Eight

A thimbleful of sweet delight

On dry and blistered lips

But will the soul be pacified

with happiness in sips.

A rush of adrenaline had Andrea shaking uncontrollably as she gripped the steering wheel and felt the thunderous pulse of interstate traffic just a few feet away. She was in her minivan loaded with paintings and display paraphernalia, alone at the side of the highway. This was the first blow-out she'd ever had, and Andrea was stunned with the realization that she could have lost control of the van.

Things had been going so well. She'd left her house before dawn that morning and headed west on Interstate-94 toward Chicago and her first art fair.

Andrea's parents took Robin and Brian for the weekend, and the children were looking forward to a fishing trip. They had returned from their vacation with Andrea's in-laws three weeks before, and their other grandparents were trying to make up for lost time before summer was over.

The dog would be going along; Ben had suggested it. Andrea thought her father enjoyed Buddy almost as much as Brian did. He had wanted to get another dog ever since Jack and Andrea married and took old Dickins to live with them; but Andrea's mother wasn't anxious to be "tied down" again; so they never did.

The vacation had been too long for the kids. After the first few weeks Brian began to miss Buddy terribly and called his grandfather Ben from Colorado to ask him to work with the dog a few times. He said he was worried that Buddy would "forget his lessons unless he practiced," but Andrea suspected Brian was more concerned that the dog might be lonesome too. With Andrea absorbed in painting, she did little more than see to Buddy's physical needs, and had considered the continued attempts at obedience training futile. Though Buddy was gaining an extensive repertoire of tricks, due mostly to Brian and his grandfather's tenacity, they had never been able to break him of some of his more irksome habits: he greeted people by jumping on them.