Beulah a dog cookie, which the portly basset turned her nose up at and refused to eat. She was punishing Sabrina, which she did often. It only made Sabrina smile. Chris was better at getting the dog out of her dark moods, he had a lot more patience with her. And Sabrina was anxious to get on the road. She had packed the night before, and all she had to do was change out of her work clothes, a dark gray linen suit she had worn for a court appearance that morning, with a gray silk T-shirt, a string of pearls, and high-heeled shoes. She changed into jeans and a cotton T-shirt and sandals for the drive to Connecticut. She was anxious to get there, and knew it would be close to ten o'clock by the time she arrived. Her sisters Candy and Annie would already be there.
She knew that Tammy wouldn't get to the house until around two o'clock in the morning. Her plane was arriving at eleven-thirty that night, and after that she had to drive from JFK to Connecticut. Sabrina could hardly wait for all of them to be together. As far as Sabrina was concerned, they didn't see enough of each other. She and Chris had gone to California to visit Tammy two years before, but they hadn't been able to since, although they kept promising to make time to go out there again. They had had a great time with Tammy, although she was constantly working. The two oldest sisters in the group definitely had the strongest work ethic and Chris accused them both of being workaholics. He was much better about leaving the office at reasonable hours, and refusing to work on weekends. Sabrina always had her overstuffed briefcase near at hand, with things she had to read, or prepare for a case. Chris was a good lawyer too, but he had a more relaxed attitude about life, which made them a good combination. He made her loosen up a little, and she kept him on track, and didn't let him procrastinate, which he had a tendency to do. Sabrina sometimes nagged him, but he was a good sport about it.
She wished Tammy would find a man like him, but there were none in her world. Sabrina hadn't liked a single man that Tammy had gone out with in the past ten years. She was a magnet for self-centered, difficult men. Sabrina had chosen someone like their father, easygoing, kind, good-natured, and loving. It was hard not to love Chris, and they all did. He even looked a little like her father, which the others had teased her about when they first met him. Now they all loved him as she did. She just didn't want to be married to him, or anyone else. She was afraid it would screw things up, as she had seen so often. So many times couples told her that everything had been great while they were living together, sometimes for years and years, and then it all fell apart when they got married. One or both of them turned into monsters. She wasn't afraid that Chris would do that, or even that she would, but why take the chance? Things were so perfect as they were.
Beulah looked at Sabrina miserably as she set her suitcase down next to the front door. She thought she was being left behind.
“Don't look like that, silly. You're coming with me.” As she said it, she picked up the dog's leash, and Beulah bounded out of the chair, wagging her tail, finally looking happy. “See, things aren't so bad after all, are they?” She clipped the leash on, turned off the lights, picked up her bag, and she and Beulah walked out the door.
Her car was in a nearby garage. She never used it in the city, only when she went out of town. It was a short walk to the garage. She put her bag in the trunk, and Beulah sat majestically in the front passenger seat and looked out the window with interest. Sabrina was relieved that her parents were good sports about their daughters' dogs. They had had cocker spaniels when they were children, but her parents hadn't had dogs now for years. They referred to the three visiting dogs as their “grand dogs” since her mother said she was beginning to think they would never have
Learning to Kill: Stories