by Janet Elder
Rich sat with his eyes closed. He thought fleetingly of his own childhood and the dog he had grown up with, Flash. Flash was a sweet-faced little rogue, taking off from time to time and getting into fights with other dogs before wandering home, battle scarred. Rich’s memory was that his mother braced herself for the worst by announcing each time that Flash was probably not coming back, that he was lying dead somewhere on the side of the road. This, in turn, always frightened Rich. Sitting on the plane, trying to think through the details of finding his own son’s runaway dog, he thought of Flash and of himself as a boy, and how wrenching it was to worry about the life and death of a cherished dog.
I thought back all those years to Michael’s tender loving care of Inchie, the worm. This was much harder. After he had pined so much for a dog, after he had gone through the confusion and fear of watching his mother being treated for cancer, after he had fallen head over heels in love with Huck, I was worried that if anything happened to Huck, the hole in Michael’s heart would be scarring.
There would be a hole in my heart and Rich’s heart, too. I leaned my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes and all I could see was Huck’s small face and big brown eyes.
I thought of the way he stands on his hind legs, with his front paws on Rich’s and my bed, whenever we are lying there reading. He just stands there, staring up at us, waiting for someone to stroke his head. Toy poodles are especially adept at standing on two legs instead of four, which makes them all the more likely to be treated like people. Huck is a master at standing straight up on his hind legs—at the kitchen counter, the side of the bed, the couch, the piano bench, and the front door.
I thought of the way Huck sleeps—in his own little blue bed, curled up in a ball, with his head reaching around to his tail and his legs tucked underneath him.
About halfway through the flight, when night had fallen, and the sky was dark, and the lights on the plane low, Michael looked at me and asked, “Mom, what should I do?” I thought he was talking about what he should do to make himself feel better physically. But he wasn’t. He was asking a deeper question. It was a plea for some psychic relief from the emotional trauma.
“I keep thinking that Huck might have already been hit by a car. And when I’m not thinking that, I have this image of him all wet and cold, trying to find something, lying under a bench, nosing around a garbage can and you can see in his face how scared he is, you see in his eyes how helpless and lonely he is.”
“All we can do right now is to try our best to focus on all of the instincts Huck has for survival,” I said. “And we can try and think of as many good ideas as we can about how we might find him. Sometimes it helps if you think of what you would advise someone else to do.”
It was the best motherly advice I could come up with at the moment. But the truth was, I was scared, too. The thought of Huck cold and alone was utterly wrenching. The thought of Huck lying dead by the side of a road was unbearable.
Something occurred to me that had not occurred to Michael, and I was uncertain whether or not it had crossed Rich’s mind. Huck could have been attacked by another animal. He ran away in a heavily wooded area, full of wild animals like bears and coyotes and raccoons and birds of prey. Huck was raised to live with people. I don’t think he had any instincts for fight. I couldn’t imagine him trying to fight off the attack of another animal.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please turn off any electronic equipment; return your trays and seat backs to the upright position. We are beginning our descent into New York. The temperature there is 42 degrees.”
I was fixated on that 42 degrees. I wondered how many degrees colder it was in northern New Jersey than it was at LaGuardia airport. If the temperature did not drop much lower, and if Huck were still alive, I thought he’d be able to make it through the night without freezing to death.
Our seats in the back of the plane meant we’d be the last people off. Michael said he felt light-headed, which was no surprise given how much he had thrown up on the plane. I was worried about him. He was by now so completely drained, part of me just wanted to take him home to his own bed.
Mercifully, we did not have to wait long for our bags. While we waited Rich called Mimi and John Kepner to tell them we were no longer in Florida and never went to the Yankees game. “Mimi, if you have any ideas of how to handle this, let me know.”
“I will. We’ll call you tomorrow regardless. Good luck.”
Rich also called Susan back. Jesse asked to talk to Michael.
“I’m really sorry about Huck,” Jesse said. “I told my mom you should try and get on the radio and tell people to look for him.”
“Thanks, Jesse.” Michael then handed the phone back to Rich.
Susan said the family had talked it over and come up with a few ideas—an ad in the newspaper, a call to the ASPCA, and Jesse’s suggestion for the ad on the radio. They were all good ideas.
We picked up our bags and headed as fast as we could out of the airport, into the cold night air, and into a taxi. From the cab I called the garage where we keep our car and told them to expect us in twenty minutes and to please have the car ready. Riding across the Tri-borough Bridge, I felt as though we had only been away from New York for an afternoon.
When the taxi pulled up in front of our building, Rich and Michael went directly to the garage to get our car and I went upstairs to grab our winter parkas. When I put the key in the door, I half expected to hear Huck on the other side. I walked into the dark apartment and opened the walk-in closet in the entryway in search of the jackets. I had enough presence of mind to also grab a couple of flashlights. I stepped backward, out of the closet and onto one of Huck’s squeaky balls, the orange one we usually used for our game of fetch. I stopped and stared at it for a moment, tears welling in my eyes before I turned and rushed out of the apartment. I ran through the lobby and, as I did, Ed, one of the building’s doormen, asked if everything was all right. “I thought you were on vacation.”
