A Man of His Own

by Susan Wilson

  Pax waited for his praise: good dog. The scratch on the chest to indicate he had performed well. “Stay with them. They need you.” Pax understood the stay as an order. The other words just brushed his ears, along with Keller’s two hands, his forehead pressing against the dog’s big skull. But it was an order and the dog will perform it to the best of his ability for the rest of his life. He has a purpose, a job. And two people who love him very much. A good life for a lucky dog.

  Keller will fade, cast into Pax’s dreams as the touch of a hand, the sound of a voice. The memory of war. A time of peace.

  Part Three

  2008

  Chapter Seventy-seven

  It shouldn’t surprise him, to be contacted like this. It’s not like he hasn’t left a trail over the past fifty-odd years. Keller Nicholson may not have won the Pulitzer, but his plays have been performed to acclaim and his novels have received decent reviews. As a well-regarded professor of history, he’s even been a regular talking head on the local NPR station when the topic is war, the essential ingredient in all his work: the effect of war on the human soul.

  Even so, when Lila Stanton contacts him via his university e-mail, he is stunned. She says she wants to talk to him about her parents. Parents? Despite being an octogenarian, Keller lives in the twenty-first century and is facile with technology, so he quickly Googles this Lila Stanton. It’s true: Francesca and Rick had, against all expectations, become parents after all. Checking her out on Facebook, he sees that Lila is distinctly Asian and middle-aged, so Keller assumes she was a Korean War orphan.

  He served in that war, too. Not as a dog handler in combat, but as a dog trainer at Fort Riley, in Kansas, primarily training sentry dogs. Decent dogs. Good dogs. But none of them, like any of the dogs he’s lived with since, as smart as Pax.

  In her e-mail, this Lila is a little vague about her reasons for wanting to talk to him. Isn’t he just a footnote in her family’s life? A blip on their radar? Someone who lived with them for a short time, a full lifetime ago.

  “I was hoping that it would be possible to visit you. I live in Boston and I thought that I might zip up to Hawke’s Cove some afternoon and take you to lunch.”

  He wonders if she’s just using this weak and ancient association to impose herself on him. She’s probably got some manuscript she wants him to look at. Or wants to pick his brain about getting published. A memoir, that’s what it is. How I Went from Being a Korean War Orphan to an American Girl.

  He wishes she’d said something about Francesca.

  Keller hits reply. “Fine. Give me a date. I’ll make lunch.”

  Even before he can power down his laptop, a reply pops up. She wants to meet this Saturday, and she has something for him.

  * * *

  Keller drove away from the Stanton’s North Quincy house that day, his belongings heaped up on the backseat, Pax’s leash still bandolier-style around his body. Deeply sorry. Deeply hurt. Aching already for what he’d left behind. He drove past the hospital and thought about going in to say good-bye to Rick properly, but he kept going. He knew Francesca would be there, and he just couldn’t do it. So he kept driving, blindly following a northerly route until the scenery began to look familiar and he realized that he’d done what he’d sworn he’d never do. He was back in Hawke’s Cove.

  He’d stood on the back steps, the key from the lawyer in his hand. The sun was just setting and the afterglow burnished the water beneath the bluff to a rosy glow. In the distance was the edge of the rest of the world. The place where he’d blown it. Ruined his own chance at happiness.

  Inside, the house was damp and cold and smelled of dead mice. It was exactly as the old man had left it. No one had been in the house since his death; no one had cleared away the remnants of the man. The mice had consumed all the dried foods; all that was left of Clayton’s last loaf of bread was the wrapper, chewed into fragments. A glass was upside down in the drainer and a single plate flanked it, sentinels to an old bachelor’s life.

  Upstairs, Keller pushed open the door to his uncle’s bedroom. In all the time Keller had lived in this house with his great-uncle Clayton, he’d never set foot in the old man’s room. On the otherwise-bare bureau, a photograph in a surprisingly ornate frame was propped against the fly-specked mirror. Keller picked it up. The old man himself, his arm linked with a pretty young woman in a diaphanous white dress, her wedding headpiece low on her brow in the fashion of a long-ago decade, a veil floating around her like a phantom. Keller studied the faces. If there was a resemblance in the doomed Florence to her older sister, Ruth Jacobs, he couldn’t see it.

  This Clayton is smiling, and his joy in the moment is projected beyond the flat dimensions of the foxed old photograph. A brief golden joy that will soon become the lead of grief. Keller sees himself in the streaky mirror and thinks that he looks like Clayton. The Clayton he knew, not this younger, better version of the man. He slipped the purloined snapshot of Pax out of his pocket and set it beside the wedding photo of Clayton and Florence.

