Nobody's Dog

by Ria Voros

  Aunt Laura stares at me. “It was an accident, Jakob. You didn’t cause it.”

  “I did. I kept bugging him about getting a dog and then there was one in the road and he didn’t believe me — I tried to warn him — and he almost hit it. We spun out on the wet road. If I hadn’t been distracting him, we would have been fine.”

  She shakes her head but I can see her trying to process what I’ve said. “No. That’s not true. It was a terrible coincidence, but you didn’t cause the crash.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I know because you just told me what happened. It was dark and the road was slippery. A dog ran in front of the car. It was not your fault, Jakob.”

  “You’re wrong. You weren’t there. I know what happened now.”

  Aunt Laura looks at her hands, then at me. She looks for what feels like a whole minute, as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “Okay,” she says. “Maybe what you say is true.”

  “It is,” I say, feeling the weight of it all over my body.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I blink fast. “Of course it matters.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Your parents died in a terrible car crash, and you survived. You’ve been struggling, as I have, to deal with it since it happened. How or why it happened stopped mattering a long time ago.” She leans forward and grabs both my knees. “They would forgive you, Jakob. They would forgive you in a second.”

  I haven’t cried this much since I was a kid and road-rashed the whole side of my body falling off my bike. I want to believe her but there’s the whole other part of this mess that she still doesn’t know about. How can I deserve to live when Chilko’s maybe dead somewhere because of me? I let her hug me. I hug her back.

  We’re just sitting back, wiping our faces when there’s a knock at the back door. Soleil peers through the window.

  “Sorry to bug you,” she says when she’s cracked the door. “Patrick’s here. He wants to know if you’ve seen his dog.”

  I look at the floor but I can feel Aunt Laura’s eyes on me.

  “Libby said I should come and ask you,” Soleil says. “Have you even met Chilko yet, Jakob?”

  I take a deep breath, hoping it will slow my heart down. “Yeah, I have. I guess he should come up.” I can’t look at her — at either of them. Want to run away so their eyes don’t bore into me anymore. Soleil disappears silently.

  “Jakob, what’s going on?” Aunt Laura’s hand reaches for me, touches my shoulder.

  Steps on the stairs, across the deck, his shadow in the doorway. Then his deep voice: “Morning. Sorry to bother you, but have you seen Chilko? He’s missing and I’ve checked everywhere around my house.”

  “Jakob?” Aunt Laura’s voice is tight.

  I glance at Patrick. He looks almost as tired as I feel. His eyes are hollow, missing something that was there the last time I saw him.

  And I did that.

  “You’d better come in,” I say. I don’t know how long my voice will hold out before it cracks.

  When Patrick’s sitting on the couch beside Aunt Laura, I sink back into my spot and grasp at the best way to start. There’s no J putting smart words into my mouth. Just me.

  They sit across from me, waiting, wondering what I can possibly have to say. Wondering how bad it is.

  The story spills out fast but it’s all there: each night roaming, the time I met Chilko at Patrick’s with Libby. The last two nights, when I stole him from the yard. Last night, when I found the truth about the accident and lost Chilko at the same time. I don’t feel anything — not fear or guilt or sadness. Just empty. The emptiest person on the planet. This is what it feels like to steal, to take someone’s life or someone they love’s life, and be responsible for it.

  I can’t bear to look up. I don’t even know how to apologize for it, so I just say, “I understand if you never forgive me. I don’t deserve it.” And I realize it’s true. I don’t deserve to be forgiven by Patrick, but especially not by Chilko, if he’s even alive.

  “Oh, Jakob.” Aunt Laura gets up. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry, Patrick.”

  I grip the arm of the couch, waiting for him to speak. Nothing is worse than waiting. When I glance up, he’s looking at me straight. His eyes are serious, heavy. I can’t tell what’s behind them. “So you searched the area where the accident happened?”

  “Twice. He must have run off. Maybe tried to make his way home.” My throat is dry.

  “Did you call anyone? Animal shelter or the pound?”

  “No.” It sounds so stupid that we left it up to ourselves. What was I thinking?

  Patrick gets up.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Me too,” he says.

  “I’m a terrible person and I should never have done any of it. All I want is for him to be okay.”

  He starts for the door.

  “Jakob, we’re going to have to talk about this,” Aunt Laura says. “This is a serious issue.”

  “I’m grounded for life. I ground myself.”

  “Well, that’s not the point —” she begins.

  Patrick closes the door behind him without saying goodbye.

  “I just don’t know what to say,” Aunt Laura whispers. “How could you do this?”

  I rest my forehead on my knees. I don’t know.

  The door opens again.

  “Before he’s grounded for life, Laura —” Patrick pauses just long enough to look me in the eye. “Can he come with me?”

  Chapter 14

  Patrick’s truck is old and beat-up, with a really long gearshift and bouncy seats that don’t have headrests. A few postcards are fastened to the roof: Tweedsmuir Park and Chilko Lake. I remember the photo of puppy-Chilko playing in the river. Country music plays loud on the radio and Patrick doesn’t turn it down. He pulls onto Keith Road then asks me to direct him.

  “It’s at Keith and Lynnmouth,” I say. “We took Seventh until Cygnet Street and then turned onto Keith. Chilko knew the route.”

  Patrick rubs the bridge of his nose. “You had some secret life. Both of you.”

  I lean my head against the window as the twangy music plays. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  We’re almost there when he turns off the radio and turns to me. “I never finished telling you about when I got Chilko.” He pauses to see if I’m listening.

  “You don’t have to,” I say. “It’s way too hard now.”

  “For you or me?”

  I cringe as I look over at him. “I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

  “Hard to do that at this point.”

  I hide my face with my hands. “Oh god. I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m just saying I might as well talk about it. Who knows — maybe it’ll feel better.” Suddenly he pulls the truck over. “We’re here.”

