eugene's disappointment, Ribbon looked exactly as homely as he had left him. The only difference was that he smelled a hell of a lot better. And he was now missing a key part of his anatomy.

James rushed towards the canine and fell to his knees like he was greeting and old, long lost friend.

"I missed you so much." He whispered into the dog's wiry fur, before standing up and proudly taking hold of its leash. The dog immediately started biting the leash.

Eugene took in to whole scene and tried to distract himself by settling his accounts with the vet.

But before he could even worry about having gone soft, he snapped back to reality.

"5,000 crowns!" He balked, eyes popping out of their sockets when that charlatan handed him the bill.

"He's as good as new," the vet assured him.

Eugene glared at the dog who was sitting on his hind legs panting with his long pink tongue hanging out, he tail flapping a mile a minute. Stupid mutt. "He'd better be. For 5,000 crowns I could've built him from scratch," he grumbled.

When Eugene had imagined getting a dog somewhere off in the distant future, he'd imagined a golden retriever or a chocolate lab, a majestic creature who'd be the perfect embodiment of man's best friend, not this mongrel who was a far cry from a show dog and who'd already cost him an arm and a leg and he hadn't even brought him home yet.

###

Rapunzel was making airplane noises at Claire who sat banging her fat little palms on the plastic tray of her high chair squealing happily. She was trying to sell Claire on puréed peas, but the infant wasn't having it. Pascal on the other hand stood expectantly on Rapunzel's shoulder, ready to lap up the generous helpings of food that had migrated onto the tot's ruddy cheeks, around her rosebud mouth and in her downy brown hair.

When Eugene arrived home with his boy and his boy's now very expensive dog, Claire clapped in delight. She gave her father that megawatt gummy smile that never failed to melt his heart and made him forget all about having just footed the bill for a sizable down payment on that new addition on the vet's second home. Stupid Pub Thugs.

###

James proudly walked his new best friend down the block. He wasn't allowed to cross the street yet, but Ribbon didn't seem to mind the endless loop around their lane. Still, he walked a little faster when he passed the neighbor's yard. He couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt when he eyed the one pot in her meticulous row of terracotta flowerpots that didn't match the others.

###

Eugene turned the key in the lock carefully. He crossed the expanse of the elegant yet understated foyer with much the same skill he'd once possessed as a thief cutting off the alarm before it had a chance to go off. He breathed a sigh of relief as he surveyed the room, he'd snuck in undetected and more importantly, everything in the small entry room seemed undisturbed. Inside this old Victorian house were the things that meant the most to him in the entire world sound asleep in their respective bedrooms.

He'd had another long night at the parlor. It was different when he lived above it. For one thing, his commute was a lot shorter. It mattered little if he worked late into the wee hours because he was only a cement outdoor staircase away from his bed. More importantly, his wife worked alongside him, where he could keep an eye on her, where he could protect her. Now she was here with no one but a small boy and a patch-quilt dog who apparently slept like a log to protect her.

In the past he wasn't unnerved about having to pull an all-nighter at the parlor. Sure, he felt guilty about impinging on his leisure time with Rapunzel. He'd always been mindful of putting her first and so he didn't do it that often, but working late didn't fill him with dread the way it did now.

In a strange way, the hustle and bustle of the Snuggly Duckling next door to the parlor made the alleyway separating the two respective businesses seem almost lively and inviting. Of course, there were the nightly bar fights that spilled out onto that foul smelling stretch of asphalt, but the narrow alley was never abandoned. It had never felt threatening or menacing to him the way the eerie silence and the darkened windows of the expensive homes that lined this posh neighborhood encroached on his peace of mind.

He knew this situation was unsustainable. He needed to find some sort of solution even though the clear answer - cutting back his mounting workload - seemed impossible. He'd moved his family into the best neighborhood on the island and yet he still worried about their safety.

AN: Wow guys! Thanks so much for letting me know you're still with me on this story. I was able to buckle down this week and crank out another chapter, but weekly updates are just not realistic for me. It takes me way too long to put a chapter together. Anyway, I'll try not to let too much time pass before I post the next one. In the mean time, please continue to leave reviews and favorites and follows, they seriously make my day. And if you haven't read Inked, please check it out. ~ JMet