The Dog I Loved

by Susan Wilson

  Of course, that letter from Wright, Melrose & Foster did nothing to further relations. Not the first one, and certainly not the several others that followed.

  * * *

  “I have to go.” The only four words my mother had spoken through this lopsided conversation.

  “Okay. Are you okay? How’s everyone? The kids must be getting big.” I had a bunch of nieces now. The younger ones were kids I’d seen only in the family Christmas photo that my third-eldest brother, Patrick, sent every year, probably against Mom’s wishes. In some cosmic irony, my brothers had produced only female children. Paulie’s eldest was a freshman in high school and Frankie’s wife had just had a baby girl.

  I might have been talking to a garden statue for all the response I got.

  “Okay, then. I love you.”

  Nothing.

  “Everything okay?” LaShonda took the dead phone from my hand.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” Just then I felt a nudging against my leg, Shark pressing himself against me, and I realized that he’d been leaning against me for the past few minutes. I bent and stroked his smooth head. “Everything’s fine.”

  Shark

  This inside woman fairly quivers with agitation. She holds that thing against her head and he can smell the odor of unhappiness exude from her pores. He breathes it in and pushes himself against her as hard as he can in order to make it stop. She presses the thing against her chest and then slams it down. He jumps up, barks, and then sits on her feet. He knows that it is his job to make her be happy again. It’s his work and he is proud to do it. Please smile at me.

  Meghan

  Meghan hadn’t been expecting that she’d have to undergo a lengthy application process just to get in line to take advantage of the puppy-and-prisoner program. Somehow she had imagined that it would be more like jumping onto a moving train, that the process was more or less ongoing. Handicapped—no pun intended—by the fact she had to utilize the Connecticut program because the only way she could do this was by imposing on her near-stranger cousin Carol cut her chances of getting in by half. There were only four dogs being trained in Connecticut, and over fifty hopeful candidates for placement. The odds seemed terribly stacked against her. Meghan ticked off the boxes for why she felt a dog would help. Physical limitations, check. Seizure disorder, no. Anxiety disorders, check. Independence issues? Check, check, check.

  Carol was being a good sport about having a special-needs relative descend upon her just as she was done launching her children, was settling into a contented empty-nest situation, and was getting back to focusing on her pet projects. Meghan’s arrival had effectively thrown her back into a caretaking role. Accommodations had been made. A temporary ramp was attached to the front door, marring the lovely curb appeal of their gambrel roof mid-century Colonial-style house on a cul-de-sac in Fairfield. It stuck out like a derisive tongue.

  “Once I have an interview, I’ll fly home. It’s going to be a longer process than I ever thought. I can’t impose on you.…”

  “Nonsense. We love having you.” When she said this, Meghan could see a flash of her mother in Carol’s face, a trick of genetics that cast a kindly expression into a distinctive trait shared by two people who barely knew each other. Meghan wondered if she sometimes had that expression and decided that she probably didn’t. She more resembled her father’s side of the family; plus, she never was very kind, or selfless. Not anymore.

  “Look. Let’s be honest with each other. You didn’t bargain for this, and I’m very, very grateful, but I won’t be a burden longer than necessary.”

  “Meghan, you’re family and you’ve had a long, tough journey. We’re thrilled to be able to see you through another part of it. A good part.”

  Meghan nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She reached out to touch Carol’s hand. “Mom said you were the best of the cousins. She was right.”

  Carol and her husband both worked in the city, commuting in on Metro North, leaving the house before seven in the morning and sometimes not returning until after nine at night. “Once the kids were gone, we didn’t have to rush back, so now we indulge ourselves in staying later, grabbing dinner and then getting a later, less crowded train back. Will you be all right?”

  “Yes, of course. I can fend for myself.”

  “You might be bored.”

  “Maybe. But that’s kind of how my life is.”

  It was Carol’s turn to take Meghan’s hand, the unscarred one. “You’ll get a dog, Meghan. And then you’ll get back to your life.”

