Luna Howls at the Moon

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

  Beatrice clears her throat and tries to hide the sudden shine that’s appeared on her eyes. The word grammy always makes Bea choke up. She hooks her thumbs in the loops on her paint-spattered jeans and bounces on her toes. Amelia smiles large, larger, and nods.

  Tessa’s eyes widen. “Amelia! I’m so glad to see you using your nonverbal language with Beatrice!”

  Tessa no sooner finishes horking up those words than she wishes she could lap them back up again, like vomit. Amelia’s face lines slant down sharply, and instead of now burning like sun on skin, she burns like a match. Bea and Caleb seem to sizzle too, but I don’t know why. Are they burning because Amelia is? Is it contagious? Amelia crosses her arms and leans back in her chair.

  Pound pound pound. Snip snip snip.

  “I made a hoverboard with my DI team,” Hector says from the end of the table. He doesn’t look up from cutting pages of a magazine.

  Hector isn’t usually one to mind silence, so it surprises me when he talks. I smile, wag my tail slowly to encourage him.

  “You mean one of those things you stand on? With two wheels?” Beatrice says. She crosses her arms. She feels doubt. I can tell by the way her face pulls to one side. “What’s DI?”

  “No, those are scooters. True hoverboards don’t touch the ground. They hover. Like the name says. And I made one. Destination Imagination.” Hector cuts small squares of magazine print the whole time he provides this information.

  Beatrice circles the table. Stands over him. “Whoa. Wait. You made a thing that hovers? How?”

  “With plywood and a leaf blower and a tarp. And twenty-six other components.”

  Beatrice turns her head side to side, and her neck goes Pop! Pop! “And you can ride it.”

  “If you don’t weigh over a hundred twenty-five pounds, yes.”

  Beatrice is shaking her head no but her face is excited like a yes. “Ms. Tessa, did you hear that?”

  Tessa smiles. “I did. Hector is very talented in science.”

  Beatrice is still shaking her head no. “I don’t believe it floats. I need to see this thing.”

  Hector isn’t mad at Beatrice’s no head. “It floats. And you can ride it. If you don’t weigh more than a hundred twenty-five pounds.”

  Beatrice leaps toward Tessa. “Ms. Tessa, can he bring it next time?” Beatrice sweeps her hand across the church basement. “There’s plenty of room in here for us to try this thing. I need to see if it works.”

  Tessa twirls a lock of her hair, which is her sign for I want to say no but I need to figure out how to say no gently.

  “I can bring it,” Hector says. “It works. And you can ride it.” Hector looks up for the first time at Beatrice, scanning her quickly. “If you don’t weigh more than a hundred twenty-five pounds.”

  Tessa is really tugging on her hair now. “Bring a helmet too, Hector.”

  He nods once. “I always bring a helmet.”

  Silence again.

  Pound pound pound. Snip snip snip.

  Caleb stands to look at his chessboard from a taller angle. I do envy that humans can perch on back legs and see farther. It must hurt, though, balancing like that all the time.

  Caleb dips his paintbrush into a deep red, and then begins flinging the paint across the precise board he’s painted. It looks blood-spattered.

  Pound pound pound. Snip snip snip. Fling fling fling.

  The rhythm of art is a steady heartbeat.

  “Hey, watch it!” Beatrice shouts suddenly, backing away from the table with a loud chair screech. She looks down at her clothes. Circles the table to Caleb’s side. “You’re getting paint all over me!”

  Caleb looks up from his painting. “I don’t think so.”

  The stare between them is like a tug-of-war rope pulled taut. I cross to stand between them. The air feels electric.

  Duty first. But whose duty is most important when we’re all together in a pack like this?

  Beatrice points to paint on her jeans. “Yeah, you did.”

  Caleb’s brow wrinkles like an abandoned blanket. “Your jeans already have paint all over them.”

  “That’s artistic paint! Yours is just a mess!”

  Caleb blinks. Beatrice cracks her knuckles. Tessa clears her throat. “This looks like a good place to practice some of our conflict resolution techniques.” Tessa is trying to stand between them too. “Caleb?”

  Caleb circles around to Beatrice’s side of the table. “Can I look at the . . . clay you’ve been punching?”

