Aurora Returns, Part IIfeatured

—and now, the conclusion

Jeremy had skipped Tulsa Winds rehearsal and had come home hours earlier than anticipated, surprising us all.  After he stepped over Bowie in the front hallway he found Aurora holding court in his favourite chair by the fire, calmly sipping a glass of his best wine.

Scorn was etched in her face as she gazed up at him and spat out “You.”

He stopped abruptly, his eyes narrowed with suspicion, and his head swiveled around rapidly looking for me.  “BABE!” he bellowed.  “WHY IS THERE A COCKER SPANIEL IN MY CHAIR????  And what’s wrong with Bowie??!!?”

“Fool,” scoffed said spaniel.  “You are clearly behind the times.  I….(she took a dramatic pause)…am Aurora.”

“You cannot be Aurora,” Jeremy countered, “Aurora has died.”

“She IS Aurora,” came floating out from the couch the dachshunds had dived under.

“I am Aurora,” she repeated with a triumphant smirk.  “Rules simply do not apply to My Glorious Self.”

I poked my head around the corner.  Aurora tilted her head and lifted her eyebrows in expectation, gesturing at Jeremy with the wine glass.

I gulped.  “That is, in fact, Aurora.”

Jeremy blinked.  He slowly set his laptop bag down then sternly beckoned me with his finger to follow him to his office.  The dachshunds scrambled after us eager to watch the show but Jeremy shouted “NOPE” and bluntly shut the door in their faces.

“I have had a horrible day,” he hissed quietly, backing me into the corner.  “I had to sit in on a disciplinary appeal for a student, thankfully not one of mine.  Rehearsal was terrible.  It’s two weeks till the concert and the venue has just cancelled on me.  My colourguard tarp is moulded from being left out in the rain for months.  It’s still folded up under the bleachers because no one ever brought it in!  Transportation gave me the keys to a Suburban that wasn’t even on the lot.  A rogue band parent is on the rampage.  I have to get out the vote for the new bond issue or we aren’t getting a performing arts center.  All I want is to come home, eat a hot dinner and watch Seinfeld.  And instead, what do I find?  The ghost of your Cocker Spaniel, sitting in my chair like she owns the place.  God Bless!!!!”  He angrily crossed his arms and glared down at me.  “We have to discuss this before we do anything.  We are married.  We’re supposed to be a team.”

He had really picked up steam now and demanded “How long have you known about this??  I can’t even believe–allowing a ghost to freely haunt my house.  Is this even real???  I don’t want to live in one of my Stephen King books!”

“She’s not a ghost,” I countered stoutly.  “She’s solid, she’s real.  She’s here.”

“Then what is she?  Wait, don’t answer that.”  He sunk into a chair, massaged his forehead right over his eyes and groaned, “I can’t handle any more tonight.”

Silence.  Then the dachshunds slid the little envelope that Aurora had brought with her under the door.  I retrieved it and handed it to Jeremy.  “Aurora brought this for you.  It’s from Hoku.”  I quietly slipped out the door to give him some time for contemplation.

He was alone in there for awhile–he did have a lot to contemplate to be fair–and I heard the Gustav worriedly ask Aurora, “Is everything going to be all right?” and her familiar, confident “Of course it is” when I was summoned back into Jeremy’s office with a shout.

He looked very tired sitting at his desk and he gave me a wounded look.  “I really don’t like being the bad guy in your stories.  I know you’re taking notes in your head this minute about how you’re going to write this.  I’m not a tyrant,” he said helplessly.

This could be debated but now wasn’t the time so I simply agreed (the safest course of action).

He leaned back in his chair with a creak.  “And just when I think that things have evened out, quietened down, we’ve all gotten on a routine, this happens.  Now we are looking at having you, me, two treacherous dachshunds, one Bowie–did ANYONE think to check on her, is she even all right???–and now, to top it all off, the ghost–or whatever–of a cocker spaniel in this house.  Where is she going to go?”

Anywhere she pleases, I thought but did not say.  I meekly suggested my sewing room as Aurora’s new quarters and Jeremy gave me an exasperated look.  “You always say that for everything.  Well, the four of you are going to have to make that work and figure something out.”

It was the best we could have hoped for.  When we entered the den we saw Aurora and Gustav standing over a sheet of blueprints she had unrolled on the floor (Johann Sebastian was fanning a dazed Bowie with the latest issue of UUWorld).  Jeremy and I peered down at the blueprints–it was our house and the lot it was sitting on.

Aurora was gesturing with one paw while sketching with a chalk pen in the other.  “The way I see it, we have four options.  Take over the sewing room, put a standalone building in the backyard, build an extension onto the house itself, or remodel the attic to a proper room.  We will have to see–oh, are you both done?”  She had noticed us and brushed the chalk off her paws.  “Excellent.  We can begin negotiations.  I have my list of demands ready.”

Jeremy did not answer her right away but sat down in his favourite chair, pulled out his pipe and filled it with tobacco.  He had given it several puffs, staring fixedly at Aurora the entire time in complete silence before he finally said “I agree.  This would be an excellent time for you to negotiate with me.”

