A North Carolina Autumn

Chapter Fifty-Eight

6.6.2023

It takes some work, but Rylie and I manage to convince my mother to open her gifts from us first. She was really insistent at first that we open ours, but she kind of needed to open hers first, for obvious reasons. We give her a few of the small things to open first, like the new cutting board she'd been wanting, a light jacket for spring, and some gardening supplies. Next, she opens the puppy things, luckily assuming they're for Harvey whenever he stays here.

I can't help but smile at how excited she is about that, and the fact that she loves having Harvey stay here. It helps ease my worries about her not wanting a puppy of her own.

After she's opened the puppy things, Rylie carefully grabs the box we'd wrapped specially with the puppies inside. "This is partially ours too, but we had to wrap them together."

"We're sharing this one?" My mother asks curiously.

"Kind of." I laugh. "Just open it carefully, you'll see."

"Carefully? Is it breakable?" My mother asks worriedly.

"Just open it, Olivia." Jay laughs, rubbing her back.

"Okay, okay..." She mutters, carefully undoing the bow on top of the box. She pulls the cardboard flaps apart before finally taking a peek inside. "You guys!" She shouts, stern disbelief in her tone. Almost like her first reaction is to be upset at us for getting her a box of puppies, but also disbelief that there's an actual box of puppies in front of her.

"Surprise!" I giggle. "We got you a puppy."

"Just one, right?" My mother questions skeptically.

"Yes, we decided to keep one for ourselves." Rylie grins.

"Oh, thank God! I would never be able to handle two puppies! Which one is mine?" She asks excitedly.

Rylie reaches into the box, scooping up the bigger of the two puppies. "This little guy is yours." She smiles, handing the puppy to my mom.

"Oh, what a sweetheart. And so fluffy!" She eagerly takes the puppy, snuggling him to her chest and resting her cheek on his soft fur. "What are their names?"

"We named ours Sammy." I smile. "Yours doesn't have a name yet, that's all up to you."

"She already has a name picked out even though she didn't know she'd get to use it so soon." Jay laughs, and my mom nods.

"A few weeks ago, Jay brought up maybe going to the shelter to adopt a dog, but I guess that was his way of seeing if I'd be okay with getting one in the first place. I told him that if we were to get a boy dog, his name would be Murphy."

"That's an adorable name." Rylie smiles, her eyes watching the puppy as he chews on my mothers fingers. I reach into the box and pull Sammy out, not wanting her to get lonely. Harvey climbs onto my lap a moment later, cuddling up with the puppy, seemingly happy to see her again after their night apart.

"I'm guessing he's the reason you decided to keep one?" My mother laughs, gesturing to Harvey as he licks Sammy affectionately.

"Yep, he hasn't left Sammy's side since we first introduced them. And don't worry, we made sure we could still make our schedules work with two dogs instead of one." I add.

"Well, this is so fun!" My mother says happily as she slowly moves to the couch, careful not to jostle Murphy.

We spend the next two hours talking about the puppies and answering all of their questions. I'm relieved to see that my mom already loves Murphy. I'd only been a little bit worried that she wouldn't want a dog, despite Jay assuring us that she wasn't against it.