Carrie stood there with a helpless expression. There was no arguing with her mama when she'd got her dander up and was enlisting the aid of all the legions of Heaven to back her up.

Mae took her daughter's silence to mean she'd won. She walked out into the foyer and called to Joey from the bottom of the stairs.

"Joey, come down here please. Grammy needs some help unloading the car."

***

The puppy looked up sleepily as Mae opened the car door. Joey wore a bewildered expression as he opened the back door on the passenger side, expecting to find packages.

"You got a dog, Grammy?!"

"A purebred Basset Hound and she's your dog. You'll find everything she needs in the trunk...food, bed, toys, shampoo and some other stuff."

"But Grammy, what's wrong with her? Her ears don't match!" Joey pointed out.

"She was born that way, honey, and nobody wanted her. She needs somebody to love her, someone who understands that all creatures are perfect in the eyes of the Lord. Think you can do that, Joey?"

Joey just nodded with a blank expression and Mae wished she knew what was running through his head.

"She needs to go potty in the backyard and she needs a drink of water now and something to eat. After we have our dinner we're going to take her for a walk," Mae said.

"Why do we need to walk her if we have a backyard?" Joey asked.

"Because dogs need exercise," Mae explained. "They need to get out and see the world. Now let's get her settled in and get to the table before your mama starts carrying on again. Make sure you wash your hands after you're done with her, or we'll be getting a lecture about that, too."

Mae and Carrie maintained a stony silence through dinner except for overly polite requests to pass this or that. Joey didn't seem to notice as he chattered on about the dog and got up frequently from the table to look out the screen door to see what she was doing. The puppy slept on her back on the porch, snoring and burping occasionally. On one of his trips back to the table Joey announced that the dog's name was "Lucy," and the two women glanced at each other before returning to deep concentration over ears of corn.

Carrie declined Mae's invitation to go for a walk and said she had dishes and laundry to do. She watched from the front window as Mae and the boy, with Lucy in tow, started off down the sidewalk. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Joey venture past the front gate since school let out.

"Maybe you're right, Mama," she thought. "You and the Lord and your mysterious ways."

***

It took hardly any time at all for the odd-eared Basset puppy to work her charms on Joey. If Mae had one complaint, it was that she hardly saw her grandson during daylight hours. He and Lucy were out the door first thing in the morning with a packed lunch for the two of them and wouldn't return home until half an hour before dinner. To her daughter's credit, Carrie didn't complain about the muddy clothes, torn shirts and lost caps. Mae believed that her own earlier love of "expeditions" had skipped a generation before finding the two who needed it most. She'd even stopped wearing hats around Lucy, because for some reason the puppy was afraid of them. And she stopped complaining about it when Carrie said "Mama, you've been scaring the whole town with your hats for years, I don't know why Lucy should be an exception."

Mae stayed over some evenings and as she and Carrie sat in the living room watching TV, they heard the thumps and bumps, the giggles and barks of the boy and dog wreaking havoc up in Joey's room. Carrie would purse her lips and Mae would give her an "I told you so" look before smiling sweetly.

True to her word, Mae had paid all the costs associated with Lucy and then some. Carrie finally had to tell her she did not think that any puppy needed three beds in three different locations throughout the house. Carrie didn't complain when dinner had to be ready extra early on Tuesday evenings, when Mae came to take Joey and Lucy to puppy obedience class at the pet supply store. Carrie had even volunteered to drive Lucy to the veterinarian for puppy vaccinations and then the spay surgery, because Mae claimed she fainted at the sight of needles.

Most nights the three of them took an after-dinner walk with Lucy and usually ended up at the Dairy Delight for dessert, where Mae held court in the parking lot and manipulated the crowd for her own purposes - usually to rope in volunteers to work church socials and fundraisers. She'd even become an apostle for pet ownership and had convinced several neighborhood parents about animals being an indispensable part of a child's life and she'd sent several of them to the local shelter to adopt dogs and cats.

Mae learned that the tired looking woman at the animal shelter was Beth, and Beth learned to count on the times Mae would show up with a boxed lunch for her and a carload of secondhand towels, sheets and blankets for the animals.

"We just buy each other's things at the church sales anyway," Mae explained, "and then we take them back to the church and resell them to one another. Lord knows these poor unfortunate creatures need them more than we do."

Joey had picked out a first "birthday" for Lucy and Mae had proposed a birthday party and then turned it into the children's social event of the season. Some had brought their dogs with them, and childless, dogless neighbors showed up just to see what all the commotion was about.

Carrie sat at the kitchen table and sipped a glass of sweet tea thoughtfully. That Lucy had changed Joey's life and outlook was undeniable. She was sure all the walking and exercise was good for him and thought the boy's limp was slightly less noticeable. Not only had she not once heard a neighborhood child say something mean about Lucy's mismatched ears, they all seemed to treat Joey as one of them. Gone were the days when Joey sat on the front stoop alone and now she usually had to shoo a collection of kids and dogs off the front porch when their mothers started calling for them.

Someday she'd find the right words to thank Mae, but first she'd give it time for some of her mama's gloating to subside. At least Mae had the graciousness to grant that the idea had been the Lord's.

Mae came in the back door huffing and puffing, her arms loaded with bags.

"You're home from work early," she said to Carrie, "you're not sick are you?" "No, Mama, I'm not sick. I took off a bit early. I've got dinner in the crockpot - would you mind feeding Joey and staying this evening? I'm going out...I've got a date," she said with a shy smile.