  “I hope so.” Back to what? For so many years, her life had been that of a soldier, then a patient. She wasn’t going to return to either of those pursuits. If indeed she successfully acquired a dog, what then? When she mentioned this, Don Flint, her cousin by marriage, suggested that, with her undergraduate degree in history, she might pursue the law or teaching.

  Late at night in her soft yellow bedroom in the guest wing of the Flints’ house, Meghan wondered if she’d gone off the deep end, thinking that having a service dog would really move her forward. She half-decided to call it quits. If she didn’t hear from the organization tomorrow, she’d pull the plug on this quixotic quest after elusive independence. Chalk it up to a pipe dream.

  * * *

  After a restless night, Meghan was late getting up in the morning. When she rolled in from her bedroom, Carol was dressed for work and sitting at the island counter, a coffee mug in her hand. She was smiling, and, once again, Meghan saw her mother in Carol’s face. “You look pleased with yourself this morning.” She grabbed the mug that Carol had left on the counter for her. Poured herself coffee.

  “FedEx was here.”

  * * *

  The application was complete, the interview scheduled. For the first time in, well, maybe forever, Meghan fussed about what to wear. Uniforms had one singular advantage: You never had to worry about what to wear. The military told you what to wear for what occasion. Fatigues or formal wear, khaki or dress uniform. Living as she did in sweatpants and sweatshirts, Meghan was left to decide which set to wear, the navy blue or the more cheerful cherry red. Carol just shook her head. “No. We can do better than that.”

  The next evening, Carol came home with a bag from Athletica. “Not exactly formal wear, but I think that a change of fabric will cheer you up.” Carol pulled a set of technical-fabric snap-side warm-up pants and a nylon shell windbreaker out of the bag. “And the pièce de résistance, tada! A pair of crisp New Balance trainers.”

  Meghan cradled the sneakers in her lap. “Carol, I can’t…”

  “Of course you can. I’ve missed a lot of your birthdays, so happy birthday.”

  “It’s not till…” Meghan began to laugh. “You’re too much.”

  “My pleasure.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t as easy for Carol to get Meghan into and out of her sedan as it was for Meghan’s dad to do it with the fancy van, but they managed. The interview wasn’t at the prison, contrary to what Meghan had expected, but in an office building in Danbury.

  Edith Moore greeted Meghan in the foyer of the building. Carol bent and gave Meghan a kiss on the cheek and walked away. The elevator doors opened and Meghan wheeled herself in, Edith behind her. What was it they said? If you could pitch your sale in the time it took the elevator to arrive at your floor, you had a better chance of making the sale.

  “My company had an MWD, military working dog, a bomb sniffer, who three times saved my platoon. I know how valuable a dog can be. I really believe that having a dog will—”

  “Captain Custer, Meghan, hang on. Let’s do this right.”

  The elevator doors opened. Edith waited until Meghan eased herself over the slightly out-of-alignment edge. She didn’t offer to help, made no move to push the chair.

  The office was clearly arranged with people like Meghan in mind. No desk, but a broad conference table high enough that she could slip her chair in close. Edith sat at one end, Meghan along the long side, f
acing a bank of windows. A sweating water carafe and a stack of plastic cups were on the table, placed conveniently to Meghan’s position. Meghan resolved not to reach for it, betray no weakness. But wasn’t that the point? She needed a dog, a service dog. She needed help.

  Edith opened a manila file folder and looked at the contents, her mouth pursed a little. Meghan wondered if that meant she was worried, or was it just a habit? So many others had studied file folders with her name on them—medical files, performance files, military files. What would this particular file reveal? What in it pointed to Meghan’s being deserving of a service dog, of help?

  “Shall we get started?” Edith’s pursed mouth gave nothing away.

  * * *

  “When will I know? About being accepted into the program?”

  Edith closed the manila folder with Meghan’s name on the tab, closed her eyes for a moment, and sighed. “Very soon. We’ve got three more candidates to interview for this round. Two of them have been on the list for half a year.”

