Happily Letter After by Vi Keeland

CHAPTER 10

SADIE

It was the longest ten minutes of my life. Seriously. Every second that passed was excruciating as Sebastian just watched with his arms crossed as I made a fool of myself.

I tried in vain to get this horse of a dog to jump over my back with a made-up command that meant absolutely nothing. It was looking like I’d have a greater chance of turning water into wine.

How the hell do you teach a dog to jump over your back anyway? I tried everything, from demonstrating the act myself while jumping over an end table shouting “flunkerbsht” repeatedly . . . to grabbing another one of the stuffed animals from Birdie’s room and jumping over that. He ended up going after the toy and humping it.

I’m aflunkerbsht, alright. A huge flunker shit.

In a last act of desperation, I tried getting down on all fours and yelling “flunkerbsht” while nudging my head, hoping that by some miracle, Marmaduke would take that as a sign to jump over me. He’d either lie down with his chin on the floor or, worse, climb up on my back and try to stay there. At one point, I became pinned under him. Then, after I flipped around, he started licking my face as I struggled to get up.

How had I gone from getting ready to tell Sebastian the truth just this morning . . . to this?

I needed to end it.

Now.

I needed to tell Sebastian everything.

When I finally got Marmaduke off me, I stood up.

Brushing off my pants, I said, “Sebastian, we need to—”

“Stop it, Sadie. Just stop.” His tone was jarring and his eyes—they became filled with so much anger as he said, “Don’t say another word. It won’t matter. Because it’ll just be another lie.”

My heart pounded, and the room started to feel like it was spinning.

What’s happening?

He unfolded the paper he’d been holding and faced it toward me. It was a photo of a woman and some words. It looked like a bio maybe. The woman had long, curly red hair.

“Who is that?” I swallowed.

“It’s the real dog trainer Gretchen Schmidt. She contacted me recently to apologize for not showing up a few weeks ago due to a family emergency. Gave me the link to her new website, where I found her bio.”

Oh no.

I knew I should’ve said something at that point, but the words wouldn’t come.

He continued. “And what do you know . . . she trained in Munich while spending a year abroad, not at the . . . what was it you said? The Key Training School? Apparently, all they teach at the latter is how to lie through your teeth!”

I was seriously going to throw up.

“I can explain—”

“That’s good to know, but unfortunately, there’s nothing you could say at this point that I would believe. So, what I need you to do right now is to get out of my house and never come back.”

This is so bad.

So very bad.

“I’ll leave. But can I please just explain first?”

“Not unless you want to explain to the police.”

The police? He had to be kidding me. Was impersonating a dog trainer even a crime? I didn’t have enough legal background to figure out if I was in any kind of serious trouble here. So, rather than take a chance and make things worse, I decided to do as he said and headed for the door.

He might as well have told me not to let the door hit me on the way out, because I swore I felt it hit my ass as he slammed it shut behind me.

The New York air never felt colder, the skies never looked grayer as I made my way down the stairs and onto the sidewalk, feeling like a piece of tossed-out trash that had been fucked worse than Birdie’s stuffed turtle.

A mix of emotions pummeled through me. It wasn’t just the shock of having been outed but also an inexplicable sense of loss—not only the loss of Birdie but losing a sense of belonging that had come along with this experience. I hadn’t even realized it had been missing in my life until it was ripped away.

Two weeks after that horrible day at the Maxwells’, I still hadn’t gotten over it. The one thing I was grateful for was that Birdie hadn’t been there to witness any of it. I certainly hoped Sebastian never told her what really happened with me. It would break my heart if I thought Birdie saw me as a malicious person.

My heart was truly broken, and I’d spent many sleepless nights weighing whether or not I should try to find a way to explain myself to Sebastian again. He’d specifically said that he wouldn’t believe anything I had to say. Telling him the truth could also make things worse. Then again, how much worse could things get?

Dr. Emery was out of the country for a few months, so I couldn’t even run this situation by her. It didn’t matter how many times I went back and forth over it, I would always come to the conclusion that it was better to just leave well enough alone.

But of course, life has a way of sometimes coming around and making decisions for you.

One afternoon, I checked the mail to find that Birdie had sent “Santa” another letter. It had been a long time since she’d written, and I truly hadn’t been expecting her to write back ever again.

Given the circumstances, nothing could have kept me from ripping that envelope open.

Dear Santa,

I wasn’t going to write to you anymore, but now that it’s getting closer to Christmas, this can be like my one Christmas letter.

