Her eye was round in wonder as she looked up at me. “She’s…she’s so…so warm…”
Before I could say anything more, the ambulance men burst through the front door, Pop not far behind. He’d been at a neighbor’s playing cards, and the neighbor’s wife had told him of the ambulance in our drive.
The men worked carefully over Mum with a restrained air of urgency. Pop held Mum’s hand until they pushed him aside, and before he could push back, I grabbed his hand to stay him.
He looked at me almost as though I were a stranger, his eyes filled with a dismay that made my own knees week. Then he seemed to recognize me. “Aw, Colleen,” he said, his hand a fist as he tried to draw on his physical strength. “What would I do without her?”
“You won’t have to find out, Pop,” I said and hugged him hard. I’d meant it as a comfort and didn’t know, then, how true that statement would eventually be.
Mum recovered well, only needing a cane many years later as she became frail and her ‘bad’ side weakened under the strain of years. The doctor explained that it had only been a small stroke, and I wondered at his words: it had not been small to us! But to a doctor, of course, it must all be relative.
So, Mum was home within a week and started into her daily routines–it was, she said, the best thing for her–and eventually Pop stopped hovering around her like a bumblingly overprotective Saint Bernard.
“It’s a relief to have him out of my kitchen, to tell you the truth,” she said to me one morning after Pop had gone back to work. Her words were only slightly slurred, and I don’t think a stranger would have noticed how one side of her smile lagged a little behind the other. “He kept stepping on my feet!”
I laughed, and she came to where I sat at the table. She rested her hand on my cheek. “And it’s time for you to go back to school, too,” she said. “I’ll be fine, Colleen. I promise.”
Sarie lay on the mat by the back door, her nose on her paws, her eyes tracking Mum’s progress from sink to table, table to stove.
“I know you will, Mum,” I said. Then I asked her the question that had been troubling me since the hospital. “Mum…do you remember it? The…what happened?”
I couldn’t say ‘stroke,’ not then. It was still too heavy a word for me to toss around lightly in conversation. It would become lighter, but I was much too young then to know it.
Mum came to sit at the table, sighing as she sat. “I remember feeling very tired, all at once. As though all my energy had drained right out through my feet and away. My eyes wanted to close, and that part frightened me very badly. I leaned onto the sink and then…then you were there.” She smiled and grabbed my hand to squeeze it.
“What else? Do you remember anything else? Anything about…” I couldn’t finish, couldn’t say Sarie’s name. But my eyes went to her, and she sat up and tilted her head as if she, too, were waiting to hear the answer.
Mum’s smile faded into a look of puzzlement, but it had a fondness to it, no fear or distress. “I dreamed…I thought I dreamed that a dog was barking. I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t seem to open my eyes, but a little dog barked and barked. Then I felt this…” Here Mum flexed her fingers as if the physical movement would help her to recall the memory. “…I felt this cold little nose pressed into my hand. And I realized that it was Sarie, your Sarie, Colleen. I asked her to find you, I was so frightened. That’s what I dreamed.”
“Do you remember me putting your hand on her back? You said, ‘She’s so warm’…do you remember, Mum?”
Mum’s eyes clouded, and she tilted her head at me, unconsciously mimicking Sarie behind her. “That sounds so familiar, Colleen. But I can’t…” She frowned and tears came to stand on her eyelashes like sparkling jewels. “I can’t remember; I’m so sorry.”
I think I understood, then–at least part way–why Mum had been able to feel Sarie, why her fingers had found warmth and comfort in the little angel dog that only I could see. It was because Mum had been walking close to her mortality that night, close enough to reach into the next world.
The world that Sarie also inhabited.
I patted my lap, and Sarie jumped easily into it, gazing at me with steady concentration. A shiver worked its way up my spine, and as was my lifelong habit, I reached to my Sarie for comfort. I ran my fingers over her silky ears and wondered why I could see Sarie, why I’d always been able to see and feel her.
But I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know.
Paul Sinclair and I married just after high school graduation. Sarie attended our wedding, and of course, only I could see her. She walked beside me with a slow, measured pace that would have been the envy of any bridesmaid. She never once stepped on my dress, which is more than I can say for Pop, who blubbered like a baby as he walked me down that aisle.