Aurora’s mouth dropped open in shock.  Hers wasn’t the only one.  Gustav, Johann and I shrunk close together watching the two of them square off with our jaws on the ground.  Bowie was now huddled behind the couch, occasionally peeping out to watch with eyes as big as plates.  It was like the shootout at the OK Corral and the two of them narrowed their eyes at each other as tension mounted in the room.

It was the first time someone had taken charge of Aurora (dead or alive) with a strong offense and she was so taken aback for long enough that Jeremy quickly gained the upper ground while she was reeling.  “Most importantly: you will respect me as owner of this house.  You will not pee on my floors.  You will leave Bowie alone.”

Once she had recovered her scowl deepened.  Jeremy’s pipe went back to his mouth and he took some more slow, prolonged puffs.  Then, as if he had all the time in the world:

“You will not use my bank account.  You will not set one paw on the grounds of my band room.   You will not instigate any kind of uprising among my staff, students or parents.  You will not attempt to conceal anything from me, ever.”

I thought the uprising one was a bit much but she was indeed capable of a great many things.  There was another long pause.  Aurora looked at me with wide eyes as if appealing for backup.  I gave her a tiny shrug that read please don’t drag me into this.  Jeremy calmly sent a smoke ring up towards the ceiling and continued.

“You will not change or repurpose anything in this house for any reason without my express consent.  I am addressing the subject of your quarters especially.”

Aurora’s eyebrows tilted downwards.  “Not conceal anything from you, you say?  Like, for example…the packages I had delivered to this house?”  She smirked.  “I know they arrived.  Kendra Scott and Louis Vuitton.  Did you even know about those?”

Jeremy’s eyes slid dangerously over to us.  I pointed at Gustav and Johann.  Gustav pointed at Johann and I.  Johann pointed at me and Gustav.  I saw his jaw twitch slightly as he ground his teeth for a second and his ears turned red but he turned his attention back towards Aurora without skipping a beat.  “That is exactly what I mean.  I will have no duplicity here.  Things are different from when you left and I will have order in my own house.”

She triumphantly tossed her ears with a shake of her head.  “You say ‘different’.  I say: a challenge.”

Jeremy removed his pipe from his mouth and slowly leaned forward until his elbows were touching his knees.  “Do not challenge me.  You will fail.”

She did not break her gaze from his as she defiantly lifted her chin, the gears in her head whirring as she initiated her strategic retreat and spat out “You may believe that all you like, Mr. Parker.”

“Whether you believe it or not, that’s how it’s going to be.”

I thought I heard a very soft, threatening, quiet “We’ll just see about that” under her breath, but I could be wrong (I really hope I was wrong).  After Jeremy made it clear that I would answer for every time Aurora put one claw out of line we all set out to decide on sleeping arrangements for the immediate future.

“She can’t fit on the bed,” pointed out Gustav.  “There’s no more room.  Unless someone decides to go sleep somewhere else.”

“Like the couch?” asked Johann.

We all turned to Jeremy for direction.  His ears turned red again and he shouted, “I don’t know why ANY of you are looking at me.  I am not going to sleep on the couch, in the house that I pay the mortgage on!” 

I went to the garage and pulled out the old kennels that we used on the house east of town, back when Aurora and Gustav first came home.  They were no longer used except for long distance travels in the car (very rarely) or during tornado warnings to keep the dachshunds contained in the hallway.  Aurora was shocked once again when I carried in the kennel she had used.

She touched it with her paw.  “You still have this?” she said quietly and peeked inside.  “My blankets are even still in here.”

“Of course we kept it,” I replied.  “Here, I’ll wash all that before you have to sleep on it tonight.”

She stopped me.  “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.  It’s a familiar smell.”  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.  “It reminds me of everything before.  Like I was never away at all.”

I carried the kennel to my sewing room, imagining that she would sleep there while we got everything sorted, but as we were all getting ready for bed she came huffing and puffing dragging the kennel behind her.  We all stared but she just kept moving and shoved her kennel next to my side of the bed–just like where it had been in our previous residences.

She dusted off her paws with satisfaction and gave a firm nod of approval.  “There, that’s more like it.”  Then she entered the kennel, fussed over the blankets until they were just the way she wanted them, curled up to sleep and then almost immediately started to snore.  The dachshunds shared a small smile with each other, then happily burrowed under the covers in their usual places.  Bowie, who usually slept under the bed, obviously didn’t feel comfortable being that close to Aurora and had fled to sleep in the living room instead.

Jeremy was not smiling when he came to bed and crawled in beside me.  “You are responsible for everything she does,” he repeated.  “And you’re explaining those packages she ordered tomorrow.  I can’t handle any more tonight.”  He pulled the covers up to his chin and groaned.  “I don’t believe this.  No one is going to believe this.  Don’t tell anybody.  What would people think?  If anyone asks, say that we adopted her from animal welfare.  We need to get the story straight before anyone sees her,” he insisted.  “Don’t tell a soul until we’ve all got the story down!”  He rolled on his side and was blessedly silent for a few minutes before he suddenly whipped round and shouted, “Oh, and most important of all–keep this off your blog!”