by Julie Barton
“Okay,” I said, as if amazed by the word. “Okay. I’ll go. I’ll move to Seattle. I’ll try again.” My mom smiled, put her hands over her mouth, and gave a little yelp. Bunker startled awake. “Want to go for a car ride, Bunk?” I asked.
Part II
HOWL
AUGUST 1996
The miles rolled beneath us. I watched the flat horizon and kept one hand on Bunker’s crate. We had managed to squeeze the crate into the backseat of my used Ford Explorer, reasoning that since the metal doghouse was his safe place inside our house, he might feel less displaced if he spent much of our weeklong drive tucked inside.
Through much of western Ohio, I sat twisted in the passenger seat, looking backward at my boy. It was as if I couldn’t look forward yet. I couldn’t look ahead at what might happen in Seattle. What if surviving on my own there was as difficult as it was in New York? I tried to push away the fear that I’d end up depressed again, that I would make all the same mistakes. I hadn’t called Will to tell him I was moving. His calls, his professions of love were becoming routine, but I didn’t know how to refuse him. Part of me loved hearing him say that he loved me, that my body was his favorite, that he missed it like crazy.
In the car, I watched this little animal behind the bars of his crate. His limbs were getting longer, but his face was still puppyish. He looked at me with wide-eyed concern for the first several hours of the drive, as if to say: Do you know that the room is moving?
Soon he resigned himself to this strange place and lay down, resting his chin on his paws and drifting in and out of sleep. Somewhere around Indiana, to keep him engaged as my mom drove, I started to howl and bark at him. Every once in a while, he would bark too and I’d push a treat between the bars of the crate.
My mom chuckled as I repeatedly said, “Speak!” in a high-pitched voice. She must have known that Bunker and I were deepening our language, cementing our understanding of one another. After a while, he began to howl happily after a few barks. “Hawooo-oo-oo!” he would cry, then wag his tail and look at me, as if he were proud and expecting a treat and my reply. I’d howl back and he’d join me. Before long, all three of us were a chorus of voices, like wolf ancestors meeting in a beige SUV. My mom’s howl came out high and polite, like she was singing in a church pew. But she was howling with us, and that thrilled me. “Amazing,” my mom said. “Have you ever heard a dog howl like that?”
“It’s so expressive,” I said. “Like if you played it backwards on a record player, you’d hear a complete sentence.”
“Totally,” she said. “It’s uncanny.”
We watched the road for a bit, and then every once in a while, I would howl. Within a moment, Bunker would grumble back or howl in return. Communication had commenced. Bunker had long howls, happy howls, and howls crackling with longing. I imagined I could understand them all. When it came to Bunker, I had chosen to trust myself.
My mom and I were good road-trip partners. She tolerated my musical choices (all Ani DiFranco, all the time), and I obliged her occasional request for silence. We drove with the windows down much of the time. The changes in smell signaled our movement: In Indiana, flowers and sulfur and exhaust. Illinois, the slight scent of wheat, ground corn ebbing from the coming plains. Missouri, scorched asphalt mixed with cut grass and cow dung.
As was our way, we didn’t talk of anything substantive. No deep discussions, no emotion, no gut spilling. My mother was taking care of me, giving to me, in the way she knew best—with all her time and attention. The absence of intense conversation was welcome at this point in my recovery. I had been wrung dry by the breakdown, by the summer of falling deeper and deeper, and by the proverbial hands of therapists, parents, and doctors who had sought to pull me back up. I was ready for some emotional radio silence.
Across the quiet plains of Nebraska at dusk, I put the pillow against the window and thought about language and speaking and silence. Bunker would learn to speak alongside me. I would learn to speak up for what I wanted, to trust what I felt, to give it weight and importance, to ask for help. I would take care of Bunker, and Bunker would be my constant and loyal companion. My devotion to him was a salve, the only thing I knew for sure.
I made grand, optimistic plans with each westerly beat and fought away the still omnipresent but not nearly as believable negative voices in my mind. I imagined us as pioneers moving westward, the three of us chasing the sun every night like we might actually be able to catch it.