  Beatrice’s face falls flat, so mine does too. “It’s a pinch pot. You pound it, then you pinch it into a pot shape.”

  Caleb’s hand reaches, reaches toward the lump of clay that Beatrice has been working. I feel the knot inside Beatrice tighten. “Don’t touch it!”

  But Caleb is a waterfall, rushing water, and sometimes he has a hard time controlling where his path might go. He reaches out and pinches the edge of Beatrice’s pot.

  “NO!” Beatrice screams. She pounds her fists on the tabletop, and a green bottle of paint topples onto Amelia’s painting. Amelia tries to pick her painting up out of the puddle of green but it’s too thick. It’s too late. Beatrice’s knot yanks tighter. “Tessa, I told him no!”

  “I’m—I’m sorry,” Caleb stammers. He looks down at his own fingers that seemed to betray him, and he wipes clay on the hem of his shirt. Then he swipes a paper towel across the clay now on the hem. “I just wanted to make it up to you. . . .”

  Beatrice huffs. Knotted fists rest on her hips. “Tessa, are we done?”

  Tessa is chasing her tail here. She knows that this is the group’s first meeting, so she doesn’t want to push them too far too fast. But she doesn’t want to end the session like this.

  “Let’s everyone take three deep breaths, and then we’ll call it a day.” Tessa leads them: Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

  It slows the rush of water, loosens the tight knot. Beatrice says a hasty goodbye and leaves. Caleb picks up his blood-spattered chessboard and gives it to Tessa. Amelia looks at her ruined painting and leaves it soaking in green before slipping away.

  And Hector cuts. Snip snip snip.

  3

  Beatrice the Knot

  Tessa and I enter one of the trailers behind the church where we work. It’s shaky and squeaky and it smells like burnt coffee and old carpet. This trailer is always too cold or too hot, but this is where we help. Tessa has lined the homemade bookshelves with games and toys and art supplies. She has cards and balls and sand trays for play therapy. She’s hung her granny’s old lace curtains in the windows, and she opens them wide or closes them tight, depending on who her client is, on how much light they need. Tessa is good at her job.

  First up today: Beatrice. It has been three rainbow days since all my clients met as a group, and Tessa is anxious to hear Beatrice’s thoughts.

  Beatrice makes me imagine a knotted rope. A knot ties my bandanna on and can be very useful. But a knot isn’t useful when it’s just a knot. A tangle. A hiccup in an otherwise smooth rope. They need a purpose, knots. Beatrice thinks the world is filled with tangleless rope. That’s why I’m here with her. My duty. I help her see the usefulness of a knot. I help her see we all have tangles.

  Tessa flings her granny’s lace curtains open wide. Beatrice needs a lot of light on things.

  Beatrice climbs the trailer steps stomp stomp stomp and the whole trailer shakes. She bangs the door open-shut and drops into her seat.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Today Beatrice is wearing tall jeans that come up over her shoulders. They have the letters “HEE-HAW” on them. Cartoons of chickens and donkeys in straw hats are there too. These jeans smell musty, like a warehouse. She’s also got on a blue-sky tank top and boots with teeth on the bottom.

  Humans choose such interesting bandannas to wear. My bandanna is practical: it lets others know that I’m a therapy dog, and it allows everyone full petting access to my soft silver fur. Humans’ band
annas don’t seem to serve any real purpose. They must be hot and they definitely constrict jumping. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a human jump just for the joy of jumping?

  Tessa bursts with laughter. “Bea! Where in the world did you get those overalls?”

  Beatrice’s face breaks into a wide grin, and the air shimmers with glee. She slides her fingers under the straps on her shoulders. “You like these? Got them off eBay. Only cost twelve bucks. They say ‘Hee-Haw.’”

  “I see that. My grandmother used to love that show.”

  “It was a show?”

  Tessa chuckles. “It was. Look it up on YouTube.”

  “Can’t. Grounded from YouTube.”

  “Ahhh. Want to talk about it?”

  “No.” Beatrice knocks her knuckles on the table next to her. She leaps up, squats down. Beatrice is an uncomfortable tight knot today. The trailer sways with her every move. “Hi, Luna.”

  I wag. Loosen her a bit.

