"Dont you just adore small animals?" the Woman with the Shaved Head asked. The Listener shrugged. "Of course." They'd been married for less than a year when it was clear there were... problems. He drank too much and he lied about where he went at night. But she stayed with him. She started work on the garden the morning after their worst fight. At first it wasnt much, just a few flowers and some new grass sod. But those simple gestures made her feel she'd accomplished something. As time went on, and the arguments escalated, she took more and more solace in her garden. She added flowers and bushes with near wild abandon, even as he derided and belittled it as childish and silly. When she discovered she was pregnant, she thought it might correct the problems. But it didnt. At first he claimed it wasnt his; then, when they discovered it was to be a son, he claimed it fully, so much so that she worried. And during it all, she added to the garden. The boy grew to be the true image of his father: a cheat and a liar. But she stayed, because of her flowers. If she left, no one would tend them, and the thought despaired her. The years passed, and the garden grew gloriously, huge in colour and scent. Her husband and her son both insulted it on a daily basis, but she persevered, despite their taunts. Then one night, on her way home from work, she found the puppy. It was small and wet from the rain, but one look and she knew she had to care for it. In fear, she hid it in the potting shed and prayed that neither her husband nor son would find it. It seemed to understand, because it remained quiet at night and greeted her with no more sound than its happily whooshing tail. She poured as much love into it as she did her flowers, and both thrived under her tender care. But she knew it was only a matter of time. Not a week later, she returned home to find her husband and son happily at work, one riding a John Deere tractor, the other with a push mower, both reducing her beloved flowers to... nothing. She tried to stop them, but her son -- her own son -- pushed her aside as he broke open the potting shed, intent on destroying it with just as much abandon. The puppy, thinking it was her, rushed forward with a happy wag, then suddenly cowered at the sight of this brutish ogre. The first kick cracked two of its ribs, but he never got a chance to deliver a second one, because she rushed in, threw him aside, and snatched up the animal and rushed it into the night. She left it with an understanding vet, who assured her the puppy would be fine. She returned home and walked in, past the wreckage of her beloved garden, to find her husband and son passed out in a drunken stupor, both coated with sweat and grass stains and flower petals. The explosion was almost as magnificent as her gardens had been. "She got away, I trust," the Woman with the Shaved Head said finally. The Listener shrugged. "For a while. They caught her a few weeks later, in a motel three states away. She's in prison. I doubt she'll get out." "... What about the puppy?" "Sent to an animal rescue. No one adopted it. It was put to sleep."