  “Is that your way of letting me down easy?”

  “No. It’s just the truth. From what I can gather, you prefer the truth over obfuscation.”

  “Yes.” In the field, in-country, it never paid to understate a situation. A soldier who wasn’t perfectly blunt with news or information wasted valuable time.

  “Then I’ll be honest.”

  Meghan felt a surge of the same kind of jitters as she’d once felt walking into an Afghani building. Not enough to be compromised, to be a danger to herself and others, just enough nerves to be alert.

  “You have as much chance as anyone.”

  * * *

  Carol Baxter-Flint considered her cousin Meghan to be a hero. Anyone who joined the service and went not once, not twice, but three times overseas into, as the expression went, harm’s way had to be a hero. Captain’s bars. Responsibility for the enlisted. Uncomplaining deprivation. That was hero stuff for sure.

  “I hate it when people say I’m a hero. I didn’t do anything particularly heroic, except do my job.” They were sitting in Carol’s kitchen, a glass of wine in front of each of them. It was that quiet hour before dinner preparations. A full week had gone by since Meghan’s interview and Meghan had just announced that she would be making a plane reservation home if she hadn’t heard anything by midweek, at the day-ten mark. Every day that went by seemed as though it was a prelude to disappointment. And that amazed her, because she hadn’t been so keen on the idea of a service dog six months ago, and now she was bucking herself up for disappointment.

  “I think that you’re being modest.”

  Meghan wanted to change the subject. “You and Mom used to go to Gramma Baxter’s for the summer?”

  “We did, and all the others, too. It was a grand place, full of life. Just like Gramma.”

  “I wish I’d known her. Gramma Baxter.”

  On the wall in the hallway that led from the kitchen to the bedrooms, there was a line of family photographs, all of them black-and-white. Meghan rolled past them on her way to her room without too much attention, as they were all above her head. Carol went to fetch one of them.“This is Gramma Baxter. Your great-grandmother.” She handed the framed five-by-eight photo to Meghan.

  Meghan studied the face in the picture. The stern-faced woman, perhaps in her late fifties, early sixties—it was hard to tell with that generation—was wearing a flowered dress with a white collar and was seated in an overstuffed chair, a big dog by her side. Her hand was on the dog’s head, and the flashbulb had given the animal a peculiar light in its eyes.

  Behind her in the photograph was a lineup of the third generation; Meghan recognized Carol, and her own mother, Evelyn, who looked to be about six, but the others were strangers. Carol introduced Meghan to the Baxter cousins, three boys and the eldest girl, Donna, who had the sad distinction of being the first of that generation to pass away.

  “And the dog?” Maybe it’s just that dogs had been on her mind, but she was pleased to see that, at least in the past, her family had been dog people.

  “Boy.” Carol said. “One of several mutts of unknown origin who showed up on the doorstep. She never looked for them; they found her.”

  Meghan handed the photo back to Carol.

  “You and your mom should be getting the family newsletter. This bunch is just the tip of the Baxter iceberg.”

  “Do you all still go there?”

  “No, but the house is still in the family. Once Gramma died and the cousins were raising their own families, it got harder to get together.”

  Carol went to rehang the photograph and Meghan rooted around the drawers for a potato peeler. Wineglasses were refilled as the two women got to work. As they did, the conversation turned to the second interview. “I feel like I’m getting closer, but I’m scared to get my hopes up too much.”

  “There are other programs, Meghan. We can find another one if this doesn’t work out.”

  “I know. I’ve done some research and that’s a possibility. But there’s something about the prison program that appeals to me. The idea of rehabilitation on several levels.”

  “Yours and some inmate’s?”

  Meghan nodded as she picked up another potato. “Something like that.”

  Carol looked at her watch. “Don will be home in a few.”

  “He’s a good guy.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s why I have to forgive the fact he can’t get his dirty clothes into the hamper. Harvard Law and no common sense, I always say.”