“We were, but Huck ran away, so we came home to find him.”
“Oh no, where was he staying?”
“With my sister, in New Jersey.”
“I hope everything works out. That’s really too bad. I hope you find him.”
“I hope so, too.”
CHAPTER 8
RICH AND MICHAEL sat waiting in the car in front of our apartment building. I opened the car door and tossed the jackets and the flashlights onto the backseat next to Michael, who looked like he was asleep.
Outside, the New York City air was cold and damp. There was no hint of spring, just more of winter’s bite. It was the kind of March night that makes you want to draw the curtains and batten down, to crawl into bed early with a good book, a far cry from what we were setting out to do.
“The flashlights were a good idea,” Rich said.
“I was hoping we could spend some time tonight actually looking for Huck,” I said. “Maybe that is completely crazy, but I don’t think I can live with myself if we don’t drive around a bit and at least try.”
“Does that mean we don’t have to stop at the Clarks’ house?” Michael asked, with his eyes still closed. “Can we start looking for Huck as soon as we get there?”
“I think we have to stop at Auntie Babs’s house so Uncle Dave can show us exactly the area where he thinks Huck ran to,” I said.
“Can’t we just call Uncle Dave?” Michael asked earnestly.
“I think we have to go to the Clarks’ house and see what kind of progress they’ve made,” I said. “We won’t stay there for long, but let’s make their house our first stop.”
Although my instinct was to start walking up and down the dark streets calling to Huck the minute we got there, I knew it made no sense. Rich agreed and Michael did, too, reminding us of what he had said earlier. “We have to make sure the Clarks’ don’t feel badly about this.”
“We all agree on that score, angelpie,” I said. “None of this is anyone’s fault.”
I knew Rich wanted to jump in and blame himself again, but he didn’t. Instead, he met Michael’s eyes in the rearview mirror and said: “Michael, I promise you, we’re going to do everything we possibly can to find Huck. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
Michael did not respond. His eyes were now open. He sat perfectly still on the backseat.
We drove north on the FDR Drive and over the George Washington Bridge and into New Jersey. For most of the ride through the darkness, we didn’t say much to each other. It had been only a few days since we made the same trip to New Jersey to take Huck to the Clarks, our vacation stretching in front of us.
Now, with our vacation abruptly and sadly ended, instead of feeling restored, we were emotionally and physically depleted, about to begin a desperate search through the deep and barren backwoods, empty lots, ponds, streams, and mountainous terrain of northern New Jersey, a search that more than likely would prove futile. I looked at the blue neon numbers on the dashboard: 10:30. Huck had been missing for fifteen hours.
I called Barbara to tell her we were on our way.
“Darian made a sign, and she and Dave have already put some up,” Barbara said. Her voice started to quiver. “You know I can’t tell you how bad we all feel.”
I did not want her to cry. Hearing my younger sister cry over the phone would only have made me cry. I was too weary not to be pulled into it. “Michael is the first one to say that none of this is your fault,” I said. And then trying to get her off the phone, I added: “We’ll be there soon and we can talk. We’ve just crossed the bridge and are on Route 4. We’ll be there in about half an hour.”
I looked out the window. We passed one shopping mall after another, each closing for the night, with only a few cars parked under the floodlights in the vast lots. I turned to look at Rich who was sitting stiffly at the wheel, concentrating on the road ahead.
I pulled down the visor so I could look at Michael in the mirror on the back of it. He was fingering the brim of his green Yankees cap and looking out the window. At times, he’d press his head against the window, as though he had seen something or someone, and then he’d pull back again.
I thought about how tired we all were and realized I had never made arrangements for us to sleep anywhere that night. “I’ll call that hotel,” I said to Rich. “What did Dave say the name was?”
“It was a Hilton. It was the Woodcliff Lake Hilton,” he said.
“I’ll get their number. How many nights should I tell them we will be spending there?”
“Tell them we don’t know.”
The hotel clerk was polite and took the reservation quickly. He asked for a credit card number. I could not remember mine but didn’t need to. Rich’s number and the security code were part of the readily accessible catalog in his head.
There had been little traffic. We made it to Ramsey in no time, a feat hastened by Rich’s speed. We pulled into the Clarks’ driveway. Rich bolted from the car and toward the house. Barbara and Dave were waiting just inside the front door. Dave shook Rich’s hand and before they had a chance to say a word to each other, Barbara threw her arms around Rich and started to cry. “I am so sorry, I am so sorry,” she said.
“It’s going to be okay. I still believe we are going to find him,” Rich said, trying to relieve her.
I was lagging behind a bit, grabbing the jackets and waiting for Michael, who had taken his sneakers off during the car ride and was now fumbling with the laces. As Michael and I walked up the path from the driveway to the house, I could see Barbara with her arms around Rich, and Dave standing next to them. As much as I was eager to get inside and to hear the full story, to listen for details that might yield any hint of Huck’s whereabouts, I didn’t want to pass through the front door and face another emotionally intense moment. I was too drained. I wanted to get past it. But I also knew how much Barbara loves us all and how hard this was for her and for Dave. I knew they were blaming themselves. I knew, too, they were still wounded from the loss several months earlier of one of their own dogs, Roxroy, a ninety-pound golden retriever, a present from Dave to Barbara shortly before Darian was born, who had died of bone cancer.
