Neverlost (Melodies and Memories)

by Kodilynn Calhoun

  The best thing about volunteering at the animal shelter? I can be myself, one hundred percent me, and I don’t really have to worry about suffering through too many people skills. The other volunteers are all pretty focused on their own jobs and sure, there are times where we all take a break in the back room and the mood is light, just a small group of people who enjoy putting their energy and free time towards the animals in need, but for the most part I can work at my own pace, on my own, and no one says a word.

  Though I’ve never owned a cat in my life, the cat room is where I find sanctuary after a long day of cleaning runs and scrubbing kennels and washing bedding, my sinuses stained with the scent of bleach-based cleaners and my ears ringing from the shrill barking echoing in the kennels.

  I can go in there and sit cross legged on the tile floor and within moments, four or five cats have gathered around me, rubbing and purring and begging for attention, their eyes filled with love despite the fact that they spend most of their days behind bars, hoping for a home of their very own.

  My favorite is a little manx with blue eyes who talks to me, vocalizing her love and her concern every time I leave. She’s loud and proud of it, patting at your leg gently with powder puff paws and the wiggle of her stubby tail. She came in with a litter of kittens and all of them have been adopted but her, but she’s a staff favorite so I’m not too worried about the outcome. One of the younger volunteers, Tandy, has been working on getting her mom to say yes to a cat and I have the good feeling that she’ll be taking our little manx home one of these days and that fills me with joy.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to smuggle her home myself.

  Most days after I get the dirty work done, I’ll leash up a dog and take them out for a jog outside of the dog runs. The way their eyes light up, overjoyed by the realization that they’re going for a walk, makes my day shine even brighter. I try not to play favorites, try to walk as many dogs as I possibly can, taking into consideration their personal issues, but some days I just want to fall into a relaxing walk with one of the calmer ones and just…enjoy the company.

  “C’mon Butchie,” I call to the skinny golden mix at the end of the leash. Butchie was an owner-surrender, dropped off as a boy—Butch—due to the fact that “he” was too hyper around their young child and kept knocking him over. Turns out, Butchie’s a little girl, still a puppy herself, and she just has too much energy to be penned up all day while her owners are at work. She’s high strung, sure, but she’s a total sweetie and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  She bounces along at my side as we make our way back towards the facility, joining along with the chorus of barking that greets us as we come around back by the dog runs. We wrap around the building to go back through the doors and Butchie’s ears prick up.

  She gives a soft huff as a freakishly tall man in an expensive looking pants suit drags an underfed, terrified looking brown dog down the sidewalk despite how she shrieks and pulls away, yanking at the leash in a panic. The man’s getting angrier and angrier, his voice a vicious growl that makes the dog freak out a little more.

  My heart jumping, I give a yell and the man spins on me, his face dark with anger. “Take this fucking bitch,” he spits, thrusting the leash into my hands and suddenly I’m trying to keep Butchie from bowling over the fearful German shepherd, struggling to keep their leashes from getting tangled up. “You’d do best to put her down. She’s a bad dog.”

  “Sir—there’s a fee to abandon a pet,” I blurt out as he walks away from the shelter with large, angry strides. His hands form fists at his sides. His dog scrabbles backwards, her entire body shaking.

  He must hear me because he stops and spins on his heel, digs a tooled leather wallet out of his pocket, and looks me in the eye like he doesn’t have time for the likes of me. He thumbs across crisp dollar bills. “How much?”

  “Seventy-five,” I tell him, my arms spread to keep Butchie and the new dog away from each other. The man gives a softly deprecating laugh and peels off four twenties. He looks at me, at my hands gripping two nylon leashes, and then he shakes his head.

  “Would’ve been cheaper to buy a bullet and kill her myself,” he says, letting the twenties flutter to the ground. “Have a nice day. Oh, and good luck.” Then he spins on his heel and stomps away. I stand there, in shock as my gut twists at the man’s palpable anger, and watch as he gets into a red sports car and peels out of the parking lot hard enough to leave black marks. Is it too much to hope his tires explode?

