People spoke softly here, in voices worn from use. Their hands were gnarled and shaky, their spines sometimes stooped, their movements slow and stiff. Yet as we went by each room and I stole a peek, eyes rich with wisdom turned to gaze observantly at me, memories kindling in the depths of their hazy pupils.
“Ohhh, would you look at that?” said one elderly gentleman, leaning on his walker. “Just like my old boy, Shep. Best farm dog this side of the Mississippi.”
“What a bea-U-tiful dog,” another remarked with a toothless smile.
“Such shiny black fur.”
“Pretty gold eyes.”
“How handsome he is.”
“How well behaved.”
But more often than the compliments on my looks and manners, I heard, “I used to have a dog.”
Oh, the stories that were contained in those few words: I used to have a dog.
We heard quite a lot of them in those few visits. Many more than once. How one Jack Russell Terrier had roused his family in the night and saved them from a fire. How a Labrador mix had been hit by a truck and found on the highway, barely clinging to life, then served for fifteen years as the Faderville firehouse dog. How one mutt of indeterminate heritage had helped raise nine children and fifteen grandchildren, patiently tolerating ear-tuggings and tail-pullings (those children were obviously no relation to the Grunwald twins). And how one tiny teacup poodle had been his master’s ears, alerting him to an attempted burglary with his fierce yapping.
Then smiles would transform the residents’ faces and tears dampen their eyes, and trembling hands drifted down to stroke my head and withers. Softest of all were Sophia’s fingers. She knew the perfect place to scratch just below my ear and around to the base of my throat. But each time we visited, it went exactly the same.
“Sophia?” Heck would say after tapping lightly on the door, which was always open. “Sophia, would you like a visitor today?”
Sitting in her recliner, the one with the buttons that made it go up and down so she could stand more easily, she would tilt her head at me, smiling. “Ohhh, what a lovely dog. May I pet him?”
Then Heck would venture cautiously in, my leash tight in his hand, even though I never pulled at it or jumped on people. But the sadness and loneliness I sensed in this case came not from Sophia, but from Heck. He was so patient with her, so loving, yet he longed for what used to be.
“What’s his name?” she’d ask, her feeble hand running over the dome of my skull and down my neck.
“Echo.”
“And what’s your name?”
He would smile, melancholy flickering in his pupils. “Hector Menendez, but you may call me Heck.” Then with a sigh, “Sometimes you used to call me Holy Heck, just to tease me.”
The comment would go without reply, no recognition evident in her face, as Heck would begin to tell her how they’d met, how they’d drifted apart, but later found each other again, and then about the day they got married, and how there was a thunderstorm and the lights in the church went out ...
But it was our most recent visit when something truly special happened. After years of not remembering any of her life with Heck and only bits of her childhood, Sophia suddenly interrupted Heck in the middle of his reminiscence and said, “On Gable Street — didn’t the people behind us have a dog like this?”
Heck’s cheeks twitched upward in a heartwarming smile. “Yes, yes, they did. It was smaller, with a bit more white and a tail, but very similar looking. Funny, even I didn’t remember that until you mentioned it just now.”
He asked what else she remembered, but just as quickly her mind drifted off again and she began talking about how warm it had been that week and how her friend down the hallway was having trouble with vertigo.
“Ah,” came a voice from the hall, “I see she’s regaling you with tales of Bernadette’s inner ear problems.”
Bernadette. Why did that name sound so familiar?
I looked to the doorway to see Mr. Beekman, dressed in a pair of crisp green scrubs. Tinker darted between his legs and ran up to me, her smooth, whip-like tail thumping against the carpet as she skidded to a halt in front of me. We’d met the first day I came here, and even though both of us had grown considerably since we met in the shelter, we remembered one another’s scent. It had been an overwhelmingly joyful reunion and we still found it hard to contain our excitement every time we met. We lathered each other in licks and then sniffed each other in the usual places before Tinker rolled over on her belly. I nuzzled her snout, then dipped low in a play bow.
“Tinker, not here,” Mr. Beekman reminded us firmly as he gently wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Sophia’s thin arm.
We both hung our heads apologetically, but moments later Tinker had her paw on my shoulder, and so I butt-slammed her playfully. She sneezed at me, then sat innocently at Sophia’s feet before Mr. Beekman turned around.
Heck and Mr. Beekman talked for a few more minutes about Sophia. She seemed completely unaware of their conversation. I’d noticed that unless someone made a point of calling her name and asking her a question directly, she was detached from the goings-on around her. Finally, Heck excused himself.
We went down the brightly lit corridor to the dining area, where Heck paused to look at the paintings hung along one wall. Several of them were Heck’s, but the one that was drawing the most comments lately was a piece that Hannah had painted.
