Lawyer for the Dog

by Lee Robinson

  “Maybe he does.”

  “But he’s just a dog. I never imagined—”

  “What? You never imagined you could love an animal this much?”

  “I don’t exactly love him.”

  “What would you call it, then? There’s nothing wrong with loving the dog. He probably feels the same way about you by now.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What else is going on?” Ellen presses. “You sound terrible.”

  “Delores is leaving. Charlie’s sick.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I’ve got to find a nursing home. I went to one of those places in Mt. Pleasant. It was okay, but I just can’t imagine putting her there.”

  “Wendy Shuler’s father has Alzheimer’s. He’s in a nursing home. Wendy says it’s pretty good. Compassionate Care.”

  “That one’s on my list. I just haven’t had time…”

  “Why don’t you go tomorrow? I’ll watch your mother.”

  “That’s no way for you to spend your Saturday.”

  “I’ll bring some work over,” she says. “Hank’s playing golf.”

  “You’re wonderful, Ellen.”

  “We do these things for each other, right? Remember when I went into labor with Mandy? It was three in the morning, Hank was out of town. You came right over, drove me to the hospital?”

  “Yeah, you were screaming all the way down Calhoun Street for me to go faster, and then when I hit the accelerator you screamed for me to slow down.”

  “Anything else going on? Besides your mother?”

  I give her a detailed report about my night with the vet. “Not exactly a great start to a relationship, is it?”

  “If you can’t see the humor in that situation, you’re worse off than I thought.”

  “It was awful.”

  “What, the sex?”

  “No, that was great, but I should never have let … Mom was so upset.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “No, I’ve been waiting for him to call.”

  “This isn’t high school. Why don’t you call him?”

  “I’m afraid to.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “He’ll be polite, but who wants to get involved with a woman who’s living with her demented mother?”

  “You’re going to put her in a home, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “No.”

  “You are,” she says emphatically.

  “I’m losing it, with all this stuff going on at once.”

  “It’s going to work out. You’ll find a decent place for your mother, and you and the vet—What’s that noise?” Ellen asks.

  “The dog. I think he needs to go out.”

  “Wow, he sounds desperate. I’ll be there tomorrow by ten, okay?”

  Sherman is desperate, all right, but not because he has to pee. When I open the front door he refuses to follow me, barks even louder, turns back down the hall and into my mother’s bedroom. She’s not in her bed, but on the bathroom floor beside the toilet, the diaper around her feet. She’s not hurt, thank goodness. I lift her up—it’s amazing how heavy she is, though she’s lost weight—and onto the toilet. When she’s finished I help her back to bed.

  “Good dog,” I say as Sherman hops up beside her. I sit for a while in the easy chair nearby to make sure she’s okay. Sherman’s vigilant, too. Only when he hears her snoring does his head nestle into the bedspread. In the dim glow of the night-light I watch until he falls asleep, his chest rising and falling, his legs chasing something only Dog King of the World, in his dreams, can see.

  Trying Dogfully

  There’s no “marketing director” here, just a director who doesn’t seem to care that I don’t have an appointment. He takes me on the tour himself. “All of our rooms have windows onto the community garden,” he explains. “Mildred and Tallie are planting bulbs for the spring.” Two old ladies sit on the edge of one of the raised beds, working the dirt with trowels. “We encourage all our residents who’re physically able to adopt a small area as their own.”

  We pass a room with a piano and a circle of chairs. “A volunteer from the college music department comes once a week to lead a song session,” he says. “Even the residents who can’t sing enjoy listening. And afterward we have an ice-cream social.”

  “My mother would like that,” I say.

  “We also work with a local high school. Their kids partner with our residents—read to them, walk with them around the grounds, work in the garden. Most of the kids don’t have grandparents close by, so they get as much out of it as our residents do.”

  When the director opens the door into the courtyard, a big dog with a coat the color of caramel, approaches us. “Say hello to Ms. Baynard, Sadie.” The dog sits, lifts her paw. “Sadie’s a rescue dog.”

  “So you allow pets?” I ask.

  “Just this one. She lives here. She’s welcome in all the common areas. Official policy is that she’s not supposed to go into individual rooms, but, as you can imagine, there’s a good deal of cheating. Sadie’s our most popular resident. Lots of admirers … and they keep her well-groomed, as you can see.”

  We finish our tour. “Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any more questions,” he says. This is always a difficult decision.”

  As I drive away, I realize this is as good as it’s going to get. I’m running out of time and I’m not going to find a better place. Delores needs to be with Charlie. But when I imagine leaving my mother here—no matter how compassionate the care—I break into a sweat.

  Sure, I’ll visit every day. And maybe she won’t remember that I promised her I’d never put her in a nursing home. Maybe she won’t even know where she is.

  But I’ll know.