  “Jose!” I shout, seeing one of the other volunteers headed my way with Butchie’s cage mate Queen. He looks up and I wave him over, handing over Butchie’s leash. “Put her away for me? I gotta get this girl looked at. Her owner—if you could even call him that—just dumped her here five minutes ago and she’s scared shitless.” I look down at the cowering German shepherd who’s trying her best to stay far away from me.

  “No problem, lovely,” Jose says with a kind smile and Butchie and her friend bump noses, tails wagging happily. He and the two dogs disappear through the volunteer door. I bend down and pick up the fallen money, sticking it into my pocket. The dog wheels away to the end of her leash, head low and ears drooping. She lets out the softest whine, the whites of her eyes flashing.

  “C’mere, little girl,” I murmur, kneeling down beside her. She whines again and tugs away from me. When I reach my hand out, slow as possible, she flinches as if I might hit her and it makes my insides boil with anger. I breathe through it; she needs me to be calm right now…

  She looks mostly shepherd, maybe some lab or pit in her. Her coat is thin, a mottled brown-sable with a saddle of coarser, dark hair. Her tail is long and skinny and tucked between her thighs as she cowers. I stay low until I see her body relax, just a fraction, and I talk to her in the softest voice I can manage.

  Slowly but surely, I ease her through the front doors, though as soon as her paws touch tile, she’s scrabbling and frantic once more. “Hey Laura? Some guy just dumped his dog and left.” I place the money on the counter as Laura bends over to look at our newbie. Her expression goes from sweet to concerned as the dog backs away, yanking at her collar, trying to get free, claws clicking on the tile. I frown. “I hope she’s gonna be okay…” She’s too pretty to be another throw-away.

  Laura looks a little daunted when I offer her the leash. In the dog’s defense, so does she—cowering at my side, her entire posture screaming that she’s terrified. “Do you wanna take her back to quarantine and get her checked in?” Laura asks me, hopeful. “She seems to be afraid of me.”

  “She’s afraid of everything,” I say with a sigh. “C’mon girl. It’s okay, you’re okay,” I croon to her and coax her down the hall and into the back. I’m greeted with barking and howling the minute I open the doors to quarantine and it almost breaks my heart to hand the poor thing over to our vet tech. “Be gentle with her,” I whisper as the dark-haired lady takes over, and for the rest of the day, I can’t get that scared little dog out of my head.

  ~*~

  Any animals dropped off at the shelter have to be in quarantine for fourteen days. During those two weeks, the dogs and cats are vet checked and treated for any underlying health issues like mange or fleas, and temperament tested to see if they’ll be able to be adopted out in the future.

  The name they give my little shepherd is Nika and Nika suits her. It takes a few days but she’s finally given a clean bill of health besides being a little underweight, which we’ve already started tackling, but her problem seems to lie in food allergies. It makes her coat brittle, her skin dry, and her stomach upset.

  Since the shelter relies on donations and grants to fund supplies and food for the dogs and cats, we can’t exactly go out and put her on expensive grain free dog food. I mark it on the index card that hangs from her cage that she needs a special diet, but it just feels like a notch against her chances of being adopted.

  I manage to sweet-talk my supervisor into letting me hang out with Nika whi
le she’s still in quarantine and after my shifts are over, every day I slip into the back and sit next to her cage, sometimes just talking to her in a sweet tone of voice and sometimes reading children’s books to her. She sits at the back of her cage and regards me warily, like she’s not sure whether or not to trust me.

  Next time I come in, I bring a baggie of cheese chunks and slip them through the bars.

  That gets her attention. Her ears prick up, large and bat-like, as her intelligent brown eyes train on the cube of Colby jack sitting halfway between me and her. She cocks her head to the side, then slinks forwards. She inhales that cube of cheese like it’s her first meal in days, then retreats to the back of the kennel once again. I smile sadly, wondering what that man did to her to make her so damn scared, and my heart goes out to her.

