Prepared to mourn, we unload a couple tallboys, a handful of whisky mini's and a bag of pretzel sticks onto the dining-room table. It would be a solemn event (strategically timed between us getting home from school and Dad getting home from work). Bear would have been two years old today, fourteen in dog years, just like us. It's cold. We wrap ourselves in a crimson wool blanket and slide, side by side, onto the bench at the table.

We pop cans, drink. The story is short. Dad, aware that our dog Bear was resting beneath the car, got into the driver's seat and ignited the engine with the intention of scaring Bear out. The car, parked on a slight hill, in neutral apparently, rolled over our dog. It was an accident, tragic — avoidable.

The story is, we are a small and shaggy dog.

Our fur is black and on a hot sunny day the only thing to do is find a shady spot. Of course, we recognize the family car, but lucky for us it has transformed into a cave. We keep our head low and crawl into the cool. We dig and circle, wrap our tail round, curl into a ball. Intoxicated by the smell of oil and rubber, we drift, our head snuggled against a rock that happens to be shaped like a wheel. We briefly wake to a soft rumble, then fall off again. In retrospect it would have been great if that had been it, — if the cave hadn't morphed into an idling car, if we hadn't subsequently suffered the indescribable pain of a two-thousand-pound wheel crushing us into the gravel drive. We didn't have a chance.

Afternoon turns to evening. We play pick-up sticks with the remaining pretzels. Lick salty crumbs and sudsy puddles of spilled beer off the woody surface of the dining-room table: hops, a hint of dust, highlights of oily Pine-Sol, notes of oak.

We hear a rumble; tires rolling over gravel in the drive come to a stop. The front door opens, suction-cupping the house. With what should have been trepidation, we note the breach. We hold our breath. Familiar footsteps. Dad.

We pant, swallow our giggles, wag our tail.

.