Michael and I walked in. Dave leaned down to Michael’s eye level, looked him straight in the eyes, and said, “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Michael said, as he reached to put his arms around Dave.
I could feel the tears welling inside me. “I’m so sorry, Jan,” Barbara said.
We both started crying as we hugged.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said. “We never should have put you in this position.”
“Of course you should have,” Barbara said, abruptly pulling away from me. “I’m your sister. Where else should you have left Huck but my house?”
It was the kind of banter reserved for siblings, the overly sensitive kind that sounds more like a squabble, but it was actually a moment of some release. My saying we should not have put the Clarks in the position of having no choice but to take Huck for a week sounded to Barbara’s ears like a criticism. We had now gotten past the moment.
Darian came running down the stairs with an 8½ × 11 inch piece of paper in her hand. She hugged Michael and showed him the sign she had made. Huck looked up from the bottom of the page. Darian and Dave had apparently found the e-mail with Huck’s picture and were able to put it on the flyer. REWARD screamed from across the top of the page. But there was no mention of the amount of the reward.
“Darian, the sign is terrific,” Rich said, looking at it over her shoulder. “And I’m really glad you found that picture of Huck. But we have to mention the amount of the reward—$1,000. It will get people’s attention. It will make them look closely at the sign and take down our phone numbers.”
We all went into the kitchen to start to plan our search. We agreed we needed a lot of publicity. Tomorrow’s priorities were obvious—get the word out, get the flyers up, talk to people. The goal was to get people in Ramsey and the surrounding towns talking about the runaway puppy and the bereft family. We knew our success or failure was completely dependent on the kindness of strangers.
Dave already had a map of Ramsey spread out on the table. He showed Rich the direction Huck had run and where Dave thought we ought to look. Rich tried to take it all in, tried to avert his eyes from the bodies of water and acres and acres of woodlands shown on the map. The area was more threatening than he had remembered. He tried not to imagine Huck as prey for wild animals, something I had already been thinking a lot about.
I asked Barbara if she had anything Michael could eat. “Of course. What would he like?”
“Mom, I’m not hungry. I just want to go out and start looking for Huck.”
I wanted to start looking, too. It was getting so late, I thought we should take our flashlights and go out and ride around and call to Huck. Maybe, just maybe, fate would be kind and Huck was nearby and would respond to the familiar sound of our voices. It was worth trying.
Rich and Dave moved from the map to the computer, making some changes to Darian’s sign. They added the $1,000, and the words heartbroken boy and printed out about twenty copies.
Barbara volunteered to stay at the house in case any calls came in from someone who might have seen one of the signs Dave and Darian had posted that afternoon. Rich drove, Dave was in the passenger seat giving directions, and Michael, Darian, and I were in the backseat. We started driving up and down the side streets off Wyckoff Avenue. The streets were lit only by the occasional streetlamp. Most of the houses were completely dark. It was as though the entire town was already in bed and asleep.
We parked a few blocks away by the Hubbard school, a neighborhood elementary school, and, flashlights in hand, got out of the car. The only sound we heard came from the empty metal flagpole. The wind was blowing the hooks against it. We started walking around and calling into the darkness, “HUCK, HUCK, HUCK.” We’d walk a few feet and call again, “HUCK, HUCK, HUCK.” Michael was crying, calling frantically
to his lost friend. HUCK, HUCK, HUCKIE. “Mom, we have to go into the woods. He’s probably in those woods right there,” he said, pointing to a group of spindly-looking bare trees.
I walked with him toward the trees. We took a few steps past the first several trees and shined our flashlights into the velvety blackness. We saw nothing. Michael called again, “HUCKIE, HUCKIE, HUCK, it’s me.”
But there was no sign of Huck, no movement of any kind.
“Let’s go to the hotel and get some sleep,” I said, “and then, once the sun is up, we can come back.”
“I can’t go to bed if Huck is still lost,” Michael said.
“If he’s out here, that means he’s done a good job of protecting himself all day long. He’s probably found someplace to lie down for the night,” I said. “We’ll have a better chance of finding him if we’re rested.”
I called to the others. Michael and I turned our flashlights off. Michael stood there, staring into the darkness. Then we headed for the car and a night’s sleep.
CHAPTER 9
RICH DID NOT need an alarm clock. He had not so much slept as napped, tossing and turning, lying awake, thinking through what needed to be done the next morning, trying to arrange the tasks sequentially in his mind.
The room was pitch-dark, the way hotel rooms with double layers of curtains can often be, even in the middle of the afternoon if the curtains are closed. There was a glow from the clock on the nightstand between the two beds. Rich stared at the clock at 1:00, at 2:30, and again at 4:00, when he considered getting out of bed and heading into town, but didn’t. Now it was 6:00, and he was out of bed, fumbling in the dark for his clothes, his wallet, the car keys, and his cell phone.