She had simply done what she had been trained to do—protect Jennie and me. She was completely under control when the police arrived. One of the offi...ers had wanted to take her to the animal shelter for rabies testing, but was overridden by a sergeant who was apparently a dog lover. Instead, we took Lady to a veterinarian the following morning. He withdrew blood, assuring us that he had done this in cooperation with the police probably dozens of times. He said the testing would be done in two. I leaned my ass against the counter and leaned back and looked at the ceiling in the dim morning light. I turned around and held my hand on the edge of the counter and humped my fingers for a moment when I looked up and saw my niece looking at me. Regardless of the weird situation I was in, or the fact that I must be having a dream, I was completely embarrassed and yelled at her about knocking and not just walking in. But no one had walked in. No one had forgotten to knock. I wasn’t looking at. When he answered I spoke fast. “Did yousee that gorgeous redhead in the blue shirt and plaid skirt?” “No, I didn’t… Where is she?” Wait a minute, my brain screamed. You want to share this with someoneelse? What are you, an idiot? “She just left, I think. Man, you reallymissed it… She was truly butterscotch.” “Butterscotch” was our term for aseriously hot woman. “Aw, too bad. I have a customer, I have to. As a c***d our bond was completely appropriate. She did her best to be a wonderful grandmother, she would bathe me, tuck me in to sleep, and take me to the park and other occasions that popped up around our area. Now as I said I was 4 or 5 then, but when I became 15 years old things changed. I will make clear, I am 22 years old as of now, and my grandmother is 70. When I reached the age of 15 (she would have been 63) I really took shape and started to become a man, I grew to be Six foot Four.