DANIELLE LAVAQUE-MANTY's stories have appeared in the Vestal Review, Pindeldyboz, Literary Potpourri, and In Posse Review's Multi-Ethnic Anthology. Danielle works at a research institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

                                                                 bruce


My mother's boyfriend Bruce is a real dog, as I discovered when I stumbled home under a full moon one night last summer. There he was, out in the yard, transforming.

When I got up the next morning, he was packing. Mom was at church, and he meant to hit the road before she got back. It's true she'd have kicked him out if she'd known. She has little tolerance for peculiarity. But I didn't want him to go.

It would be different if he were a wolf, or a Rottweiler; I'd have to protect her. But Bruce is just a poodle, a little guy with curly hair. He brings my mother breakfast in bed on her birthday. So I made him a deal. He'd never tell her about my drinking, and I wouldn't mention his midnight jaunts.

Ever since, we've stayed out real late together once a month, telling Mom we both need to have a good howl at the moon.

She thinks that's sweet.

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Copyright © 2003 Danielle Lavaque-Manty