Like Cats and Dogs. Alexis Stanton

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      Just as the train pulled into the South Haven station, Laura Haley’s phone buzzed. Laura rarely travelled by train, and she’d spent the journey from Lansing feeling like an elegant heroine in one of the classic movies she loved so much. She suppressed a sigh when she saw that the caller was her mother. So much for feeling glamorous.

      Do I answer it? Laura wondered as she rose from her seat to get her luggage. She wasn’t even a minute into her vacation, and already they were checking on her.

      As if sensing her distress, Laura’s dog Frank whined and tugged on his leash. She gave the part-beagle, part-who-knew-what a comforting rub on his head before finally picking up.

      “Hey, Mom.” Laura tried to hide her impatience. But for goodness’ sake, she was twenty-three, not ten. A college graduate, even. She didn’t need her parents monitoring her every movement.

      Passengers began collecting their bags and heading toward the exit. Laura took her duffle bag and rolling suitcase from the luggage rack—no easy feat considering she also juggled Frank’s leash and her cell phone. Her mismatched bags didn’t help, either, with their varying sizes and weights. She was good at filing multiple tax returns, but much less organized when it came to just about everything else.

      “Honey?” Her mother’s concerned voice came through clearly despite the hum of activity surrounding Laura. “Where are you? Did you make your train? Have you arrived?”

      As if her mother could see her, Laura pasted on a smile while she stepped onto the platform. “Yes, Mom, I’m getting off the train right now.”

      “We were worried when we didn’t hear from you.”

      Movement surrounded Laura on all sides. People hurried with their bags, and passengers were being greeted by relatives and, oh, brother, significant others.

      I’m here alone by choice, she reminded herself. Besides, I’m not alone. I have Frank.

      The dog strained on his leash, excited by all the commotion, and she struggled to keep hold of him while also talking to her mother and muscling her bags down the platform.

      “I told you,” Laura said with enforced patience, “I would call as soon as I got to the rental place.” She stopped to adjust a strap on her suitcase.

      “We’re already at wits’ end here.”

      “Mom, it’s only for two weeks. I’m sure you and Dad will be fine.” She glanced around at the other passengers hustling back and forth. Was it her imagination, or were they sending her pitying glances?

      One year out of college and I’m still my parents’ little girl.

      “I don’t know,” her mother said, and Laura could practically hear her pacing up and down in the kitchen of the family home. “It’s April. It gets so hectic here in April.”

      Laura grabbed hold of her suitcase handle and trudged with it into the station, all the while praying Frank wouldn’t tug her arm right out of its socket with his eagerness.

      “Yes, I know it’s our busy season, Mom,” she said briskly. “You were the ones who also told me I needed a vacation, so, here I am.”

      Tax season was always a frenzy at Haley & Haley Accounting, but Laura had made certain that she’d taken care of all her clients’ filings before going on vacation. She’d never leave her parents in the lurch—especially since they not only employed her but housed her as well.

      All of her friends from college lived on their own, and none of them worked for their parents. Not her. Without a clear plan after graduation, she’d moved back home and reluctantly gone to Haley & Haley for the same job she’d had every summer since sophomore year of high school.

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