The Dog Who Was There

by Ron Marasco

  ADVANCE ACCLAIM FOR THE DOG WHO WAS THERE

  “An incredibly inspiring and beautiful tale of a blessed journey of lessons learned as told through the voice of one man’s (and humanity’s) best friend, a loving dog named Barley. Ron Marasco transports both heart and mind heralding understanding and acceptance while weaving rich religious history within the pages of this unique adventure.”

  —KRISTIN CHENOWETH, TONY AND EMMY AWARD-WINNING ACTRESS

  “If you need a spirit-lift, a book of hope, a read that will urge you to believe that hope is worth the risk, you are holding the right book. Do yourself a favor—read and enjoy!”

  —MAX LUCADO, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GOD CAME NEAR AND BEFORE AMEN

  “Some of the greatest life lessons about courage, loyalty, trust, and patience . . . I’ve learned from my dog. Read The Dog Who Was There and learn an amazing lesson about faith.”

  —ANDY ANDREWS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE NOTICER AND THE TRAVELER’S GIFT

  “The Dog Who Was There is a page-turning read that stops and opens the heart. Revealing profound truth with compelling grace, Ron Marasco offers a singular vision of the greatest story ever told.”

  —BETH HENLEY, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT OF CRIMES OF THE HEART AND THE JACKSONIAN

  “The Dog Who Was There is a wonderful, engaging book that adds a completely new perspective to the Passion story. Ron Marasco has created a character in Barley who will entertain and inspire readers. The retelling of Christ’s ministry through the human characters connects the reader in a unique way to the Gospel message, but it is Barley who will charm people of all ages.”

  —KEVIN BAXTER, ED.D., SUPERINTENDENT OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLS, ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES

  © 2017 by Ronald D. Marasco, Jr.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Marasco, Ron, author.

  Title: The dog who was there / Ron Marasco.

  Description: Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2017.

  Epub Edition January 2017 ISBN 9780718083946

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016033039 | ISBN 9780718083922 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Bible. New Testament—History of Biblical events—Fiction. | Human-animal relationships—Fiction. | Jesus Christ—Fiction. | Dogs—Fiction. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Bible fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.A7275 D64 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033039

  Printed in the United States of America

  17 18 19 20 21 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

  To

  Patricia Clarkson

  whose gift for friendship

  borders on the miraculous

  “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”

  —MARK 10:29–30

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Barley was lying with his snout resting on the hearth, looking up with his alert brown eyes, watching Adah cook dinner. She was sitting, as she always did at this time of night, on her small stool and stirring a pot of something that, to Barley, smelled delicious. It was nightfall in the small home that Duv had built, all by himself, when he and Adah first became husband and wife, many years before Barley had come into their lives.

  The walls of the homey, one-room house were thick, made out of light-colored stone and coarse mud, from the region of Judea they lived in, that Duv had sanded smooth with his own hands and had painted a peaceful shade of white. The stones had no sharp corners but curved softly, giving them a rounded feel that made the whole house look to Barley like the body of a jolly, well-fed person. The ceiling was low, which was a fine fit for Adah and Duv, since neither of them was very tall. The house had only one window—a large oval whose sill Barley loved to sprawl out on and look out onto the comings and goings of neighbors, goats, donkeys, and other assorted travelers on their way up the little road to the long thoroughfare that led to the marketplace or down it to the small pasture at the end of their street.

  The whole house had a snug atmosphere that made Barley feel safe. He especially liked the comforting feel of this time of day—the lamp-lit, end-of-chores, dinner-cooking part of early nightfall.

  It was at times like this that Barley felt life was good and that it always would be.

  Whenever Barley got this feeling, he would roll his small body onto his back, allowing his scruffy off-white fur to push into the smooth hearthstone below him. Then he would raise his pink belly into the warm air of the room, let his paws dangle anywhere they wanted, and look up at the low ceiling and say to it with his eyes: Ceiling, life is good, isn’t it? And he’d answer his own question by wagging his tail back and forth—quick as a sickle, swishy as a broom.

  Tonight Barley’s wagging was particularly enthusiastic because it had been a fine and fun day. It had been spent with his masters, Adah and Duv, doing chores that Barley found particularly interesting.