FALLING IN SUN VALLEY
AUGUST 1996
My mom’s middle sister, Diane, owned a house in Sun Valley, Idaho, so we planned a detour there. We would enjoy a day of rest before the final push toward Seattle. Aunt Diane was in California while we were there, so we had the house to ourselves. We arrived in the dark and fumbled with the key under the dim porch light where the bodies of moths pinged against the bulb. Bunker perked his ears. I imagined him sensitive even to the pain of insects.
The door creaked open and the house breathed musty on us, a long exhale of dust after months of being uninhabited. We had spent a Christmas at this house when I was a teenager. I had fine memories of a horse-drawn sleigh ride, ice-skating, games of Tile Rummy with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I had all girl cousins, two of them from California who were beautiful, blonde, and my age. They had a deep sisterly bond. I couldn’t fathom having a sister. I couldn’t fathom not feeling adrift in relation to my sibling. I longed for what they had, not even sure that I understood exactly what it was.
But mostly, my conclusion after that Christmas was that they were cool, smart rebels—and I was not. They were quiet, rolled their eyes regularly, dug Aerosmith, and wore black rubber jewelry. I was too visibly excited to unwrap the new Dee-Lite CD signed “From Santa.” Their hair was long, blonde, and stringy straight. They wore two-day-old black eyeliner while I still had a perm and was prone to wearing my hair up in a denim scrunchie at the top of my head. They wore paper-thin, ripped white men’s T-shirts even though it was snowing outside. I wore my royal blue turtleneck under a purple, red, and blue machine-made sweater.
I sat on the living room couch and shivered away those memories of that Christmas. Bunker climbed next to me and put his head on my lap. Re-envisioning childhood discomforts felt akin to walking through a beautiful wildflower field full of land mines. You never knew when a nice evening walk could become an unprecedented disaster.
My mom was rushing by me, wanting to unload the car and get to bed. I watched her. She hunched over when she was hurrying, like she was cold or suffered from osteoporosis or really needed to pee. I longed to talk to her about that Christmas, about how it shook my confidence, about how I let tiny little events like small glances from my cousins steal away bits of my self-worth, and there wasn’t much there to begin with. My therapist in Ohio had told me that it made sense that I was struggling. “Anyone who has been through what you’ve been through would be struggling,” she said.
But what was it that I had been through, really? I still came back to that question. I still couldn’t quite piece together what had rendered me unable to function. What left me so broken? Was I simply a weak person? A lot of people fought with their siblings. Were society’s messages to girls—that we need to be good and beautiful and kind and quiet—to blame? Were my parents to blame? Was Clay? I didn’t say good-bye to him when I left Ohio. He was happy in his engagement, looking to buy his first house and begin his life as an adult. Was there no one to blame after all? Was blame not at all the point here?
“Coming to bed?” my mom asked, half up the stairs.
“What?” I said.
“Come on,” she said, a little impatient. “It’s late. Let’s sleep.”
“Okay,” I said, patting Bunker, who still rested his head on my lap. “Come on, boy,” I said, whispering, “I’m okay.” And with that, he hopped up, climbed the stairs, and settled on a shag rug next to my bedsid
e for a quiet night’s sleep under the bright and clear Idaho moon.
The next day we decided to go for a hike. It was a beautiful summer morning, warm but not hot and almost no humidity. We drove up a dirt road and the car dusted to a stop at the trailhead that Aunt Diane promised would lead to a stunning hike up a verdant, wildflowered hill.
We trudged up the trail, rocks crunching underfoot, butterflies and bees twirling around flower heads. “Can you believe we’ve already driven two thousand miles?” my mom said, hiking behind me. Bunker walked in front of us looking back regularly to ensure we were coming. “Six hundred miles or so to go. More than two-thirds of the way there!”
