A Puppy for Christmas

Nothing is so sweet as a child’s face on Christmas morning. Bailey was 7 years old and all year long she had asked her mother for a puppy.

“We’ll see,” was always her mother’s response. Her mother, Jessica, didn’t want a dog in the house. She knew that Bailey would forget to take the dog out and the dog would wet on the carpet. Or maybe the dog would tear up the furniture and steal food off the table. But Jessica felt that her daughter deserved everything she wanted so she had a hard time saying no. She could forgive puddles on the floor if Bailey was happy.

She bought the puppy a week before Christmas from the pet store. The clerk at the register gave her a little Christmas stocking and a dog treat to take home. Jessica left the dog at her friend’s house for the week so that she could surprise Bailey on Christmas morning. Despite never being a “dog person,” Jessica couldn’t help but play with the puppy the day she dropped him off at her friend’s house. The puppy had all brown fur and a little black nose. Very friendly and playful, Jessica laughed as he nibbled on her fingers. She played with him so much that he tuckered himself out and fell asleep across her lap. His slow breaths and dreamy whimpers made Jessica’s heart melt. She held the little warm ball of fur close to her.

That night Jessica hung the puppy’s stocking over the fireplace.

“Who’s that for, mommy?”

“You’ll see,” Jessica smiled. “You wanna help me wrap papa and meema’s presents?”

“Yeah!”

They sat on the floor next to the Christmas tree and wrapped gifts for Jessica’s parents. Bailey cut the wrapping paper with kitchen scissors in straight lines, surgical in precision. Jessica wrapped the paper around the boxes and Bailey taped the ends together. Bailey put the bows on top and signed her name in pen.

“I love Christmas,” she said.

“Me too,” her mother said.

Early Christmas morning Jessica went next door to her friend’s house and grabbed the puppy from his little dog bed and brought him home. He was still sleepy but his tail started wagging and he began nibbling on her fingers. Jessica was so excited she couldn’t wait. She took the puppy to Bailey’s room and put him on her pillow. “Good morning, sweetie.” She gently shook Bailey from sleep.

Bailey opened her eyes and blinked a few times before shooting up in bed and squealing with the kind of joy that only a child can have. “Merry Christmas, baby,” Jessica said. “Mommy, I love him!” Bailey picked him up and squeezed him so tight the small puppy yelped.

“Not so hard. He’s little,” her mother told her.

“He’s so cute!” Bailey softly patted his head and kissed his little black nose.

“What do you wanna name him,” Jessica asked.

“I don’t wanna name him.”

“He has to have a name. He has to know what his name is so when you call him he comes running and says, ‘Arf arf!”

“Can I play with him, mommy?”

“Don’t you wanna open your other presents?”

“I can do it later.”

“Ok, sweetie. You play.”

Jessica got off the bed and headed out but turned back in the doorway to look at her daughter and her new dog. She had never see her so happy before. In this moment, everything is perfect.

Jessica entered the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. She sat at the kitchen table. Her parents would be coming over in a few hours, after church. Jessica had spent most of the night of Christmas Eve cleaning her house but she got it all done and still had time to watch her favorite Christmas movie with her daughter. The first cup of coffee fired her insides on this snowy morning and she heard giggling coming from her daughter’s room. Jessica stood in the the living room and looked at the rest of Bailey’s presents, shining in glossy paper underneath the tree.

Jessica finished her coffee and decided it was time to start opening the rest of the presents so that they could get dressed and be ready for when her parents arrived. Bailey was still giggling as Jessica came down the hall and as she pushed open the door to her daughter’s room Jessica froze in the doorway. Her jaw slowly fell slack and she whimpered.

Bailey had sliced open the puppy’s stomach and had one hand inside it. The carpet was stained by an ugly

puddle of red. Next to the body was the same pair of scissors Bailey used to cut the wrapping paper. Bailey’s cheeks and chin were covered with red smears.

“Look, mommy. His heart is so little.”

“Honey, what did you do? What did you do? Oh my god,” Jessica stammered.

“Can I get a puppy for my birthday?”

Jessica took hold of herself and came over and gently pulled Bailey’s hand out of the puppy’s stomach and grabbed the other hand and looked to her daughter face to face and said, “This is very bad, Bailey, very bad! You can’t hurt animals. That’s a very bad thing. Why did you do this?”

“I wanted him to open.”

“Why?”

“Like a present.”

Jessica tightly embraced her daughter. She held her so hard that Bailey moaned and began squirming to get out of her grasp.

Jessica let go and told Bailey to take off all her clothes and to get in the bath. While Bailey sat in the tub Jessica threw away all the blood stained clothes and put the trash bag in the bin outside. She scrubbed the carpet hard with a brush with club soda, then baking soda, then a carpet cleaner, but the splotch only fainted to pink. She scrubbed Bailey just as hard, covering every inch of her, behind the ears and underneath the nails. The blood was washed away but her skin was red from the hard scrubbing.

Jessica dressed Bailey in the living room and told her to stay out of her room until she could clean it. Bailey was wearing a blue dress her grandmother bought for her, her hair was well combed and Jessica told her not to fuss with it.

But all the while Jessica had avoided dealing with the puppy. It was too heart breaking to face but now she had to do it. Holding onto tears she gently picked up the puppy and put him in one of Bailey’s old shoe boxes and covered him with the paper that comes inside. He looked so pitiful that Jessica broke down crying. She took the little Christmas stocking off the mantle, opened the shoe box and put the puppy inside the stocking, then put him back in the box. Beside the stocking she placed the dog treat she had gotten from the pet store, which she had saved for this morning. She placed the box just outside her back door where it would not be seen.

They ate breakfast in silence after Jessica said that they would wait for papa and meema to get here before anymore presents were opened.

Her grandparents arrived with presents and kisses and the family sat around the tree, watching Bailey open all her gifts. Before they arrived Jessica told Bailey not to talk about the puppy to her grandparents or anyone else. Jessica wasn’t going to tell anyone either. When her friend would ask about the puppy, she would say that he had gotten outside and was hit by a truck. She buried the dog in its stocking shroud and shoebox coffin in the backyard that night, after Bailey had gone to sleep. The next day Jessica moved all of Bailey’s furniture out of her room and ripped up the entire carpet. The blood had soaked into the foundation underneath, leaving a dark stain. New carpet was rolled over the next day, but Jessica could always see in her mind that dark ugly mark underneath.

Bailey had gotten a lot of toys and Jessica hoped that she would forget all about puppies and kittens and hamsters and rabbits. But a week after Christmas Bailey asked, “Remember when we had a dog?”

“Don’t talk about that. I don’t want you to ever talk about that, ok?”

“Ok, mommy.”