The homeless and poor peoples winter feast
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8. Other People’s Hearts Ch. 07 free porn video
Oliver threw himself into his work. It was easier to deal with his new life if he was in constant motion. He also saw his psychiatrist and went back on anti-depressants. He wasn’t anywhere near happy, but he was coping.
He stayed with Tyler, Maya and Madeline for a few weeks.
When he felt like a burden he tried to return to the conversation he’d had with his mom the first time he’d struggled with depression and anxiety when he was in college. She’d had the same problem through her whole life. ‘You’ve got to lean on us when you’re having an episode Ollie,’ she’d said. ‘Dad and I, your brothers, Gracie, Tyler and his family, it’s our job to support you when this happens.’
Tyler had been the right person to go to. In the past he’d gone to Micah but this time he felt like his brother had enough on his plate. Matthew had also helped him out before but lately he’d gotten the impression that he didn’t like Sylvie and Oliver didn’t want to deal with that. But Tyler was a good place to be. He was a good mixture of sympathy and lightheartedness, and Oliver thought he’d given him some good advice where Sylvia was concerned. A few days after she’d broken the news, Oliver got the idea that he should try to fight for her — to win her back.
‘I still love her. You can’t just turn that off. Our relationship is basically good, we just need to work harder on it,’ he’d argued. ‘We could move back west, start over.’
‘Loving someone and wanting to be with them are two different things,’ Tyler had pointed out.
‘But I miss her, I do want to be with her.’
‘Are you sure? Say she comes back to you. You move west, or east or wherever. Things settle down. Are you going to be able to trust that she’s not falling in love with another boss all over again?’
It was a good point and Oliver decided not to fight for Sylvia. He decided to concentrate on the things in his life that were good — his family, his work, and then the old homestead.
Lucas lived for free in the big, old rambling homestead on the farm. It was a 4 bedroom stick built house with a wrap around deck that probably should have been condemned. According to his uncle Josh, who was an architect, the framing was solid, it was just everything attached to the framing that could fall apart at any minute.
Lucas was completely unfazed by the less-than-stellar living conditions and liked to point out all of the ‘upgrades’ that he’d completed since he moved in several years ago. As far as Oliver could tell Lucas’ upgrades consisted of installing two dishwashers side-by-side in the kitchen where one might reasonably expect cupboards to be.
‘What do I need cupboards for?’ Lucas asked when Oliver pointed out the lack of cupboard space. ‘I have two dishwashers one for dirty plates and one for clean.’
Lucas wanted Oliver to move in with him. The place was in a state of such disrepair that Oliver knew it was a good idea to stay there. Everywhere he looked there was something that needed doing, a roof that needed retiling, a wall that needed repainting, a deck that needed to be torn down and rebuilt. It could keep him occupied for years.
It would probably be years before he felt any better. Every time Sylvia crossed his mind he felt his thoughts start to spiral. He had to consciously pull himself out. That’s what his anti-depressants did for him, they allowed him to recognize when his thoughts were no longer logical and to halt them before they got out of control.
The easiest way to halt a thought pattern was to change what he was doing or engage in something that required him to concentrate on a task — like surgery. Work was an excellent way to distract himself. Working on the house would also be a good way to keep himself occupied when he’d worked as many hours as he was legally allowed.
A few days after he moved into the homestead Tyler came over with a dog. Not Princess, his little boxer mix, a dog Oliver had never seen before. It took him a moment to figure out that he was trying to give it to him as a gift. Oliver tried to refuse. What was he going to do with a dog? He could hardly keep up with looking after himself.
‘Sit down and hear me out,’ Tyler requested.
They sat on the chairs on the rickety old deck that overlooked a completely overgrown garden with views of the pond in the distance. The dog lay down between them, panting in the heat. It was September but nobody had told the weather that it was supposed to be cooling off.
‘Do you remember Cassie?’
‘Yeah.’ Cassie was the boarder collie mutt Tyler had owned when Oliver was a little kid.
‘Cassie was your mom’s dog.’
‘Huh? Why did she live with you then?’
‘Well by the time you were born she was my dog, but your dad gave her to your mom when she was having a hard time dealing with a miscarriage.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, it was back when we were all in college. Your mom was seriously depressed and your dad picked Cassie up from an animal shelter on a whim. She helped your mom to get back to normal.’
