Dog Crazy

by Meg Donohue

  “We’ll have her home and dry soon enough,” Anya answers. “I did remember these.” She squats down beside me and pulls a few dog biscuits from her pocket. The dog devours them so quickly it’s hard to believe they were ever there. Meanwhile, Anya fastens the new collar around her neck and clips on the leash. She fingers the knot in the prickly rope. “This is too tight. We’re going to need scissors.”

  One of the parking-lot attendants catches sight of us and hurries over. “Is this your dog?”

  “No,” I say, standing, “but we’re taking her with us. I’m Maggie. Are you Ty? Sybil from SuperMutt sent us.”

  “Oh, good timing. She’s been barking at customers and my boss was about to call the police.”

  “Can we borrow some scissors for this rope?” Anya asks.

  Ty jogs into the market and returns with scissors. We cut the dog free, thank Ty for his help, and start off across the parking lot. Anya holds the leash out to me.

  “Want to do the honors? I think you’ve earned it.”

  I look at the leash. A huge part of me wants to wrap it around my hand, to feel the downward pull of the dog, grounding me, distracting me, propelling me forward. But I’d made it the whole way there without that feeling, and I’d survived. “Nah,” I say. “You take her.”

  Anya nods. The rain is driving sideways now and we have to bend our bodies into it, breaking into a near jog on the sidewalk that runs across the street from Golden Gate Park. I can see the dark opening of the tunnel that leads to the path where I’d had the panic attack the day Toby died. Within moments, we’ve passed the tunnel; it’s behind us, and even though it’s raining, a warm feeling brims within me, like the mild glow of sunrise lightening the sky.

  The dog doesn’t seem to mind the leash and walks easily between us, her tail wagging. Every few steps she looks up at one or the other of us with what I would swear is a look of relief. She’s energetic but doesn’t have the boundless, quivering enthusiasm of a puppy; if I had to guess, I’d say she’s probably three or four years old. It’s a nice age for a dog of her size; it’s the age when a dog really settles into herself but doesn’t yet show physical signs of aging. It’s probably how old Seymour is, too.

  “What should we call her?” Anya asks.

  The dog’s white ears flap with every step, and if you squint at the brown patch of fur between them, it looks a bit like bangs. “How about Sally? After Sally Field. You know, The Flying Nun?”

  Anya gives me a blank look.

  I laugh. “It’s this show from the sixties. My mom has a weird attachment to it.”

  Anya shrugs, slipping the dog another treat. “Here you go, Sally.”

  In my apartment, we peel off our wet jackets and I run a towel over Sally. She loves the massage, flicking her rump from side to side and leaning into me, woofing happily as I dry her. She’s one of those dogs that grin when they’re excited, her lips curling up at the ends and her eyes shining. I take out Toby’s bowls and food and hand them to Anya. She doesn’t ask why I still have them; I’m sure she knows I simply have not been able to throw them away. She pours food for Sally and I turn on the fire in the living room and put a kettle on the stove for tea. While I wait for the water to boil, I text Sybil to let her know that we have the dog. She texts back immediately—Oh, now she answers her phone, I think—with her usual effusive gratitude and confirms that the foster family will pick up the dog in a couple of hours.

  BTW, she adds, I passed on your contact info to someone this week—a woman named Linda who adopted a dog from us 7 years ago. The dog just passed away. She’s devastated.

  When I return to the living room, Anya is sitting on the floor in front of the fire. Sally is stretched out beside her, her head resting peacefully on Anya’s thin thigh, her eyes half closed. Her tail thumps against the floor as I approach, but she doesn’t lift her head. Nearby, the food bowl has been licked clean. I hand Anya a mug of tea and sink into the yellow armchair with the other. I sip the hot tea, feeling it travel down my throat, warming my chest. The sound of the rain outside is steady and calming. The windows grow cozily steamy. Anya absently strokes Sally’s head, her hand resting for a few moments and then starting again. The dog twitches one of her ears, stretches, and sighs deeply.

  “Any chance you’d consider keeping her?” I ask.

  “I couldn’t. It would feel like I was giving up on Billy.”