  Just as she picked up the last potato, Meghan’s phone rang. A Connecticut area code. Meghan felt her heart bang against her chest and she was certain that her voice shook as she said hello.

  Suddenly, Carol was there, her hands on Meghan’s shoulders.

  Rosie

  All of a sudden, it had been ten months, the longest period of time I’d had since my sentencing where I didn’t hate every minute of the day. My days started with a wet nose pressed into the warm skin of my neck. A quick dash outside to the exercise area, and then I fed Sharkey his breakfast, put him back in his crate, and went to get my own. By now, LaShonda, Pilar, and I sat together in the dining room, wanting nothing more than to talk about our dogs, to see how the other dogs were doing versus our own. Of course, we all believed we had the best of the best, but the truth is, we were all doing remarkably well in the training of our dogs. Our dogs were doing remarkably well, considering none of us had ever trained a dog before. We were well past the basics and were into our specialty training now. The dogs had passed from gawky puppyhood to the punk stage to being almost fully grown. They were ready to take on their assignments.

  The other inmates gave us our space and, except for the very first time we’d sat together to eat, made no comment about it. There we were, white, black, Hispanic, hetero and gay, laughing, sharing training tips, making up our own little clique. We had the dogs and their training, and that gave us common ground. That gave us the roots of friendship. We called ourselves the “Sisterhood of the Dogs.”

  One Wednesday, I was called down to the warden’s office, where Hinckley announced that Edith Moore, the director of the program, was in the visitors’ room and I should go meet with her. My heart flipped over. I knew that this could only be about Shark’s going to his new partner. I walked out of his office, Sharkey at my side.

  Pilar and Scooter were coming down the hall.

  “Edith is here. She wants to see me.” I was fighting to keep control over my voice, my hands, my heart.

  Pilar patted my shoulder. “Sé valiente. Todo está bien.”

  I didn’t think it could ever be all right.

  * * *

  Edith Moore wasn’t an attractive woman, but she always dressed beautifully in skirts and blouses that I knew were from good stores. A cashmere cardigan or velvet bolero jacket made the conventional and completely understated outfit stylish. I wanted to touch the cashmere, see if my fingers remembered the lovely softness of that yarn. I wondered if
the velvet would feel like Shark’s coat. Charles had dressed me in cashmere and velvet, leather and suede. It’s funny, the kinds of things you long for when you’re separated from luxury. I missed scented soap. I longed for the feel of something other than denim against my skin. I even missed polar fleece. I guess it wasn’t luxury that I missed; it was softness.

  “Miss Collins, thanks for seeing me.” As if choice was an option for someone like me.

  “I’m glad to see you. Do you have news for me? About a…” I wasn’t sure what word to use. I was afraid that my emotions would reveal how not fine with this I was.

  “A trainee. Yes. I think we have the perfect match for Shark.”

  “Good.” I didn’t sit down, and I knew that made the guard a little nervous, but he kept still. “When do I get to meet him?”

  “Her. Next week. She’s a wounded warrior. Paraplegic with a compromised left hand, some hearing loss. Burns.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I sat down in the chair opposite Edith. I could feel the guard’s relief.

  “That’s why you’re here to help. You and Shark. You and she will work together with him for two weeks, every day, three hours a day. Shark won’t be going out again for training weekends. Rosie, it’s your job to teach her the commands.” I nodded.

  “And his job is to learn to take them from her,” Edith said.

  “He’ll do it. He’s really quick. He loves to perform.”

  “And you need to transfer his attachment to you to her.”

  Again, I could only nod.

  “Okay, then.” Edith got up to leave. “See you next week.”

  “Edith. Did you know that my brother was a paraplegic?”

  Edith stood in the doorway to the hall that would take her back to the outside world. A guard held it open for her. “Yes, I did. You mentioned it in your first interview. It’s one of the reasons you were chosen to be a trainer.”