(Start from the beginning of the story)
Nan was not happy to see the state of the backyard. Her lovely flowers had nearly been destroyed, as evidenced by the tufts of dirt that were all over the place, and the dirty mound in front of the flower bed. She wanted to scream when she saw this. However, something inside her stopped herself.
Charlie was looking at them was excitement that nearly matched Tim’s own enthusiasm as he pet Charlie’s dog. And Laura was watching the whole thing with evident delight.
Nan wondered if she was in the right movie, because this was not the script of her life that she had in mind. Her son and daughter were both overjoyed to meet her disobedient tenant’s dog, as if the unruly canine were the answer to all their prayers instead of a complete nuisance!
She had had a headache since she awoke that morning, and it hadn’t abated despite four Ibuprofins and two tablespoons of cough syrup (she had a long-time habit of consuming cough syrup when she got stressed out, whether or not the medicine had any relevance to handling her discomfort). It had been a week since Charlie’s dog had entered the picture, and here she was on another Saturday morning, back at the Park House (which didn’t even feel like her house anymore!), experiencing a nightmarish morning that was nearly as bad as the previous had been.
Nan, get a grip! You need to control yourself. It is going to be okay.
Nan had her doubts. Yet she tried to obey her mind’s command. She could not believe she was thinking this, but doubted that she was going to evict Charlie or in anyway punish him for having the dog. Sure, they would have to work out an arrangement so that the beast didn’t ruin the place. But gone was her immediate reaction to unleash hell on him.
George would have been proud of you.
Dammit, she thought. He probably would be.
And so feeling a mixture of love and resentment, a sense of possibility and feelings of misery, Nan underwent a transformation right before the eyes of Charlie, Laura, and Tim.
They were too busy adoring the new dog to notice.