  “You wouldn’t have to stop looking for him. And if you found him, you could still keep Sally, couldn’t you? Your house is big enough for two dogs.”

  Anya shakes her head. “I’m just a one-dog person. Maybe someday I’ll want another, but for now one feels right.”

  At the moment, of course, she doesn’t have any dogs, but I’m not about to point this out. “I know what you mean,” I say. “I was the same way with Toby. You become each other’s pack when it’s just the two of you.” I look into the fire, debating how to proceed. “I want you to know that I always felt it was fine for you to have hope that you’ll find Billy. I never misled you about that.” I take a deep breath. “At the same time, he’s been gone six weeks now. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, and I’m not saying you should stop looking if you’re not ready to stop, but a dog out there in the city, on his own—”

  “He’s not on his own.”

  “But—”

  “He’s not,” she says again. Sally’s eyes are open now, and though she doesn’t lift her head, she manages to shoot me a look that says, Must we talk about this now? I’ve had a rough day. “I told you,” Anya continues. “Billy’s not out there on his own. He didn’t run away. Someone stole him.”

  She sounds certain, and the lack of anger or defensiveness in her voice stops me from responding right away. How can she possibly be so sure? “Is there something you haven’t told me?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, looking puzzled. “No. I’ve told you everything.”

  I believe her, but now, for the first time, I begin to wonder if there might be something—some critical, missing fact—that she has filed away on a subconscious level, something that makes her certain she’ll be reunited with Billy. What if all of this—her obsession with finding Billy, her anger—is tied not to grief, but to some hidden knowledge that she can’t access? In the end, isn’t that what intuition usually amounts to? Some part of the brain assembling the facts, drawing conclusions that may seem unfounded, but are actually based on a series of subtle clues that are often all too easy to ignore?

  I decide to let the subject drop for now, but resolve to raise the question with Henry. I realize that I’ve been so focused on offering Anya support through friendship, and in so doing, trying to help myself get better, too, that I haven’t ever truly considered the possibility that she might just be right. But who would want to steal Billy?

  “Sally is sweet,” Anya says, stroking the dog’s ear. “She seems like a good dog. Why don’t you keep her? Or, if not her, why not Seymour? I see the way you are with him. Is it because of Toby?”

  I nod. “I’m just not ready. I think it would be a mistake to rush into adopting a new dog.”

  Anya looks at me. “I know you know a ton about grief and how to deal with it and what the proper steps are and all of that, but maybe, sometimes, that stuff misses the mark. Maybe the love of a dog is exactly what you need to pull you through this. I’m not saying Toby is replaceable—in fact, I’m sure he’s not. I’m sure you’ll never have another dog like him.”

  “No,” I say quietly. There is something heartbreakingly bittersweet about the fact that there will never be another dog like Toby. It’s a testament to what a uniquely wonderful dog he was, and a reminder that I will never stop missing him.

  “Seymour won’t be at all like Toby. He won’t replace him, but he could still be . . .” Anya trails off, thinking. “He could still be your life jacket. He could keep you afloat.”

  “I could say the same to you about Sally.”

  “But Billy isn’t dead. Toby is.�
�� When I don’t answer, Anya says, “You’ll probably never get over him.” She says this matter-of-factly, like she’s holding out medicine that I have no choice but to take.

  Even though my eyes fill with tears, I don’t feel overwhelmed by sadness. Maybe it’s that I just walked all the way to Whole Foods without having a full-blown panic attack. Or maybe it’s simply that time is marching on, and the understanding that I will never stop missing Toby doesn’t strike me as harshly as it once had.

  “You’re right.”

  I feel a release as I say these words, a sense of acceptance. We carry our loves and our losses with us, and even though we can’t know what is ahead, along the way we learn—it really doesn’t matter from whom, dog or human—how to keep moving.

  Chapter 17

  A few days later, Linda Giovanni is crying before she even reaches the couch. I hand her a box of tissues, smiling at her sadly. She’s very beautiful, even as she’s crying. Her caramel hair is swept expertly over one shoulder and her pronounced cheekbones curve elegantly toward her sapphire stud earrings. She’s not the sort of person I would have pegged as an adopter of rescue dogs, which just goes to show that you never do know until you ask.