‘So you want to give me a dog because I’m depressed? It’s not the same Tyler, I’m not in college any more. I don’t have time to look after a dog.’
‘Let me finish. At the time I had a girlfriend I was pretty serious about. We moved out here together and then a few years later she left me for a guy who worked at Denny’s.’
‘What!?’
‘Yeah, she got together with him before she left me. I can laugh about it now but it was crushing at the time. My little sister was in a coma, I’d fallen out with your mom about the girlfriend, and then the girlfriend had left me.’
‘Not fun.’
‘No. Well, your mom gave me Cassie. I’m not going to claim that Cassie was the reason I was able to get on with my life, but she certainly helped. It helped me to have a reason other than myself to get up every morning.’
Oliver still didn’t want the dog but Tyler was so sentimental about it that he was making it difficult to say no. ‘What if it doesn’t work out? I’ve never had a pet before.’
‘I’ll take her. Two dogs isn’t much more work than one. Keep her for a couple of weeks and if you still don’t want her she can come and live with us.’
He reluctantly agreed. Lucas said he was happy to help whenever he needed him to so Oliver became the new owner of a brown and tan skinny mutt with big pointy ears and a triangle face.
‘Hey Tyler,’ Oliver called out as Tyler was walking out the door. ‘Does she have a name?’
‘Rush,’ he called back.
Tyler had told him to keep Rush on a leash with him as much as he could for the first couple of days which had sounded like a piece of cake but turned out to be anything but. She wouldn’t do anything that Oliver wanted her to. If Oliver wanted to go one way the dog wanted to go the other and would pull on the leash until he either gave in and went her way or he physically dragged her the way he wanted to go.
Lucas thought it was hilarious.
‘What am I doing wrong?’ Oliver asked.
‘Take her outside. Maybe she needs to pee.’
‘Whatever you do, don’t drop the leash!’ He added as Oliver was trying not to fall down the front steps after her.
It went on like that all week. She was as stubborn as a bull. When Oliver took her jogging she just about dislocated his shoulder she pulled so hard on the leash. Even after several laps around the pond she was still out in front pulling like a sled dog until she saw a bush she wanted to sniff, then it was near impossible to get her to move.
At home she had settled down to the point where she would lie quietly beside him when he was sitting down but as soon as he took her into a new room she was pulling him around again. And the damn mutt wouldn’t stay off the furniture. It was really frustrating.
Oliver would admit that he liked coming home to the dog though. When he turned his key in the door Rush would start whin
ing and when she saw him she bolted towards him and wove through his legs panting and whining and making a big fuss. In the mornings she would wake him by shoving her wet little nose onto whatever piece of his skin was exposed. When he showed signs of life she would whine and do a funny little dance where her bottom wiggled and her tail wagged.
Oliver still didn’t think he would keep her though. The frustration out balanced the good times. He was really just waiting out a couple of weeks to give her back to Tyler when he ran into Lindsay down at the pond.
Now that he lived at the farm he saw a lot more of the volunteers and Lindsay seemed to be around quite a bit. It was good. A big part of his patients’ success hinged around finding people with healthy eating and exercise habits they could relate to and become friends with and use as support when they needed it. The volunteers were integral to that. It also helped the volunteer’s chances of making the lasting changes they needed.
It must have been a month or so since Lindsay had completed the program and she was looking great. She was still over weight, she would be for a while yet, but her skin and hair had a healthy glow and her eyes shone with energy. She was jogging around the lake in a slow, relaxed gait. He said hello as he passed her but a few meters later Rush had ideas about a bush beside the path and Lindsay caught back up.
‘Is that your dog?’ She asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Careful, don’t want to tear a rotator cuff,’ she joked as Rush took off again.
Oliver laughed but he didn’t really find it amusing. She must have sensed his unease and asked, ‘Did you just get her?’
‘Does it show?’
Lindsay flashed her movie-star smile. ‘Do you want me to show you a few tricks?’
Oliver practically threw the leash at her he was so keen to learn how to get the animal under control.
‘First off, she’ll learn quicker if you noose the handle of the leash around her neck rather than use the clasp.’