Paul went to work as an apprentice to a plumber, and I took a part-time job at the little grocery store that sat under our first apartment. We felt like grown-ups, Paul and I, although, looking back with fondness, I realize just how young we truly were.
I clerked for four-hour shifts, six days of the week, but had told the manager, Mr. Mumfries, that I always needed to be home in time to start supper for Paul. With a tolerant smile, he put me on mornings, and I began my new life.
I loved the store. There was something satisfying about running people’s groceries down the belt, toting them up by pushing hard on the buttons of the little register. The merry ching! ching! that Mr. Mumfries said warmed his heart. I liked stocking the shelves, making sure to pull the older merchandise forward–I always felt a little like I was rescuing those dusty cans, dragging them into the spotlight, dusted and turned just so, so that one of the myriad housewives could tumble it into her basket and give it a good home.
Most of the customers were pleasant, and many of my girlfriends from high school came through, and we could always pass a few convivial minutes. Sarie sat patiently at my feet while I rang and followed me with interest when I had other duties. It was a satisfaction for me to pull up the small stool before a set of bottles that had gotten themselves out of alignment and talk to Sarie as I neatened them back into soldierly rows.
One day, as I dusted the tops of green bean cans and Sarie sat by me, drowsing in a patch of sun, a sharp voice cut into my reverie.
“Here now, girl, why’s a dog in the grocery? That’s damned unsanitary!”
It was Mrs. Hicks. Although I tried to find something to enjoy in each of the customers, Mrs. Hicks was just downright unlikable. She was impatient, loud, demanding beyond reason, and immune to kind overtures.
She loomed over us, staring with undisguised disgust at Sarie. I looked at Sarie, too, and thought for a confused moment that Mrs. Hicks must see some other dog. But Sarie had gained her feet and stared up at Mrs. Hicks with firm concentration.
“Here now, what’s it doing? Is it going to bite? Tell me, girl! Is that animal planning on taking after me?”
Despite her words, her tone was less of fear and more of a challenge…if Sarie had been the biting type, I believe Mrs. Hicks would have bit her back.
“Mrs. Hicks,” I said, stumbling over my words. “You see her? You see my dog?”
Now Mrs. Hicks eyes came to mine, and her face squinched up like she smelled something bad. “Of course I see it; I’m old, not blind! And I’m glad to see you admit that it is your dog. Now, go and get Mr. Mumfries…I’ll have a word with him, and you’ll be out of a job within the hour!”
I was not in the least concerned with her threat but very dismayed that she could see Sarie. “Mrs. Hicks,” I said, “do you feel all right? Do you feel ill at all?”
My question seemed to enrage her, and she turned and stomped away, her basket swinging with indignation. I looked down at Sarie as my dear angel dog stared after Mrs. Hicks.
“Sarie,” I said to catch her attention. She turned her eyes up to mine. “Is Mrs. Hicks going to die?”
Up front, Mrs. Hick’s voice swooped and careened, sending other lady shoppers for the
front door in a hurry. Mr. Mumfries nodded and nodded while occasionally glancing down the aisle towards me. Mary, the other cashier, leaned over her belt to look for me in the aisle, and Mr. Mumfries said, “Mary, mind your belt, please. Mrs. Hicks, can you show me where you saw the dog?”
“I certainly can!” Mrs. Hicks said, her voice a bugle. “Your girl was sitting right next to it! Talking to it!” She stomped toward me, and Mr. Mumfries drifted behind her as though caught in her wake. “There!” she said and flung her hand out to indicate where Sarie was standing.
Mr. Mumfries looked over her shoulder. He coughed into his fist. “Ah, Mrs. Hicks…that is a stool.”
“What? No! NO! Next to the stool, Mr. Mumfries…next to the stool is a little brown dog with short fur but long ears…NEXT to the stool!”
Mr. Mumfries’ eyes went from Mrs. Hicks to the stool to me and back to Mrs. Hicks. He smiled tightly and with no friendliness. “There is no dog there, Mrs. Hicks. I’m not sure what you’re playing at, but I wish you would play at it next door at Cullen’s Hardware. Good day.”