  But a bag of cheese goes a long way. By the next day, she’s gently taking the treats from my hands with a gentle mouth, never once biting me, and each time she pulls away, it’s not as far to the back as before. Like she’s beginning to trust me—or she just really likes the cheese. I don’t know which. I do this every day, switching up the treats, going so far as to buy a bag of grain free dog biscuits and sticking them in my purse to take the next day.

  Of course, I tell Eli all about her. “There’s just something about her that calls to me, like, I don’t even know what. She’s so timid and scared, like she’s had a rough life and now she’s afraid to trust anyone because one person ruined it,” I say over dinner one night, my legs hooked under my chair. I’m still wearing my shelter volunteer shirt.

  He looks at me, almost incredulous, and then he laughs. “Kinda like someone else I know and love?”

  I huff at him. “Except no one hit me.”

  He softens. “Abuse is abuse. Looking into your eyes the first day I met you, it was like you were afraid of the world. Looking at you now? God, Teagan, you’ve come so far. You’re radiant, beautiful—not that you weren’t then. But now…”He shakes his head and smiles a weird little smile. “Maybe it’s karma. Maybe you’re me this time, and that little dog is you. She trusts you just like you trusted me.”

  I shrug him off, but it really gets me thinking—what if he’s right? What if I’m the one person Nika will ever be able to trust? What if someone adopts her and treats her even worse, after I’ve worked so hard to get her to the point where she wags her tail ever so slightly upon seeing me? What if someone else crushes her soul when I could’ve been the one to save the light in her eyes?

  She weighs so heavily on my mind that I toss and turn all night, dread and excitement warring within me.

  I want her. It’s stupid. I don’t need another mouth to feed; I don’t even have a job. I’m living off Eli’s dime and though he’s promised me again and again that it doesn’t matter, that he wants to help me, I feel guilty. A dog’s not in my agenda. I can’t take her on, as much as I want to keep her safe. This isn’t my path.

  But when I go to the back, baggie of treats tucked in my pocket, and her cage is empty? Completely scrubbed clean with bleach, no traces of Nika ever being there? My stomach tightens with an unworldly ache that has my panic button shoved in hard. I swallow back fear—what if she bit one of the volunteers? What if they put her down and I never got to say goodbye?—and jog back to the front, slapping my hands down on the desk to get Laura’s attention.

  “Where’s Nika,” I ask, breathless.

  Her eyes widen. “Whoa, calm down. You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “Where’s Nika…” Please don’t let her be dead.

  “They moved her out of quarantine. We’ve got a litter of malnourished pit puppies coming in today and they needed the space,” she says and the air rushes out of my lungs in a whoosh. I sag against the desk and try to calm my skittering pulse. “You okay?”

  “I just… I thought…” I shake my head. She’s okay. She’s safe. “I just really like her,” I say and Laura gets this knowing sparkle in her eye, like she knows exactly where I’m headed. Despite everything I claimed, despite the fact that I probably can’t afford grain free dog food, despite the fact that I most likely can’t have a dog in my apartment…

  I need her.

  No. She needs me.

  I push through the double doors of the kennel, walking down aisle after aisle until I find her, hunkering in the back of her cage, looking more miserable and terrified than before. “Nika,” I call and her ears tip forward, eyes wary but hopeful. I pull the slip leash off the hook on the wall and open Nika’s kennel door enough to squeeze through. I gently loop the noose around her neck and she tucks her tail, but when I call to her and rattle around in my pocket for a treat, she’s all ears.

  Gently, calmly, I coax her out of her kennel and outside and when it’s just the two of us and the peaceful sound of birdcalls serenading us, she settles down and walks beside me, albeit a little hesitantly but with much less terror than she’d shown two weeks ago.

  “Good girl,” I praise, clicking with my tongue as I hand down a piece of bacon-shaped dog treat, which she gobbles happily. Her tail wags like a banner and I can only imagine her on good food, with a healthy coat of thick fur. She’d be absolutely stunning. She deserves that chance.

  We spend an hour outside of the kennels just walking. The farther we go, the easier and looser her strides become, her eyes lighting up as we zigzag around through the grass and she’s able to sniff and scratch and roll around in something. “Nika,” I call and she freezes, dropping her head instantly.