  So I do. “Will you tell me about Morty?”

  She presses the tissue to her eyes, smudging her mascara. “I adopted him seven years ago from SuperMutt. We think he was about three then.” She fumbles through her purse, pulls out her phone, and passes it to me. On the screen is a photograph of a saggy-faced bulldog with heavily lidded black eyes, a pre–face-lift Sylvester Stallone. It’s hard not to grin at the sight of him. They must have turned a lot of heads together—Morty with his slobbery jowls and fantastic underbite waddling along beside chic, sleek Linda.

  “What a love,” I say.

  Linda’s lip trembles. “He was a good boy.” She takes the phone into her hands again, gazing at it for a moment before dropping it back into her purse. “He was like my child. Or my best friend. Both, I guess.” She plays with the tissue in her hand. “When I adopted him, I was thirty-six and single. I’d sort of given up on meeting my forever man. I just didn’t think he was out there. And I didn’t think I was going to have kids. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted kids. I thought, instead, I’d get a dog. And then I—well, I fell head over heels in love with Morty.” She looks down. “I know that sounds silly.”

  “Not to me.”

  Linda sighs. “Some people need yoga, or a long run, or a big cup of chamomile tea with honey. I just need to hear my dog softly breathing while he sleeps nearby. I need to see his chest rising and falling, sweet and steadfast.” Her face, smooth just a moment earlier, falls into a topography of folds and shadows, like a bedsheet dropped to the floor. “I loved taking care of him,” she continues shakily. “I loved how he loved me. I work in fund-raising at the De Young Museum, and for a brief time, before my friends convinced me I was going more than a little overboard, I considered finding another job that allowed me to bring Morty to work with me.” She shakes her head. “It was a strange time for me, but having Morty made everything seem a little brighter. He was very funny.”

  “Was he? In what way?”

  Linda looks up at the ceiling, remembering. “He was so expressive! I swear, I could tell exactly what he was thinking just by looking at him. He couldn’t speak, of course, but he could really communicate—better than some people I know!” She laughs, sniffling.

  “Anyway, the amazing thing was that a couple of months after adopting him, I met Mario, my husband. And then a year later, we had a baby boy. We have a little girl now, too. I couldn’t possibly love my children more, but the truth is I don’t know if I would have had them if it hadn’t been for Morty. Loving him changed me. It made me more open to all of it—love, life, family.” Her face crumples again. “I just miss him so much. I feel . . . shattered.” Her words are half swallowed by a sob. “I don’t feel like anyone really understands.”

  I nod. “That’s one of the things that makes losing a dog so difficult. Some people don’t understand what an important relationship it is. It’s hard to feel like it’s okay to mourn the way you need to mourn when you’re afraid people might judge you. But love is love,” I tell her. “Loss is loss.”

  Linda blots at her eyes again, sniffling.

  “Morty was a true member of your family,” I say. “He changed your life in the best possible way. You’re devastated. Of course you are.”

  She lowers her voice. “Sometimes I think I can still hear him. There’s this phantom dog-collar-jingle thing happening all the time.”

  “Perfectly normal.” How many times had I heard a dog barking in my neighborhood and thought, for one split second, that it was Toby?

  She smiles sadly, gratefully. “Sybil said you would understand.” She looks away, swallowing. “I worry that I should have had a second opinion. The veterinarian said it was time to let him go, and so I did, but now I wonder if I did the right thing. Did I do everything I could for him? I keep asking myself that. Did I fail to give him the best care? After all he did for me . . .” Linda presses her hand against her mouth.

  I look her straight in the eye and say, “I’m sure you took excellent care of Morty. The fact that you’re so worried about him, even now, shows that. But the best way to wring that guilt out of your system is to talk about it. We’ll talk and talk until we’ve wrung out the guilt and all that remains is the love, the love that you felt for Morty, that you’ll always feel—the love and the gratitude.”

  Linda nods.

  I ask her to tell me more about him. “Did he get along with your children?”