I have a dog named Marmaduke now. He’s a Great Dane like I’ve always wanted. I love him so much. Mommy brought him. Well, not Mommy herself, but Daddy said that she sent him a message to bring Marmaduke to me. That’s how I knew she wasn’t mad at me for stealing cookies. (I still steal cookies. You know that, right?)

Mommy hasn’t sent me any more signs. But that’s okay. I know she’s busy being an angel.

I met someone who lost her mom when she was six like me. I never met someone else who had a mom die from cancer before. She was really nice. Her name is Sadie. Well, she has two names: Sadie and Gretchen. She’s the reason I have two names now: Birdie and Muffuleta. Anyway, Sadie was Marmaduke’s dog trainer. She taught him to sit and other stuff in German. Oh and she saved his life, too. I thought maybe you had answered my wish for a special friend when she first came. But then Sadie disappeared. I don’t know what happened. Daddy just said she wasn’t coming anymore. He said he didn’t know why. But he acted weird when I asked him about it. I think maybe it was my fault that she left. Maybe I made her sad because I lost my mom. Maybe it reminded her about hers? I wish I knew why Sadie left without saying goodbye. Why does everyone leave me?

Anyway, I don’t know if you can find Sadie and tell her that I’m sorry.

Thanks, Santa.

Love, Birdie

(AKA Muffuleta)

I ended up having to leave work early that day. Even though I’d wanted to hit the liquor store, I knew I likely wouldn’t have been able to know when to stop drowning my sorrows. I went straight home instead.

It didn’t matter how many times I reread that letter, the answer of what I needed to do next was now abundantly clear.

Sebastian had paid me for my services via a new PayPal account I’d set up before he realized the truth. So I had his email address associated with that payment.

Before I could change my mind, I opened my laptop, generated a new email from my real account, and started typing.

Dear Mr. Maxwell,

I opted to send you this email instead of trying for an in-person meeting, because I doubted you would agree to see me. I urge you to please read this and save your judgment until you’ve gotten to the end. I promise it will fully explain why I was at your doorstep that first day.

My name is Sadie Bisset. I’m twenty-nine years old and, like your daughter, I lost my mother to cancer when I was six (and a half). As part of my job, I answer a column where people write in their holiday wishes. The column is normally published during the holiday season, but your daughter, Birdie, first wrote in to us over the summer.

The email to Sebastian was probably one of the longest diatribes ever written. I explained each of the letters I’d received from Birdie, the wishes I’d fulfilled, and also how much I struggled with whether to respond each time. Eventually, I got to the part where I explained how I ended up being the dog trainer.

I’d never intended to show up at your door. I happened to be in the neighborhood and stopped when I realized it was the same address from which your daughter’s letters came. I’d noticed a butterfly barrette lying on the stairs and walked over to pick it up and place it closer to the door so that no one would step on it. That’s when you opened the door and assumed I was Gretchen. I was a little shell-shocked in that moment. Perhaps my judgment was hampered by the fact that, by that time, I felt personally invested in your daughter’s well-being. To you, I was a stranger. But because Birdie had opened up to me, I felt like I not only knew her but that I knew you as well. I made the hasty decision to go along with your assumption. It was clearly the wrong decision and one I deeply regret. Despite that, I spent many hours studying the art of German dog training and truly intended to do the job justice, to perform the duties you thought you were hiring me for. But if I’m being honest, the real reason I stuck around after that first day was to see with my own eyes that Birdie was really okay.

That brings me to the reason I decided to write this letter today. Birdie wrote in to “Santa” again. This time, she mentioned the sudden absence of the dog trainer—me. She somehow suspects that something might have gone awry, even though you never told her why I’d stopped coming. (Thank you for that, by the way.) She has good intuition. But she drew a very wrong conclusion: that I left because she did something to make me sad, that perhaps being there reminded me of my own mother’s death. It’s killing me to think that she’s blaming herself for the fact that I disappeared. I’m not really entirely sure how to fix that. I just wanted to make you aware.

I know I made a huge mistake. But I’m human, and please know I would never have done anything to intentionally hurt you or your daughter. I only wish the best for you both.

I want to remind you of something you told me once. You explained your reasoning behind telling Birdie that her mother had sent Marmaduke. You said that you convinced yourself that lying to take away your daughter’s sadness canceled the lie out. My lie might appear to be leaps and bounds away from yours, but the intention was the same. It was pure.

If you’ve gotten to the end of this message, thank you for taking the time to read it.

Best,

Sadie Bisset