“I know,” I said. “Crazy.” I liked our gradual change in longitude. The slow, perpetual movement felt good. I unlatched Bunker’s red leash and draped it over my shoulder then clasped it across my chest. I swiveled my baseball hat backwards and walked up the gentle hill flanked by enormous oaks like giant umbrellas, thigh-tall grasses, and flowers swaying in the breeze. Bunker ran as fast as his puppy legs would take him. He led the way up the trail, always stopping to look back. Just watching him run free made bursts of happiness flash through me. I found myself laughing, closing my eyes, turning my face up to the sun, thinking, Thank you.
We walked a few miles, then turned around and descended, hungry for lunch. Bunker was limping a little, but I assumed he was simply worn out. I checked his paws for thorns: nothing. My mom snapped a picture of Bunker and me after we’d begun the descent back to the car. Later, after the picture was developed, I could see that he didn’t look okay. At the time, we chalked up his funny gait to exhaustion from a healthy run in the mountains. After all, this was a dog from the flatlands of Ohio. He’d never trudged up a mountain before. That night, he slept on the cool brick of the fireplace’s hearth, flattened on his side, completely spent.
Then the next morning, after we woke and stuffed the car for our last long leg of the trip, Bunker couldn’t stand up. “Come on, Bunk,” I called as my mom rinsed our breakfast dishes. “Potty!” He tried to get up but couldn’t. The little furry dots above his eyes read: Confused. Pain.
My mom walked out of the kitchen. “What’s wrong?” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He just whimpers when he tries to get up. He’s hurt somewhere.” I gently squeezed his back left leg and he squealed wildly, searingly, in pain. “Oh shit,” I whispered. Adrenaline made my ears ring.
My mom had her hand over her mouth, then began panicking aloud. “We made him do too much. Oh, my gosh. I wonder if he broke all his paws.” I closed my eyes, tried to focus, leaned down, and picked him up. I carried him outside. “I can’t believe we did that!” my mom cried. “He’s only a puppy! What were we thinking taking him on such a long walk?”
“He’s okay,” I said, as my insides churned with worry. I carried him to the grass and put him down, my mom pacing behind me. He put no pressure on his feet, simply fell to the ground.
“Oh, my god,” she said. “He can’t walk. What should we do? Should I call Diane and try to find an emergency vet in Sun Valley?”
“Mom!” I yelled. This was my dog. My lifeline. I wanted her freaked-out energy away from us. “Just give us a minute. Finish packing and I’ll sit with him.” She held her clenched fist to her mouth before sighing and stepping back into the house to finish loading the dishwasher.
I felt Bunker’s legs, his paw pads rough and tender under my fingers. He whined, then licked my hand when I lightly squeezed his back right paw. I had no idea what was wrong, but I couldn’t bear that I’d inadvertently hurt him. “Oh, buddy,” I whispered. “What happened? What did we do?” He tried to get up, stood unsteadily to pee, then fell down again in the grass. I imagined how deeply I would fall if I lost him. This recovery was only going as well as it was because I could turn to Bunker in moments of desperation. Without him, I knew I would be back in the darkness. Without him, I knew I would not likely survive.
When my mom came back outside, Bunker’s eyes were closed and I was petting him, the only sound the house’s wind chime clinking in the morning breeze. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “He’ll be okay, Julie.”
I nodded, pushed my hands under his belly, and loaded him into the car. We drove in silence for about twenty miles before my mom began pontificating about the injury. “He probably just bruised his paw pads,” she said, both hands on the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead. I nodded. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “We’ll take him to the vet when we get to Seattle, make sure everything’s okay.” I put those words on replay in my mind and watched the earth undulate beneath us.
AUNT AURORA’S HOUSE
AUGUST 1996
The final day’s drive felt quick. We’d left Sun Valley and drove almost eight hours before spending the night near Moses Lake, Washington. We woke the next morning, excited because it was only three more hours to Seattle. We tumbled across the Columbia River at ten o’clock, the loping hills and coming mountains promising something different. I felt like a homing pigeon following a magnetic field. Something already felt right about Seattle, like it would go easier on me than New York.