  “Oh, yes,” she says. Her spirits seem to lift as she considers the question. “I’m afraid he thought he was one of them.”

  I smile, settling back into my chair, and listen.

  WHEN ANYA TEXTS me the next morning to see if I’ll join her to look for Billy, I decide not to bring Giselle or Seymour. I haven’t tried walking completely alone yet, but with my newfound confidence from the Sally rescue mission, I feel hopeful. This seems like the next logical step, and I know I should give it a try now while I have some momentum. I push through the sidewalk gate, breathing deeply each time the pre-panic fluttering and clenching begins in my chest. I remind myself to think positively, to relax my arms at my sides, to drop my shoulders when they grow tense.

  It rained overnight, and now the whole city has that electric glow that sometimes happens when the sun emerges after a rainstorm. I breathe in the warm, wet pavement scent, letting it fill my lungs.

  When I arrive at the house, Anya, Henry, and Huan are gathered outside. I feel my heart swell a little at the sight of them and quicken my step. Henry smiles. It’s a private smile, one that hints at everything that passed between us in my apartment a week ago, and I return it, blushing. Anya’s glance carries a glint of amusement, confirming my suspicion that on my pale cheeks a blush looks like a five-alarm fire.

  “Where’s Giselle?” she asks.

  “I decided to make this trip on my own.” Anya and Henry both lift their dark eyebrows, looking undeniably like siblings. I laugh. “I made it in one piece. Impressed?”

  “Yes,” says Henry. “That’s great, Maggie.”

  “Too bad, though,” says Huan, sounding disappointed. “We’re headed to Corona Heights Park. Giselle would have loved it.”

  Anya smacks him on the shoulder. “Maggie’s going to love it, too. People without dogs can appreciate parks, you know.”

  Huan rubs his shoulder, looking confused.

  “Yet another place I’ve never been,” I say cheerfully. My newly reclaimed freedom makes me feel buoyant.

  We head off along the sidewalk, quickly forming pairs with Anya and Huan taking the lead. After a couple of blocks, Anya and Huan are far enough ahead that they’re out of earshot.

  I nod my head toward them, looking at Henry.

  “What? Anya and Huan?” Henry shakes his head. “He’s had a thing for her since they were kids. She doesn�
��t give him the time of day, never has. I think poor Huan is stuck in the ‘friend zone.’ ”

  “I don’t know. Looks to me like there’s something going on there. Something’s clicking.”

  Henry watches them again. They are about the same height and their steps are perfectly in sync, Huan’s purposeful march a match for Anya’s long stride. Their heads lean slightly toward each other. Anya’s sharp laugh floats back toward us.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Henry sounds surprised and pleased. “Speaking of clicking, I brought you . . .” He looks at me and his smile changes, his voice trailing off.

  “A gift?” I ask. I bat my eyes to make him laugh. “For moi?”

  “Well, yes. But now I’m a little embarrassed—I don’t think you need it anymore.”

  “If it happens to be another bottle of wine, I can tell you right now that I’ll always be in need.”

  Henry grins, relaxing again. “It’s not wine this time.” He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a tiny metal replica of Sutro Tower. It’s about three inches high, the kind of thing you might find in a touristy souvenir shop. “I couldn’t figure out how to wrap it.”

  I take the tower from him, turning it in my hand.

  “You said you felt better when you saw Sutro Tower,” Henry says quickly. “That it kept you from feeling lost. So I thought you could carry this one in your bag, and then you could see it even on the foggy days. I mean, it obviously isn’t going to guide you home, but maybe it will still make you feel better. Except now you’re doing so well on your own. You don’t even need it.” He shakes his head. “It a ridiculous gift, anyway,” he says, reaching to retrieve the tower.

  “No,” I say, wrapping my fingers around it. I end up holding his outstretched hand, too. “I might not need it, but I love it. You can’t just give a girl a tiny replica of a transmission antenna and then take it back.”

  Henry laughs. We both glance up the street at the same time, just as Anya and Huan turn the corner, falling out of view. Our hands are still clasped together between us, holding the tower, and now he wraps his other arm around me, pressing his palm into the small of my back, pulling me close, and we kiss.