  * * *

  Lila is due at any minute. He sent her the address and decided to let her find her way to him via GPS. He’s nervous and hates that he is. He can’t figure out why he should be nervous, but then he thinks, What if she asks me a question I can’t answer? Worse, what if she tells me something I don’t want to know? His chest feels tight with anxiety and he presses at it with his fingertips. He’s lived a full life since then, a good-enough life. Resurrecting those buried memories of the happiest he’d ever been before meeting Margie and having the kids serves nothing. Remembering old grief, when the more recent loss of his wife is still painful, is just a useless exercise.

  Suddenly, she’s there knocking on his door, and Keller welcomes Francesca and Rick’s only child into his house.

  Chapter Seventy-eight

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell Keller Nicholson via e-mail that my mother had died. I know that sounds a bit odd; after all, she was in her eighties and had heart disease, and people in their generation can’t possibly be surprised to hear of one another’s passing, but it just didn’t feel right to let him know that way. However, I was there on her behalf. She’d spoken of him so fondly over the years, as someone who had come into their lives when things were bad, when Dad was suffering from what we now know as PTSD. And, of course, no story of Keller could be told without stories of Pax. As a kid, I had the two of them inextricably linked in my mind, even though I knew that Keller had left them and that Pax remained with them for several more years.

  “Pax our wonder dog.”—that’s what Mom called him. I swear that there were a thousand pictures of the dog—as many as of me as a three-year-old refugee from Korea. But none of this Keller Nicholson.

  It wasn’t until I was in grad school that I connected the Keller Nicholson of Dogs of War fame, the novel that was required reading in some high schools, and the Keller Nicholson of Pax and the time my parents lived in Quincy. They’d moved to Norwood the first year Dad joined WEEI’s sportscasting team, having built a fully handicapped-accessible house on a fenced-in quarter-acre lot in the booming suburb. Dad had passed in 1985, but I’d only recently lost my mother.

  * * *

  “I brought this.” We’d been talking, weeping a little, because I was riling up long-dormant feelings in him and more recent loss in me. I handed him a clasp envelope. “It was tucked in her dresser drawer with your name on it, so I know that she wanted you to have it.”

  Keller pressed his fingers against his chest, a soft gesture he’d been making all through our tomato soup and grilled cheese lunch. He didn’t open the envelope right away, sort of just studied the handwriting on it, as if he couldn’t read it clearly. When he finally did open it, the little brass clasp was so old that it broke as he bent it up, freeing the flap and revealing what my mother had left to him.

  The leather of the dog collar was cracked with age and had been tightly coiled in that brown kraft envelope for so long that it looked like the inside o
f a nautilus shell. A dog tag dangled from the metal loop, a 1954 Norwood dog license, the same year they adopted me. On the broad surface of the leather collar itself was a brass nameplate with three letters stamped in bold Gothic type: PAX.

  Keller made a soft sound, as if the air had been pushed out of him, but he was smiling. He held the dog collar in both hands like a holy relic, something sanctified. “Thank you for bringing this.” And then he reached out and took my hand.

  Chapter Seventy-nine

  Lila has gone, leaving the dog collar there on his table. Keller keeps looking at it, even as he tidies up the remnants of lunch. He washes two glasses and two plates, wipes the cast-iron frying pan out. Funny how this middle-aged Korean woman reminded him of Francesca. Nurture will win out, he supposes. The grace of brushing away a hair from her cheek, the way she cocked her head to listen to him, all gestures reminiscent of her mother, absorbed by observation instead of born into her. A little of Rick, too. The way she pursed her lips before she smiled.

  Lila could have sent the collar through the mail, and she certainly deserved better than the company of a weepy old man and a lunch of grilled cheese, but he was deeply grateful that she had been there, that she understood how important this artifact from a lifetime ago was to him. Not simply Pax’s collar but also a message from Francesca. She had remembered him.

  * * *

  Keller takes the dog collar with him into the parlor, sets it in front of the latest family portrait in residence on the end table beside his La-Z-Boy. There’s a new Ken Burns documentary on tonight, but he doesn’t turn it on. The last light of day has faded, leaving the room in shadow, but he doesn’t move to turn on the light. From beyond the open window comes the soft lap of cove water against a low-tide beach. A little wind is frisking the fading leaves of late summer. The faint aroma of skunk wafts on it; the little skunk family beneath the scallop shed must have been startled by something. Even with that, it’s really quite perfect here. Clayton’s ghost was long ago exorcised by a living and garrulous family.

  Another ghost has been laid to rest, thanks to Lila. A ghost Keller has been carrying around with him since the day he left the Stantons’ house. Not so much a ghost as a grain of sand buried in the oyster of his heart. Francesca had forgiven him. The grain of sand has become a pearl.

  Keller Nicholson picks up the dog collar and holds it to his breast. Pax. He was a good dog, the best. Pax had never been without love, the love of his people.

  One lucky dog.