  The morning, like most mornings, was spent watching Duv and Adah work in the tiny, well-tended front patch of land where they grew vegetables and had a large olive tree that always seemed full of thick, healthy olives that Barley liked to smell. On sunny days, like today, Barley always felt good-weather frisky. And when he felt this way, he would never leave Adah’s or Duv’s side in the garden, watching with great curiosity each new chore and even trying to lend his help. He’d often stick his tiny snout so close to what one of them was doing, he’d almost get conked on the nose with whatever tool they were using until they would say something like, “Do you mind, sir?” or �
�It’s hard enough to weed without you licking my ear.”

  The second half of most days was the time Adah and Duv would each do their own work. And Barley would divide his time, being alongside one or the other of them throughout the rest of the day, each day, the seven happy years he’d lived with them. Today had been water day, so most of the afternoon was spent accompanying Adah as she carried the heavy, clay water jugs out of their house and down the path to the well in the middle of the neatly-kept dirt road that was shared by all the other little houses in their neighborhood—five or six in all.

  Adah was an older woman, in her fifties—an old age for a woman in this place and time. She was rather short, and her body was somewhat plump in spots—which Barley liked, because it made her lap so comfortable he’d often hop up on it to watch her sew. Her hair was gray, her skin was soft and a little saggy in places, and her eyes were warm. When she smiled, Barley thought she looked as young and pretty as a little girl. But because she was old, some of her bones were stiff and unsure, so she moved slowly and carefully. Adah was not afraid of the hard work it took to keep a house well run in the first century AD on a humble street on the outskirts of Roman-occupied Jerusalem—even if the chore of the day was something strenuous like lugging water jars to the well, as it had been today.

  Barley had been taught that, when accompanying her on this task, he should not walk within the usual petting distance, right near Adah’s feet. It was fine to stay that close during all the other chores, and he would gladly accept the little pats she’d give him every few minutes or so—stopping her cooking or sewing or washing to lean down and give him a quick rub and a “Hi there, you” or “Good boy.” But Barley knew he had to take special care on water-carrying days not to be too close when he walked with her. That way he’d never accidentally trip her as she hauled the heavy, brimming water jars back and forth between the well and their house.

  It had almost happened once, a few years back, but they escaped with just a cracked jug and with water all over them both, which Duv, when he looked out the window and saw them, found funny. After that day, Barley had been trained to be cautious. He was small enough—between twenty and twenty-five runty pounds and less than a foot and a half high—that you could miss seeing him underfoot, though he was agile enough never to get stomped on. Usually Duv only had to correct him once before Barley understood, and Barley’s affection for Duv made it easy to comply with the few rules that Duv patiently taught him. In all the years they had been together, Adah had never heard her husband raise his voice, a characteristic she attributed to the fact that she’d married a man “whose name rhymes with love.”

  The main rule Adah insisted on was that Barley never bite.

  “A good dog doesn’t bite,” she said.

  Barley liked watching Adah and Duv work. But he also understood that dogs have their chores to do, just as people do. His job was chasing birds in the yard—even though he was never able to catch any—and being petted, and being good company, and keeping the people he loved safe by watching over their tiny house and barking to let Adah and Duv know when a visitor came up the narrow path to their door.

  Of all the little family’s chores and rituals, it was Duv’s job that seemed to Barley the most interesting of all. Duv did wood carvings—intricate little sculptures that were, to all who saw them, nothing short of lovely. That’s why Adah disliked it when people in the marketplace called Duv a woodcarver. These little creations were so beautiful that to call Duv a woodcarver would, in the famous words of Adah, be “like calling God a world-monger.”

  Figurines was what he and Adah called them. And once a week, on Friday morning, when everyone in town was busy shopping for the evening’s Sabbath meal, Duv and Adah would take the beautiful little figurines he sculpted from wood to the busy marketplace on the far side of their region and sell them.

  These figurines were always of the same subject.

  Birds.

  But because Duv worked so hard to make each one of his wooden birds a special work of art, customers in the marketplace willingly parted with their coins to buy the charming trinkets. Duv was so good at what he did that he and Adah usually sold every figurine and would return with a coin pouch filled enough to get the three of them comfortably through the week.

  Duv’s small workbench was in the back corner of the low-ceilinged house. And Barley would watch as Duv worked there, for hours each afternoon and evening, diligently carving with his sharp, homemade tools into little blocks of wood the treasures that made him known, jokingly, by the neighbors on his street as the Bird Rabbi. Barley loved observing Duv as he sat hunched over a small piece of wood, his sun-weathered face down close to whatever detail he was expertly carving, occasionally blowing away the little curls of wood he’d shave off, which Barley loved to watch flutter to the ground like even tinier little birds.