  She scratches me under my chin—ahhhhh. I lean into the scratch, farther, farther, until I lose my balance and topple over. Beatrice wrinkles her nose with delight and rubs my belly. Tessa pulls a ball off a shelf. No, not a ball; a balloon. One with a rubber band attached. She hands it to Beatrice. She must sense that Bea is tighter than usual today too. “Punch the balloon. Go on. Give it a whack or two while we chat.”

  Beatrice narrows her eyes a bit, but she clutches the rubber band in her fist and immediately punches; whang whang whang shouts the balloon. It bounces back and forth off her fist like a maniacal game of fetch. I don’t love the movement, the sound, the smell of this rubber balloon bouncing around our small trailer. But it seems to be loosening Bea’s knot. Tessa knows her clients well.

  Tessa clears her throat, takes a deep breath. “What did you think about the group session? I thought it went—”

  “I like it when it’s just me and you, Ms. Tessa,” Beatrice says. Whang whang whang moans the balloon.

  Tessa smiles. “I like that too. But, Beatrice, you’ve made a lot of progress lately.”

  “Have I?” When Beatrice asks this question, the air singes around the edges, a slow burn. Smoky. Whang whang whang.

  Tessa’s eyes soften. I mirror her. Beatrice stops pounding that infernal balloon and drapes an arm over my neck. She’s heavier today than most days.

  “You have, Bea,” Tessa says. “So listen. I want to continue these group counseling sessions. And I think you’re a perfect fit.”

  “No.”

  Tessa chuckles but shifts in her seat. “I didn’t ask all my clients, Bea. Just a few who I thought would really benefit from being around others.”

  The air feels thick with smoke now, and doubt hangs over Beatrice like a heavy blanket. I nudge her with my nose, my skull. I lick her. I waggle closer to her, let my tongue loll out. Beatrice smiles. Loosens further.

  “Luna will still be there, right?”

  Absolutely.

  “Absolutely.”

  Beatrice grinds her teeth. A knot tightening. “Do you think that kid’s hoverboard really floats, Ms. Tessa?”

  Tessa beams. “I believe what Hector tells us, yes. I’m excited to see it.”

  I don’t fully understand. But it sounds like it’s really important to Beatrice to see something float, so it is important to me too.

  “So you’ll be there?” Tessa asks. She’s smart to ask this, because Beatrice has not yet said yes, and Beatrice can be sneaky about these things.

  Beatrice lies down on the floor of the trailer next to me. Squeezes me tight. Whispers into my fur, “I kinda hated that last one.”

  But Tessa’s tiny human ears didn’t hear. “What?”

  Beatrice leaps off the floor, back into her chair. Knocks her knuckles on the side table. Knock knock knot. “Remind that kid to bring his hoverboard, Ms. Tessa.”

  4

  Amelia the Shadow

  The wind rustles, and Amelia slips inside the trailer. Tessa finishes pouring herself a cup of mud and turns. Leaps like a kitten. “Oh! Amelia! I didn’t hear you come in!”

  Amelia glides across the trailer to me, drops to her knees, and droops over me. Some days Amelia has tears. Some days she just needs to breathe in my fur. Today is a fur-breathing day. Her hair is twined like a tug-of-war rope around and over the top of her head and I love her and we breathe each other’s fur.

  Amelia is a shadow. Shadows are either in front of you or behind you. Amelia is a behind-you shadow. I think she’d smile more if she could be an in-front-of-you shadow. She could use the reminder of her shadow stretching long before her.

  Tessa crosses to her granny’s lace curtains and closes them. Sunlight pokes through the old holes, polka-dotting the room. Shadows appreciate this play of light.

  “How did speech therapy go yesterday, Amelia?” Tessa asks, as gently as dandelion fluff. “Did you work on saying Luna like we discussed?”

  Amelia shrugs. She closes her eyes. Purple circles bloom underneath them. They burn with tired; I can feel my own eyes echo hers. Amelia does not sleep well. The nightmares won’t let her. She squeezes me tighter.

  Shadows are the most loyal friend you can have.

  “So, the group counseling earlier this week,” Tessa says. “What did you think?” The way Tessa asks this—a song in her words, her body balanced on the edge of her seat—it’s easy to see she wants a yes I enjoyed it nod from Amelia.