  Epilogue

  The winter wind shakes the house, screaming over the water and through the windbreak of juniper trees. Over the roar of the day-old northeaster, Keller hears scratching at the back door. It is a delicate sound, like the very tips of a sapling’s branches brushing against a screen. It deepens. No longer random, the scratching at the door is deliberate and purposeful. Insistent. Demanding. Keller pulls himself out of his chair, finds his slippers with his toes. The house is dark. Either he’s forgotten to turn on the lights or the electricity is out. But Keller isn’t hampered by the darkness; indeed, he sees his way clearly as he walks toward the sound.

  Keller opens the back door. Now there is no wind, no cold air, no sleet, no sound at all. Pax is there, his tail wagging like mad, like it always does when Keller has been absent for a while.

  “Well, there, Pax. Where’ve you been?” Keller kneels and wraps his arms around the dog, who raises his muzzle so that he can lick Keller’s face. “I’ve missed you.”

  Pax shakes himself free and sits in front of Keller. He’s wearing his flat leather on-duty collar and his long canvas military lead is attached to it. He faces the empty distance beyond the open door, then swings his big head back to Keller, his eyes bright with expectation, his mouth open in a doggy grin. He barks once.

  “Time to go?” Keller takes up the leash.

  The dog stands and shakes himself again. Ready.

  “Okay, Pax. Let’s go.”

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not be the book it has become without Andrea Cirillo and Annelise Robey, who have been my stalwart girl guides throughout the process. Their combined expertise and enthusiasm has been unflagging, and for that I am truly grateful. To the rest of the family at JRA: Peggy Gordijn, Don Cleary, Christina Prestia, Julianne Tinari, Michael Conroy, Danielle Sickles, and, of course, Jane Rotrosen Berkey, thank you for all you do.

  Thanks, as always, to the team at St. Martin’s Press, especially Jeanne-Marie Hudson and Joan Higgins, who understand the vast and changing world of publicity and social media, and cover artist Ervin Serrano, who has illustrated my imagination so beautifully. Thanks, too, to Caitlin Dareff, Sara Goodman, Chris Holder, John Murphy, Kerry Nordling, Sally Richardson, Matthew Shear, Anne Marie Tallberg, and a special shout-out to Carol Edwards, my brilliant copy editor. Thanks, too, to the folks at Macmillan Audio: Brant Janeway, Samantha Beerman, Mary Beth Roche, and Robert Allen.

  A special note of deepest gratitude to Jennifer Enderlin, my editor extraordinaire, who knew that this book could be so much better and worked really hard with me to make that happen. Thank you for never giving up on me or on this book.

  Of course, none of this would be as much fun without the love and support of my husband, kids, extended family, and friends. Thank you all.

  Sources

  Books

  Downey, Fairfax, Dogs for Defense: American Dogs in the Second World War, 1941–45; by Direction and Authorization of the Trustees Dogs for Defense, Inc. (New York: Daniel P. McDonald, 1955).

  Erlanger, Arlene, TM 10–396—War Dogs (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1943).

  Rosenkrans, Robert, U.S. Military War Dogs in World War II (Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2011).

  Web Sites

  www.thedailyjournal.com. “World War II History: Dogs for Defense.”

  www.militaryworkingdog.com. (The Military Working Dog” (Military Working Dog Foundation).

  www.qmfound.com. “Quartermaster War Dog Program” (U.S. Army Quartermaster Foundation).

  Video

  Return to Norumbega: A History of Norumbega Park and the Totem Pole Ballroom. Bob Pollock. Produced by Joe Hunter. 2005. Remember Productions.

  Suggested Reading

  Luis Carlos Montalván, Until Tuesday (New York: Hyperion, 2011).

  Also by Susan Wilson

  The Dog Who Danced

  One Good Dog

  Summer Harbor

  The Fortune Teller’s Daughter

  Cameo Lake

  Hawke’s Cove

  Beauty

  About the Author

  SUSAN WILSON is the author of seven novels, including the bestselling The Dog Who Danced and One Good Dog. She lives on Martha’s Vineyard. Visit her at www.susanwilsonwrites.com.

  If you loved Susan Wilson’s One Good Dog,

  don’t miss Two Good Dogs!

  For more information, visit www.susanwilsonwrites.com

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A MAN OF HIS OWN. Copyright © 2013 by Susan Wilson. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Wilson, Susan.

  A man of his own / Susan Wilson.—First Edition.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-250-01436-8 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-250-01437-5 (e-book)

  1. Disabled veterans—Fiction. 2. Service dogs—Fiction. 3. Dogs—War use—Fiction. 4. Life change events—Fiction. 5. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 6. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.I47533O67 2013

  813'.54—dc23

  2013013955

  e-ISBN 9781250014375

  First Edition: September 2013

  n, A Man of His Own