Mrs. Hicks stared after him, her mouth dropping open. Then she turned her shocked eyes to me, to Sarie. “But…but…”
“Mrs. Hicks, this is important,” I said and kept my voice as calm as I could. I didn’t like Mrs. Hicks, but I didn’t wish anything bad to happen to her either. And I already had at least a suspicion of what it could mean that she was able to see my good dog. “Do you feel ill at all?”
Her face became dark and thunderous, and I became afraid my inquiry would be the thing to kill her.
“There is nothing wrong with me, girl,” she said, “and I don’t appreciate what you are implying! You can fool your manager, but you can’t fool me. You know there is a dog there; you were talking to it!”
I felt ashamed, but how could I have told Mr. Mumfries that there was, indeed, a dog where Mrs. Hicks had been pointing? He’d never have believed me.
So I merely shrugged, unsure of myself. Besides, the only evidence I had of what I suspected might be Sarie’s true nature was from something that had happened almost three years ago!
And I was only eighteen.
I comfort myself with that to this day.
Mrs. Hicks stormed out, and two days later when I was scheduled to work again, I learned that she had died. Mary, the other checker, had the story ready when I came in. She leaned across her belt to whisper it to me when we were in between customers and Mr. Mumfries was busy on the phone. I both did and didn’t want to hear what Mary had to say…I was terrified that Mrs. Hicks had indeed died of a heart attack after yelling at me, but it turned out not to be that nor anything to do with me at all.
“She had a man washing her windows in the afternoon, and he wasn’t washin’ ’em right to suit her,” Mary said. She rounded her eyes at me, enjoying the drama of her own narrative. “She said to him, ‘Here, boy, let me up there,’ and the man said, ‘No, ma’am, no way is you getting up on this ladder!’ and Mrs. Hicks said, ‘The hell I’m not! Now climb down from there this instant!’ and the man did as she told him to do. It was only a little ladder, a four-footer and not even shaky if you stayed below the second step from the top! But Mrs. Hicks tried to stand all the way up on it, dissatisfied with the second from the top step, and she tumbled right off!”
Mary pulled back to ring up a lady buying four apples and a bag of brown sugar; then she leant back over after checking Mr. Mumfries’ whereabouts.
“But she was fine! The man said so! She was more embarrassed than she was anything else, and she gave him the rough side of her tongue. Then she went banging on inside her house and didn’t even pay him for the work he dun.
“That night, she went to bed, but she musta hit her head or something, ’cause she never woke up the next day! Her son called up Mr. Mumfries yesterday and told him the whole thing, and Mr. Mumfries told me! Well, he told me just some of it, you know. The rest I heard from Stacey Keller at the Cut ’n Sew. You know her? She’s fixin’ to marry one of the Upton boys.”
I let Mary talk on but looked down at Sarie, who was lying with her nose on my shoe. Her eyes were closed, and the very tips of her ears trembled with her every breath. I reached down as though to pull up my socks and gave her a quick pat and a rub on her ears. I guess in some way I should have been afraid, but to me, she was more miracle than curse. Even if I were to never fully understand the place she occupied–the place that seemed to be somewhere between here and what comes after–she was still my good dog.
Paul and I had decided we’d have a baby just as soon as his apprenticeship was complete. He couldn’t wait. He talked night and day about the baby we’d have, telling me how beautiful he or she would be, and that he hoped all our children would look like me.
Mum and Pop were anxious for us to have a baby, too, and were overjoyed when Paul and I told them the good news that I was pregnant. Paul’s brothers and sisters had already begun to produce an impressive number of grandchildren to add to the Sinclair clan, but for my parents, ours would be their first.
When I had Beth, Mum and Pop were the first ones to hold her when Paul brought her to the waiting room. But it was very late by then, and they left the hospital before I was awake, Mum telling Paul that she would be back first thing tomorrow morning and Pop saying he’d be over during his lunch break.
I wish I could have seen Pop holding Beth; I wish I could have seen the joy on his kind and loving face.
But I was never to see my pop alive again.