  I can’t believe how well I know this intersection now. I’ve been here three times in the past twenty-four hours.

  Patrick gets out of the truck with Chilko’s leash in his hand. I force myself to follow.

  “I told you Chilko’s mom had this great den in the empty lot, right?” We take the path down into the woods. The same path I’ve seen in pitch black, dawn and daytime. “She was letting me hang out with them, even play with the pups.” He calls Chilko’s name in a loud, low voice. No answer. He turns to look into a cleared area, calling again.

  “If you knew she was a stray, why didn’t you take her home?” I ask.

  “Didn’t seem to be a point. She was happy, healthy. The pups were doing fine. I saw them every day. I figured when they were old enough I’d call a vet, get them vaccinated, and they’d adopt them out. And I liked having them to myself.”

  “But something happened,” I say, because I can feel it like a bend in the trail — this story won’t end well.

  “Yup. The developer of the lot showed up before I got there one morning. He must have called animal control because they were all gone. The box was there,
but no mom, no pups. I was pretty angry. With the guy and with myself.”

  “Why with yourself?” I ask, but I think I know.

  “I should have thought about the pups’ safety, not just what I was getting from them. They should have gone to a place where they could have been looked after.”

  “But she was doing fine on her own, you said.”

  “Yeah, she was. But I forgot that other people don’t always see things that way. And she was squatting on someone’s land. Just a matter of time.”

  “So did you find them?”

  “Well, yeah, I did.” Patrick looks at me sideways.

  “Don’t say they killed them.”

  His eyebrows join together. “Only Mom. She got really angry that they wanted to move the pups. I guess she bit someone pretty badly. They euthanized her.”

  “No!” I shout. “How could they? Didn’t they think about the puppies?”

  “I’m not sure they cared.”

  “So you found the puppies and got Chilko?”

  “I didn’t know anything about his mom being killed at that point. I was still at the lot, wondering what had happened. Then I saw a black and white thing under a bush.”

  “Chilko,” I say, relief flooding through me. “They forgot him.”

  “Or missed him,” Patrick says. “I reached for him, but he squirmed away. As I went around to try from the other side, he scrambled into the big old box, calling for his mom and sisters. It was the saddest thing I ever saw.” He pauses and puts his head back, letting out Chilko’s name in a long, low howl.

  I can’t move. My throat is dry and achy and I want to turn away, but I can’t.

  And then it hits me. The cardboard box. The empty lot. Why didn’t I think of it before? “I think I know where he is.” I’m already running.

  “Turn left here.” My guts squirm as we take the corner onto the street with the hippie houses. The box he was so interested in last night. It has to be. Please, please let him be here.

  “There?” Patrick pulls over.

  I’m already out of the truck before he’s turned off the engine. I don’t even look for cars — just sprint across the street yelling his name, heart hammering in my chest.

  The box is still there. A corner of it sticks out behind the bush. I yell his name over and over, stepping through the rags and garbage as Patrick comes up behind me.

  And inside the box is our dog. Chilko, curled with his head on his back paws. He lets out a whine, only thumps his tail a little, but he’s there. He’s alive.

  He’s soft and warm and smelly and alive.

  And then I’m seeing it from above, watching myself touch his paw, Patrick lean in to talk to him, check his body over. The Jakob beside them is crying, but from here my face doesn’t feel wet. There’s a warm weight on my shoulders like a pair of hands. They press me back to the ground. It’s okay, Jakob. It’s okay. And when Patrick turns to me, saying something with an almost-smile, it is. Not perfect or normal or easy. But okay.

  Acknowledgements

  Realizing the dream of being a writer has taken a lifetime, and there are a lifetime’s worth of people to thank. First, my elementary and high school teachers who encouraged writing — and reading. Without reading obsessively as a child, all this never would have happened. Next, the university instructors who guided my studies. I was able to transform my passion into a craft because of those gifted and generous writers.

  This story started as a rough draft passed around a small but diligent writing group. It then became a second rough draft, passed around again. Thank you, Kathy Para, Rachelle Delaney, John Mavin, Carolyn Jarvis for your insights and suggestions early on. Kellee Ngan for her astute and excellent comments on a later draft. Also, an amazing network of writer friends who offer support, critical insight and laughter.

  Others who have helped in strange and wonderful ways: Christina Mavinic (for help with nurse-speak) Kirsti Ziola (for the you-know-what), Hannah Tunnicliffe (for being fabulous), Théo Fraser Armstrong (for photography and therapeutic coffees).

  Vielen Dank to my parents for their love, support and, recently, babysitting services, and my sister for letting me tell her rambling stories on family hikes all those years ago.

  Big thanks to my agent, Louise Lamont, and editor, Anne Shone, for their confidence in the story and expert help in publishing.

  And last, my husband, Daryl: thank you for being my best friend, champion and assistant plot-knot-untangler. And to our daughter, Elodie, for being adorable and wonderfully oblivious.

  About the Author

  Ria Voros has known for a long time that she wanted to write a story about a dog. Her own rescue dog, Pender, was partly the inspiration for Chilko. He was a shepherd-husky cross — although everyone thought he was part wolf — and was a constant companion during the writing of Nobody’s Dog. Ria says, “As the story unfolded, I realized Jakob had a lot to learn from Chilko, not only about dogs, but also about life. I went through the same process with Pender when I adopted him from a shelter. In the end, both Jakob and I are better people because of the relationships we’ve had with our dogs.”

  Ria is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing MFA program. She has published fiction and poetry in literary journals and has won several poetry and creative writing prizes. She has also taught courses in fiction, poetry, literature and writing for children. Nobody’s Dog is her first novel. Ria lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia, with her family.