We were quiet as we peaked the evergreen-laden mountains, speeding our way through Snoqualmie Pass. The impossible green richness of the hills seemed to fill me with hope, like the greener the world became, the happier I felt. With all that rain in Seattle, I thought, I’m going to be ecstatic.
On the drive, at rest stops, I carried Bunker to pee. He didn’t seem unhappy, but he was not his usual energetic, goofy self. Still, his mobility seemed to slowly improve with each stop. It seemed fortuitous that yesterday and most of today, he was required to stay in his crate and rest except for occasional pit stops.
Three hours later we climbed my aunt’s narrow two-lane road canopied by enormous pines and flanked by ferns of prehistoric proportions. I noticed that my palms were sweating. When we pulled up to Aurora’s house, the front door was wide open. My foot was on the driveway before the car was completely stopped. We’d made it. An orange and white cat curled around the doorframe, then sped under a bush when Brandy the Brittany spaniel careened through the doorway, barreling, tail twirling, toward our car. My fingers jangled nervous energy as I watched the door for my aunt. She didn’t appear, so I greeted the animals first, a much less formidable task. I loved my aunt Aurora, but greeting anyone was difficult for me: the sudden rush of emotion, the hugs, the high-pitched hellos. My upper lip would sweat; my ears would ring.
I lifted Bunker out of his crate and as soon as his paws hit the ground, it was clear he was feeling better. He greeted Brandy with his body erect, his tail a circling flag. Then four doggie elbows down on the ground and they were off, playing like old friends. They chased each other in the front yard and Bunker paused hastily to pee, still a puppy that didn’t lift his leg.
“I wonder where Aurora is,” my mom said. “The door’s open. Aurora!” she yelled. The house was a fifties-era ranch built into a gentle hill on a quiet street. On clear days, the porch off the living room boasted views of the Cascade Mountains. It was one of those houses that look like they’d just grown out of the ground—all rock and wood and green plants. Inside, it smelled musty, like animals, a little bit like a barn: hay and feed and animal hair.
“I’m here!” came a voice from inside the darkened doorway. It was a sunny day in Seattle. The clerk at the gas station east of Snoqualmie had joked that we were going to arrive just in time for Seattle’s three days of summer. Aurora appeared in the doorway, her hair in an orange bandanna, hands in green garden gloves blackened with dirt. There was a smear of soil on her forehead. She gave us a closed-mouth, head-tilted smile and opened her arms. I hugged her awkwardly. I felt light-headed so sat down on a concrete bench next to a fountain that was caked with bright-green algae. Brandy trotted up to the fountain and slurped some murky water.
“Is that
okay?” I asked, imagining dirt and grime sliding down his gullet.
“Oh, sure,” she said. “Good minerals in there.” She peeled off her gloves and looked at me. I thought about Aurora as a therapist, transported her to my own therapist’s chair. What would she say about what a mess I’d been?
Mom and I settled into the guest room, then ate a quiet dinner with Aurora, my uncle Bob, and their two daughters, one in middle school and one in high school. I loved this family, always had. They felt solid. Aurora seemed to genuinely listen to her kids. I watched as she spoke to them in a language that seemed all their own. I could tell that they talked a lot. My uncle Bob was a soft-spoken former hippie, a thoughtful man. Watching them made me feel like an alien coming to a lovely new planet, one where dad came home at the same time every night, where mom was emotionally involved with her kids, where the kids didn’t fight to the death.
It was my mom who first said, “Aurora, you’re going to have to be Julie’s surrogate mother while she’s living here.” I beamed at this idea. If my mom felt threatened by her depressed daughter happily living in her sister’s house, she never expressed it. She only showed support, and for that I was grateful.
After a few days at Aurora’s, it was time for my mom to fly back to Ohio. Bunker and I drove her to the airport and pulled up to the departures curb. I couldn’t imagine the passenger seat without my mom, but she seemed ready to go home. She said she missed Cinder and that Dad had probably eaten peanut butter sandwiches for the entire week she was gone. “That and chocolate chips,” I said.