  The hug Amelia’s giving me tightens. The air in the trailer tightens. The lines on Amelia’s face tighten. But she doesn’t respond. I nuzzle her under her chin, trying to prompt her to nod yes. She leans back and looks at me with a twinkle in her eye, like she knows what I’m doing, like she caught me sneaking extra treats.

  “I think that kind of interaction with others your age could bring you to the next level of progress, Amelia,” Tessa says, sipping her mud. Amelia and I both hear the words that Tessa isn’t saying, floating fat and lazy like bubbles: Maybe they can get you to talk again?

  “I’d like for you to join us for the next one.” Tessa offers Amelia an Oreo, her favorite. “What do you say?”

  Amelia knows if she takes the cookie, she’s agreeing to come again. This is how she talks now—agreeing and disagreeing only. It must be so hard to do that. There are so many things that don’t require either. That require both.

  Amelia slides her gaze my way, and I nudge her arm: Go on. Take it. Amelia narrows her eyes at me—she feels doubtful—but sighs, takes the cookie.

  Tessa beams. “Great! I’m excited for you and the others to get to know one another better.”

  Amelia grins, and she has Oreo goop stuck to her front teeth, making her look positively defenseless. But Tessa snickers. She stands to go get another cup of mud.

  Amelia flings her arms around my neck again. This time, though, the hug is salty. Damp. Heavy. She agreed but she wanted to disagree. She’s doing this for Tessa. For me. And I understand this; it is duty.

  Sometimes Amelia feels—and so I feel—worry. Sick-to-your-stomach, thoughts-spinning-like-a-tornado worry. Eating-too-much-green-grass-and-horking-it-up worry. Worry is questions with no answers. Today Amelia’s question feels like will this group make me forget?

  I stand tall, my fur absorbing Amelia’s tears. It’s like watching someone’s heart thump, letting them cry while wrapped in their hug. I don’t know if Tessa sees Amelia’s tears, feels her worry.

  Humans have awful eyes. A lot of times humans don’t see what’s in the shadows.

  5

  Caleb the Waterfall

  Rushing water is odd, because it both roars and makes the sound shhhhh. Quiet and loud. Relaxing and powerful. Water gives us everything, and it can take everything away if it wants too.

  Caleb is just as full of opposites. He enters the trailer smiling, gives a curt nod to Tessa. “Good morning, Ms. Tessa.” Then to me, “And to you, Luna.” He perches on the edge of his chair and bounces his knees.

  Caleb doesn’t pet me, not really. Sometimes
he’ll pat my head. And sometimes, when the air around him stops rushing and spinning, he will take a corner of my ear and rub it between his thumb and forefinger. I try not to take it personally. Caleb interacts with his environment as little as possible. That is the opposite of rushing water. But he’s definitely a waterfall. He plows forward at a pace that’s both blurry and forceful.

  Tessa pauses at her lace curtains. Open or closed for Caleb? She settles on halfway. Caleb is good at compromise.

  Caleb and Tessa play chess. Sometimes they mention horses, and I grumble because I’ve been told that horses can be dangerous. But these are just tiny plastic things, so I don’t understand what damage they can do. When I grumble it makes Caleb smile. It’s not easy to make Caleb smile. He’s too busy moving.

  While they play, they talk about things called parents and divorce. His parents shout a lot now, he says. Shouting is like getting kicked with words, so I understand why he’s sad about it. Tessa suggests some things and Caleb says “I guess so” and “I’ll try” a lot. I guess these are his duty.

  “Checkmate,” Caleb says, leaning back at last. He stretches sideways to another small table and, squirt squirt, he coats his hands in this clear goo that smells like steely sharp needles. He rubs his hands vigorously, and I wince along with him because his hands are red raw and this stuff stings. Now Caleb allows himself a treat: he dips his hand into one of Tessa’s glass jars and gets a single wrapped candy. Caleb is always the one who says checkmate, but they still play every time. It seems silly to me to do this, but humans do so many silly things.

  Tessa nods, Caleb chews, I lie down. Caleb is tall like a man-human but his face is still soft like a boy-human. He feels weird about this. We sometimes feel like we don’t fit inside our own body.

  “I’ve been reading more about therapy dogs, Ms. Tessa,” Caleb says at last. He doesn’t look at me but he’s talking about me? “There are a lot of opinions out there if they’re truly effective.”