She used a series of shushing sounds, finger snapping and touching until Rush was sitting quietly. It was like a magical dog language. Rush had never sat like that for him. Then she grabbed her collar, unsnapped the leash and looped the clasp through the handle until it formed a kind of noose and slipped it over Rush’s head.
‘You want to keep it up high on her neck where she’s more sensitive. If you were an alpha dog you would give her little growls and bites to keep her in line, that’s what we’re trying to replicate.’
Lindsay started to walk Rush on the leash and any time she’d pull forward she’d correct her with a shush, a click of her fingers, a snap of the leash or a touch to the side. In a few hundred meters she had the dog walking patiently by her side.
‘That’s amazing. Teach me how to do that?’ Oliver begged.
She laughed. ‘Of course.’
She gave the leash back to him and tried to help him keep Rush walking beside him rather than pulling ahead.
‘You need to pretend like you are the boss. Pretend that you know what you’re doing and she will follow you.’
Oliver tried really hard to be the boss but Rush would still pull whenever she decided there was something she wanted to investigate.
‘Stop a minute,’ Lindsay requested.
Oliver stopped and turned to her. She bit on her lip and squinted her eyes in the afternoon sun. A warm breeze rustled her hair.
‘Are you okay?’ She asked.
Oliver didn’t know what possessed him to do it but he said, ‘No. My parents died less than a year ago and my girlfriend of six years just left me.’
Lindsay blinked. ‘And you decided to get a kelpie?’
He turned his head to the side in question and she said, ‘The dog. She’s a kelpie.’
‘No, it wasn’t my idea. My uncle gave her to me as a gift.’
Lindsay nodded slowly. ‘This uncle, is he slightly deranged?’
Oliver laughed. Probably the first real laugh he’d done since the break-up. ‘I guess you could say that. He has good intentions though. He told me my mom gave him a dog once when he was depressed and it helped him.’
‘Okay, I could see that. Maybe an older retriever or something low maintenance would help the right person in the right circumstances, but this is a kelpie, this is the definition of high needs. This dog was bred to go out and herd cattle, to make decisions without even having her master in sight.’
Oliver looked down at Rush. Even though he was holding the leash she was standing beside Lindsay, her big ears turned forwards and her eyes darting over the lake.
‘I’m not trying to discourage you,’ Lindsay continued a little more gently. ‘I’m just trying to give you a realistic idea of what caring for this dog will be like.’
They jogged back up to the gym together and Oliver thanked her for the lesson before heading home.
‘Oliver,’ she said as he turned to leave. ‘I’m sorry about your parents and your break up. I’m happy to help you with the dog if you decide to keep her.’
When he got back to the house he called Tyler and asked where he’d gotten Rush.
‘From a breeder on a ranch.’
‘Did you know that she’s some sort of cattle-herding dog?’
‘Ah… yes, the breeder mentioned something about that.’
‘Did he mention anything about her being very high maintenance?’
‘Um… well, yes. He did mention that the previous owners returned her because she was um…’
‘Unmanageable?’
‘Something along those lines.’
‘Are you insane? What gave you the idea that I would have any chance of keeping this animal under control?’
Tyler was silent for a moment and then he said, ‘How many times have you thought about Sylvie today?’
Oliver sighed. ‘I don’t know, a couple of times. What has that got to do with Rush?’
‘It has everything to do with Rush. If you can keep the number of times you think about Sylvie down to a few a day it will be easier for you to process what’s happened.’
Oliver was silent. He knew that was true but he still wasn’t convinced that keeping the dog was a good idea.
‘You just need to find your inner strength,’ Tyler said.
Oliver choked out a cynical laugh. ‘I don’t have any inner strength Tyler. What you’ve seen over the past couple of weeks, that’s all I’ve got.’
‘Come on Ollie, I don’t believe that for a second. You’re Emma’s son. You have strength that you haven’t even realized exists yet. You can train the dog. She’ll be a good friend.’
Oliver was silent again.
‘You’ve had her for two weeks, at least keep her another two. If nothing else that will give me time to figure out how to break it to Maya that I’ve adopted another dog.’
So Oliver agreed to keep Rush for two more weeks.
Julianne
- 08.07.2021
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