My prediction to him the night that Mum had her stroke came true: he never would have to learn how to go on without her, because he left her first.
After Paul told me about the accident at the shop where Pop worked, I curled onto my side, my stomach still aching from Beth, and held Sarie to me as I cried. She whined gently and pushed her body against mine as though she could not get close enough. After some time, a nurse brought Beth in, and I was able to let Sarie go in order to hold my daughter. But she stayed pressed to my side, her chin on Beth’s swaddled legs as I cried in a mixture of grief and joy that was nearly unbearable in its intensity and conflict.
During the funeral, I sat next to Mum and held Beth tightly even though sisters-in-law, well-meaning friends, cousins, and neighbors had all asked if they could hold her for me. I felt as though I never wanted to let her go. Mum’s arm was steady across my back, and Paul was a bolstering presence on my other side.
Sarie lay next to Pop’s casket, under a large bouquet. She watched each visitor with careful regard, her dark eyes lit with sympathy. I was glad she stood by Pop that day; her presence was soothing, like a cool hand on your forehead when you were feverish.
During a lull between visitors, Mum leaned over and traced her finger down Beth’s cheek. “May I hold her, Colleen?” she asked. I handed the baby over willingly even though it meant the loss of Mum’s arm across my back. I felt very much my mother’s child that day–I had only just turned twenty–but was glad to be able to give comfort as well as receive it.
Mum smiled at Beth and kissed her forehead and cheeks. Then she cut her eyes to me, almost shyly.
“What is it, Mum?” I asked, whispering.
She leaned close to my ear and said, “Colleen, do you still have your little dog? Sarie? Is she here?”
I nodded and looked at her with curiosity. Paul and Mum accepted Sarie–accepted her as a part of me, at least–but they never mentioned her.
“Could you ask her to…to sit with Pop?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“She’s already there, Mum,” I said and tried to swallow around a hot tightness in my throat. I reached my arm around her back so that now I held both my mum and my daughter. I brushed the soft top of Beth’s head with my lips and kissed Mum’s cheek.
I said, “Don’t worry, Mum; she’s lying right next to him.”
When Beth was six months, she saw Sarie.
I’d put Beth on a blanket on the grass near me while I pegged out the laundry. It had been
a dreary morning, the sun hidden behind thick gray clouds that threatened rain. I’d dreamed about Pop the night before, and although I didn’t remember the particulars of the dream, I could recall the substance: he’d been lost, and I hadn’t been able to find him.
I knew the dream was just a part of grief, but it had left me in a low and melancholy state of mind. Sarie followed me from kitchen to bedroom, whining quietly. Finally, I peeked in on a napping Beth and then sat on the kitchen floor and gathered Sarie into my arms. I tilted my face onto her warm back and let the tears come, too tired to fight them.
As I cried, it was as though the heaviness of my grief–not the grief itself, just some of the burden of it–passed from me, and my mind felt easier. I kissed Sarie on the top of her head and gave her another hug. “You’re my good angel, aren’t you, Sarie-girl?”
She tilted her head and lifted one small paw as if agreeing that, yes, she was very much my good girl.
The rain that had been threatening never materialized, and instead, the sun came out by lunchtime. That’s when I took both baby and laundry into the backyard.
The sun was hot, and the laundry heavy and cool in my arms. As I pinned up the sheets, the breeze pushed them so that they waved reluctantly, too wet to dance as they would in an hour or so.
Beth began to laugh. I thought that she was laughing at the sight of the sheets and so peeked around one, a smile starting on my face.
She was on her back, and Sarie jumped and panted around her, tongue out and lolling as if she were laughing, too. It was teasing and playful, but my heart stopped when Beth reach for Sarie.
I couldn’t deny it; my little girl, my baby, knew Sarie was there.
I grabbed Beth up, my heart finally beating again, but much too quickly. “Sarie, no,” I said, barely able to breathe out the words. “Please…no. No, no!”
Sarie stood looking at me, her tail waving slowly as though unsure what to make of my tone. She didn’t look like a messenger of death come to draw my child into the next world; she just looked like a little brown dog.
More Good Dogs: More Stories About Good Dogs and the People Who Love Them Page 7