  * * *

  When I get back to the condo Ellen and my mother are sitting on the sofa looking through a magazine, Sherman at their feet. “Margaret and I have been having fun,” Ellen says. “We were thinking maybe it would be nice for her to try a new hairdo, something shorter, maybe something like this.” It’s true, my mother’s once perfectly coiffed silver hair hangs limp and thin, almost to her shoulders. Until the last couple of weeks Delores and I have been able to help her put it up into her customary chignon, but now she pulls out the bobby pins before we’re halfway done. “See, isn’t this one pretty?” My mother smiles. “How’d it go? The place, I mean.”

  “Much better than the other one. Thanks so much for doing this, Ellen.”

  “My pleasure. By the way, the vet called. He said he tried your cell but you didn’t pick up. Want to call him back while I’m here?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, fine, be that way. But you’re going to have to give me all the details sooner or later.”

  My mother needs a nap, so I settle her in bed and read aloud from Travels with Charley. She’s soothed by the sound of my voice, the familiarity of the story of Steinbeck’s cross-country trip with his dog. She doesn’t notice when I flip back and forth looking for my favorite passages.

  Once Charley fell in love with a dachshund, a romance racially unsuitable, physically ridiculous, and mechanically impossible. But all these problems Charley ignored. He loved deeply and tried dogfully.

  I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.

  I used to have a sense of humor about my life. I could laugh at myself, laugh about all the relationships that had failed, talk to my girlfriends in that self-deprecating way that probably never fooled them. I was so confident, so sure that if I ever really wanted to settle down with a man, I would find the right one, and equally sure that I could be happy all by myself. But something’s changed.

  Once my mother’s asleep I call the vet. He’s at home. I’ve rehearsed a smooth way into the conversation, something about how grateful I am that when I called about Sherman, he didn’t hesitate. “You came right away.”

  He laughs.
“Maybe too quick?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Be honest.”

  “It was fine. Better than fine. You left your hat here, by the way.”

  “How’s Sherman?”

  “No more stomach problems. He seems to be settling right in.”

  “I told you you’d like having a dog around. Carmen’s still available when you’re ready.”

  “Carmen?”

  “The beagle who needs a good home.”

  “Well, I’ve got my hands full right now with Sherman.”

  “Maryann and Rusty must be going nuts without him,” he says.

  “They both visited with him Thursday—separately, of course. But we didn’t hear from them all day yesterday.”

  “Would you like to go to dinner tonight?” he asks.

  “I’ve got my mother.”

  “I could bring something over. Maybe something from the seafood place.”

  “That’s really sweet, but I think I’d better let my mother have a quiet night.” Right away, I worry that he’s going to take this the wrong way, so I try again. “I’d love to go to dinner. I just wish things weren’t so complicated right now.”

  “What’s so complicated?”

  “My mother, I guess.”

  “Lots of people have mothers,” he says.

  “She’s not doing well at all, and the woman who stays with her during the day will be leaving soon, so I need to find a nursing home. Maybe once she’s settled somewhere, I’ll have more free time.”

  “You’re not the only one whose life is complicated. I have my son. He lives with his mother in San Francisco.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twelve.”

  “That must be hard for you, to have him so far away.”

  “He’s the one who suffers the most.”

  “Do you think dogs suffer like we do?”

  “They suffer, but not in the same ways. Sherman, for example, isn’t plagued by self-doubt. He misses Maryann and Rusty, and their disappearance is a mystery to him, but he isn’t worried that he did something wrong. He’ll allow himself to be comforted. He’ll accept your love without worrying about whether he deserves it.”

  After the call, I tell myself I should try being more like Sherman.

  Off the Deep End

  “Michelle Marvel just called,” Gina says when I get to the office on Monday morning. “Mr. Hart is in the hospital. She said it’s all Mrs. Hart’s fault.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “He had a heart attack on Friday, when he went to get Mrs. Hart out of jail!”

  “Slow down, you’re not making any sense.”

  “That’s why we couldn’t reach either one of them. She was arrested on Thursday night, and he had the heart attack on Friday when he went to get her out.”

  “Arrested for what?”

  “Burglary.”

  “That can’t be right.”

  “I know, it doesn’t sound right, but Michelle was sure about it. She wanted me to let you know that Mr. Hart would like to see you as soon as possible. He’s at Roper, cardiac intensive care, second floor.”

  “He’s not dying, is he?”

  “She didn’t know the details, just that he’s in intensive care.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “He posted bond for her, got her out of jail, was driving her home when he had the heart thing.”

  “You really think it’s an emergency? I was planning to work on the brief in support of the motion for bifurcation.”

  “I’ve already done the research, I can draft it,” Gina says. “Come on, the old guy’s had a heart attack. He’s asking for you.”

  I think about the old man at Golden Memories, Mr. Charles Bird in his striped pajamas. “You’re right, I’ll go.”

  * * *

  “No visitors allowed yet,” says the nurse at the nurses’ station, “except close family.”

  “I’m his lawyer.” Not exactly true, but close enough. “He asked to see me.”

  “Try to keep it under fifteen minutes. Room 205, end of the hall.”

  Rusty Hart’s eyes are closed when I enter the room. He’s a big man, but all the machines with their wires and tubes and blinking lights have reduced him to a smaller version of himself. One arm rests on his belly, the other is trapped by an IV taped to the inside of his elbow. The movement of his heartbeat across the monitor seems erratic, distressed.