  When she realizes I’m not going to scream or hit her, she squirms her way back to me, belly dragging on the ground. I bend over to pet her and her tail wag sends up a dust storm of dirt and I laugh. “Are you my girl?” I ask her, looking into those warm brown eyes, and I know right then and there that I can’t leave her behind this time.

  We go back inside and I march up to the front desk and look at Laura. “I need to adopt this dog,” I say, sounding bolder than I feel. But Nika presses her body against my leg, looking for reassurance, and I know I’m doing the right thing. “I can’t put her back in those kennels. I’ll figure something out, but I want her to come home with me.”

  “Are you sure? She’s got some issues.”

  “So do I. And yeah, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Nika needs a second chance and I’m the girl to give it to her.”

  Laura beams at me; I know she loves hearing about a shelter dog’s happily ever after, and I spend the next half hour filling out paperwork and signing my life away, no doubt, but one look down at Nika and I know she’s worth it. My heart is pounding and my throat is dry as nerves rush through me—I’ve never owned a dog before, what if I suck at it?—but as I sign the last form I feel a giddy rush of relief.

  “Alright then. She’s yours. The vet who checked her over said she’s already been spayed, so if you’ll bring her to the back, we can microchip her and she can go home with you tonight. Does that work?”

  “Perfect,” I breathe, reaching down to caress Nika’s ear. I look down at her at the same time she looks up at me and I feel a touch of peace begin at my core and spread outwards, like a cool stream of water lapping at my soul. “Good girl,” I whisper as Laura leads us through to the back room.

  Upon seeing the room that started it all, Nika begins to panic but I drop to my knees beside her and place my hands on her body, stroking down her fur. “You’ll be okay. Be a brave girl, Nika,” I say, sing-songing her name and she presses against my side, panting.

  “There’ll be a small prick,” Laura says, armed with syringe with a fairly thick needle, and for a moment I think she’s talking to me. But then she bends down and with the gentlest of touches, slides the needle under the skin of Nika’s ruff and presses the plunger in. Nika doesn’t even flinch.

  Laura stands back up again and rubs the area between her fingers. “There we go. She’s official,” she says with a big smile. “If we’re being honest, I’m so happy you’re taking her home. You’re her favorite p
erson…plus I was kind of worried she’d get adopted by someone with too rough of a hand. She’s such a beauty.”

  “I just can’t leave her behind,” I say, scratching behind Nika’s ear. “Thank you. I’m gonna get her home before it gets dark, so she can get situated and meet my boyfriend’s dog.” I suck in a breath and send up a prayer that Beefcake will adore her just as much as I do. Eli will call me a sucker, but I know he’ll fall in love with her as soon as he gets to know her, so I’m not worried.

  I’m almost out the door when Laura calls my name. I turn back around to face her and she suddenly looks wise, like her soul is much older than her thirty-two years on earth. “Teagan? What would you say if I offered you a job here?”

  My mouth goes dry. “What do you mean? Like, a paying job?”

  She laughs. “Yeah, we had a position open up today. You could continue doing what you’re doing with a bit of paperwork added in and I’d pay you for it. I can only offer minimum wage, but you really have a touch with animals and I’d like to bring you on board full time. You don’t have to make a decision tonight. Just wanted to offer.”

  Damn and double damn. “Laura… I’d love that—I mean it. This is like, an answer to prayers. Really.” I’m grinning like a fool but I don’t even care. “What do I need to do?”

  “Tonight? You go home and take care of that beautiful dog. The spot is yours. We’ll get you official, say, Monday? Come in after noon and we’ll get everything set up.”

  “Thank you,” I say, over and over, and Laura chuckles.

  “Go buy that dog the biggest bag of grain free food you can afford. She’s worth it,” she says with a wave. I look down at Nika, who looks suddenly unsure, no doubt wondering if I’m taking her back to the kennels filled with raucous barking and pitiful howls.

  I bend down and pet her on the head, smoothing down her fur, then plant a kiss on her nose. She blinks up at me, then wags her tail. “Let’s go home, sweetie.”