“See?” I said to the bartender.
“You’re right,” he said, without a trace of sarcasm. “That’s quite a dog.”
When I woke up, I found that I was smiling.
I remember my wife in white. I remember her walking toward me on our wedding day, a bouquet of red flowers in her hand, and I remember her turning away from me in anger, her body stiff as a stone. I remember the sound of her breath as she slept. I remember the way her body felt in my arms. I remember, always I remember, that she brought solace to my life as well as grief. That for every dark moment we shared between us, there was a moment of such brightness I almost could not bear to look at it head-on. I try to remember the woman she was and not the woman I have built out of spare parts to comfort me in my mourning. And I find, more and more, as the days go by and the balm of my forgiveness washes over the cracked and parched surface of my heart, I find that remembering her as she was is a gift I can give us both.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, first of all, to my parents, Doreen C. Parkhurst, M.D., and William Parkhurst, my stepmother, Molly Katz, and my grandmother Claire T. Carney, for passing along their wisdom and for being my first and most supportive readers.
Thank you to Kim Alleyne, Cybelle Clevenger, Lee Damsky, Paula Whyman, and Katrin Wilde for their friendship, advice, insightful reading, and humor. And a special thank you to Matthew Rosser for his enthusiastic support and promotion.
Thank you to my agent, Douglas Stewart, for all his incredible work, and to everyone at Curtis Brown, especially Ed Wintle and Dave Barbor.
Thank you to my wonderful editor, Asya Muchnick, and to everyone at Little, Brown, especially Alison Vandenberg, Heather Rizzo, Michael Pietsch, Laura Quinn, and Sophie Cottrell.
Thank you to all the great teachers I’ve had, especially Kermit Moyer, Richard McCann, Matthew Klam, Roberta Rubenstein, Ann duCille, Annie Dillard, Mary Manson, Susan King, Judith Robbins, and Stephen Snow.
Thank you to Barbara Fuegner for talking to me about dogs and to Annie Hallatt for talking to me about masks.
Thank you to my son, Henry, whose impending birth provided me with the deadline I needed to finish this book and whose happy face reminds me daily of what really matters. And thank you, above all, to my husband, Evan, who has supported me in every way and who has provided the invaluable service of making me happy.
Finally, though they will not read this, I would like to thank all of the dogs who have let me share their lives, especially Chelsea, who was such a good puppy dog it’s hard for the layman to understand.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carolyn Parkhurst holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from American University. She has published fiction in the North American Review, the Minnesota Review, Hawai‘i Review, and the Crescent Review. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and their son.
The Dogs of Babel Page 22