  I decide not to wake him, but the aide who comes with the dinner tray doesn’t hesitate. “Sir, let’s try to sit you up. Maybe your daughter would like to help you eat?” Mr. Hart’s eyes open, searching the room. He yanks the tubing out of his nose. The orderly reinserts it. “No, sir, you don’t need to take that out to eat. It’s your oxygen.” Mr. Hart growls. The orderly vanishes.

  I lift the plastic cover off the tray: watery bouillon, plastic cup of apple juice, orange jello. “Here, let me help you.”

  “Anna?”

  “No, Mr. Hart, it’s Sally Baynard. You wanted me—”

  “Right.”

  “Would you like some soup?” I pick up the spoon. He pushes it away.

  “Feel terrible.”

  “I know you do. Maybe we should talk later, when you feel better.”

  “No. Need you to take care of some things…” He’s very pale, all that ruddiness gone.

  “I assume you have a will, Mr. Hart. If you need to update it, I’m sure Michelle Marvel can—”

  “Not the will. Shit, if I … croak … I guess she … Maryann … should have it all anyway. What the hell. Sherman…”

  “Sherman’s at my house. He’s fine for now.”

  “My buddy.”

  “They won’t let me stay long. What can I do for you?”

  “Call Anna.”

  “I’ll ask Michelle to do that, okay?”

  “She doesn’t know about Anna.” I’m stunned he didn’t tell his own lawyer about his daughter. “Please.”

  “What do you want me to tell her?”

  “Whatever you think is … best.”

  “I shouldn’t be the one deciding what’s best for your family.”

  “You couldn’t screw it up more than it is already. You still have the number?”

  “I think so.”

  “Look in my wallet…” He points to the little closet across from the bed. “Number’s in there, under the picture.” And there it is, on a piece of paper tucked behind a small photo. Anna must have been six or seven, missing some front teeth, her reluctant smile coaxed by the school photographer. “Tell her that her mother’s gone off the deep end,” he says. “Arrested, for God’s sake.” The wavy green line on the monitor behind him spikes sharply up.

  “Mr. Hart, this is upsetting you.”

  “Damn right it’s upsetting.”

  “We can talk later.”

  “Can you believe it? Burglary!”

  “But that can’t be right—”

  “They broke into a house … Cut though a screened porch with box cutters … to rescue some dog they said was … abused.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Maryann and some other women. Some group she belongs to. Bunch of crazies. Lucky she didn’t get shot.”

  “You put up her bail?”

  “What the hell else was I … supposed to do? She’s paid that creep Swinton a small fortune, but she won’t call him when she gets arrested! She’d still be in jail if my old buddy the magistrate hadn’t called me…”

  “You’re a good husband.”

  “No, just a fixer.”

  I stand up. “I’ll call your daughter. You get some rest.”

  “Off the deep end, I tell you.”

  His eyes are closed again, his voice almost inaudible: “You tell my best buddy I miss him. I miss him like hell.”

  Back at the nurses’ station I ask for his nurse. “She’s with another patient,” says the woman behind the desk, who’s busy typing into a computer. “Can I h
elp you?”

  “He didn’t want his dinner. Someone should check on him.”

  “Not unusual,” she says. “Loss of appetite after a major coronary event. But I’ll check on him as soon as I—excuse me, I have a call.”

  I mouth a “thank you” and leave, wondering if it would have made any difference if I’d said, He’s a sick, lonely old man. His wife’s divorcing him, and his daughter probably won’t care that he’s all alone here. His best buddy is a dog, and you won’t allow dogs in the hospital. So please, he needs some extra attention from you, okay?

  When I get back to the office Sherman is sleeping under Gina’s desk. “How’s Mr. Hart?” she asks.

  “Terrible.”

  “His wife called right after you left. I told her Sherman’s doing fine with us. I don’t think that’s what she wanted to hear.”

  * * *

  The call to Anna doesn’t go well.

  “It’s about your father.”

  “I made it clear I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “He’s had a heart attack.”

  Long pause, as if she’s marshaling her defenses. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He’s not doing well at all.”

  “I’m sure my mother has the situation under control,” she says, in that cool, practiced voice.

  “They’re in the middle of a divorce, remember?”

  “So, I get it, you want me to drop everything, fly down there, and—”

  “Your father is alone in the hospital in very serious condition, and he asked me to let you know.” What I’d like to say is, I don’t care how tough your adolescence was, or how much you blame your parents. Your father needs you now.

  “I’ll give him a call. What hospital?”

  “Roper. Room 205.”

  “I hope you understand my situation. I work full-time. I have a five-year-old. I have no relationship with my parents.”

  “Apparently your dad thinks he has one with you.”

  “He has a hard time with reality.”

  “He seems pretty grounded to me.”

  “He’s not your father.”

  “My father died of a heart attack when I was twelve.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel guilty?”

  “I’m not trying to make you feel anything at all. But he asked me to tell you that your mother’s in trouble, too.”