  Bit by bit, Duv would turn each piece of wood into the shape of a beautiful bird, every one in a unique pose. Then he would use an array of small twigs, the ends of which he had frayed with a tiny knife and made into brushes, to color his creations. Barley loved seeing Duv dip the different brushes into pots of interesting colors that Adah made for paint, using things like blackberries and crushed lily pollen and various plants she squeezed to drip out their pretty juice.

  Even though Duv was strong for a man of his height, and had big hands and thick fingers, when he worked on the figurines—carving delicately, painting them gently—he put such lifelike detail into the sculptures, making the birds seem so real to Barley that, one day, the most astonishing thing happened.

  Duv had just put the finishing touches on a figurine he’d worked at all day. Barley was lying by the fire next to Adah as she stirred the pot of dinner. He glanced across the room at the freshly painted bird sitting on Duv’s workbench—a bluebird figurine with an orange beak and shiny, dark-green eyes. Suddenly, as Barley was looking up at the sculpture lazily, the bird turned its head, stared right at Barley, and winked!

  Barley stood up and began to stare at the bird, to bark and bark at it until, finally, the bird winked at Barley one last time, turned its head away, and went back to being just a piece of painted wood drying on the workbench. Duv and Adah enjoyed Barley’s reaction to the figurine very much. Adah even chuckled to her husband and said, “It’s a compliment to your work, dear.” Barley didn’t know what this meant, but he never wanted to see one of the birds on Duv’s workbench do that again. And, thankfully, none ever did.

  Barley could tell by how carefully Adah and Duv handled the figurines that they were fragile and important. Duv even made a special basket in which to carry them during their long journey on foot to the marketplace. Duv always filled the basket with a heaping pile of fresh straw, and the birds certainly had a comfortable journey as Duv and Adah carried the basket—each holding a handle—a family of Duv’s lovely creations nesting between them. And along the way to the marketplace, Adah would hum little songs. “My wife is a hummer,” Duv would say to people about her, smiling.

  On one side of the bird basket was a large wooden handle. That was the side Duv held on to when they carried it to market. On the other side was a smaller handle that Duv had carved and smoothed perfectly to fit Adah’s smaller hand. And Barley had watched Duv work for two whole nights to craft a round lid for the basket that fit onto it perfectly. It was made from thin cedarwood, and around the perimeter, Duv had carved the words of an old prayer he loved, measuring perfectly so the last letter of the last word came back around to meet the first letter of the first word.

  I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

  And if that wasn’t enough, he cut into the lid several precisely rounded holes. When Adah asked what the holes were for, Duv quietly answered in his usual matter-of-fact tone, “So the birds can breathe.”

  Tomorrow was a market day, so Duv was still daubing a final little flourish of color on the last bird of the week. Tonight dinner was looking as though it might be a little later than usual—
even though Barley was by the hearth, waiting for the best moment of the day, when Adah would reach up to the shelf for Barley’s wooden dinner bowl. On nights like this, when dinner was delayed, Barley would often doze off, breathing in the smell of the cooking meal between each peaceful snore.

  Some nights, just before dinnertime, Duv would get up from his workbench and join Adah by the fire, and the two of them would pet Barley lightly at the same time, trying not to wake him. Which made Barley wonder if petting a dog together was how old people kiss, though Duv would sometimes kiss Adah anyway.

  And some nights, as Barley drowsed, the fire in the hearth would paint moving images and shadows on the walls of the room, and when Barley closed his eyes to doze in their flickering light, soon his memories would paint their own pictures on the walls of his snoozing mind and Barley would have dreams—dreams that were vivid, real, and exact.

  Tonight the dream began with an image.

  Over seven years ago, when Barley was first born, he was lying in the sun next to his mother . . .

  This was Barley’s very first memory, in the earliest days of his life. The dream began with the memory of the afternoon sun moving across the field all morning till it finally came to shine on Barley and the other pups as they lay in the curve of their mother’s belly. A week before, Barley’s mother had given birth to a happy, squirming litter of puppies, the smallest of which was Barley.

  Most of those early weeks of life had been spent lolling happily in a small clearing amid acres of crops and high grass that was their home. The clearing was on the farthest end of a landowner’s large field along a rarely traveled stretch of swaying wildflowers and reeds. There, amid a thicket of low bushes, the property abruptly ended at the bank of a wide, fast-moving stream. This stream filled the field, day and night, with a constant gushing whoosh, and flowed for miles and miles through this region of Judea. The area was alive with birds, all variety of wild foliage, as well as other splendid sights for a new dog to see.