“This one reminds me of summer,” said a very old lady from her wheelchair in front of it. She was heavier set, with bright red hair and loudly colored clothes that said she was not afraid of being noticed. There was something vaguely familiar about her voice, but I couldn’t quite place it. She moved the joystick on her armrest to maneuver closer to the painting. “It’s so vibrant with all the tulips and the sunshine. I can practically smell the flowers she’s holding. What a beautiful woman, too.”
It was the painting of Sophia picking flowers.
Heck said nothing. He simply lingered there, gazing at the painting as if seeing it for the very first time. Hannah had given it to him a week ago before leaving for vacation. After Sophia fawned over it — although she didn’t seem to recognize that it was her in the painting — she had suggested putting it in the dining area, so everyone could admire it. Which had turned out to be a good idea.
“That’s my wife,” Heck finally said. “Sophia.”
The old woman shifted her joystick in a circle to turn around and face us. The moment she laid eyes on me, something plucked at the back of my mind. I went to her and sat politely, like I’d been taught.
“My name is Bernadette,” she told us, “although most people just call me Bernie. You know, I used to have a dog like this, an Australian Shepherd. She had that same look in her eyes, like an old soul. Well, she wasn’t mine. She belonged to a young man named Hunter McHugh. I used to live with his family. But that was a long time ago ... Do you know him?”
She reached out a hand and rested it on top of my head.
And then I remembered. A time before this. Another life, when I had another name ...
author’s note
My dog Arrow, a black and white Australian Shepherd, is often mistaken for a Border Collie. She forgives the offenders, but wishes they would be more observant of the subtle differences between the breeds: her ears do not stand up, she does not crouch when moving toward something, nor does she move loosely in the shoulders. She also doesn’t have a tail.
Arrow was only three weeks old, her eyes barely open, when she tried to climb out of her whelping box. On her first try, she succeeded. I lovingly scolded her and said her future owners would be getting a handful; I swear she told me her name and that this was her home. She stayed.
Her purpose in life is to let me know I am loved, adored, and worshipped. I welcome the devotion. Who else would think so highly of me?
Arrow’s appetite for learning is hindered only by my poor attempts at dog-speak. Still, I am constantly amazed at what she do
es understand. She is, I have learned, a very observant dog that reads subtle body cues and tone of voice, more so than words. And that made me think — what a gift it would be if we could understand dogs as well as they do us.
But an even better gift would be if we got to meet our heart-dogs again. And again and again and again ...
about the author
N. Gemini Sasson is a serial remodeler, intrepid gardener, runner, and dog lover. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband, two nearly grown children and an ever-changing number of animals.
Long after writing about Robert the Bruce and Queen Isabella, Sasson learned she is a descendant of both.
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Books by N. Gemini Sasson
The Faderville Novels:
Say No More
Say That Again
Sam McNamee Mysteries:
Memories and Matchsticks
The Bruce Trilogy:
The Crown in the Heather: Book I
Worth Dying For: Book II
The Honor Due a King: Book III
The Isabella Books:
Isabeau: A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer
The King Must Die: A Novel of Edward III
Uneasy Lies the Crown: A Novel of Owain Glyndwr
In the Time of Kings (A Time Travel Adventure)
Did you love Say That Again? Then you should read Memories and Matchsticks by N. Gemini Sasson!
There’s an arsonist on the loose in rural Wilton, Indiana — and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep from being found out. Even murder.
Out of work, accident prone, and dateless, Sam McNamee packs up her belongings and her daughter to move to the Florida Keys, where she can pen love stories as S.A. Mack to ease the lingering pain of her husband’s death. First, though, she has to help her dad sell his home of forty-plus years. It just might be the hardest job she’s ever tackled. He’s a hoarder; she’s a neat freak.
The night she returns to Wilton, Sam plows into a mangy mutt on a rain-slicked country road. Bump, the dog she rescues, has a history that drags Sam and her family into a web of danger, making her father a prime suspect.
Feuds and secrets run deep in Humboldt County. Sam can’t leave until the mystery of the arsons is solved. Not that she’d want to anymore, since veterinarian Clint Chastain has stolen her heart.
In Memories and Matchsticks, N. Gemini Sasson combines comedy and romance as accidental female sleuth Sam McNamee rediscovers love in a sleepy Midwestern town.
Also by N. Gemini Sasson
A Faderville Novel
Say No More
Say That Again
A Sam McNamee Mystery
Memories and Matchsticks
The Bruce Trilogy
The Crown in the Heather
Worth Dying For
The Honor Due a King
The Isabella Books
Isabeau, A Novel of Queen Isabella and Sir Roger Mortimer
The King Must Die
Standalone
Uneasy Lies the Crown, A Novel of Owain Glyndwr
In the Time of Kings
Say That Again Page 29