by Mary Gordon
“So I put the muzzle on the dog, she doesn't give any trouble, she'd do anything for me, but she gives me this terrible look when the doctor sticks the needle into her. My father and I sit in the waiting room, we don't know what's happening, our hearts are in our mouths. Then the doctor comes in and calls my father into his private room.
“ ‘Doctor,’ he says to my father, ? don't know how to tell you this, but this animal you have isn't a dog, it's a wolf. A gray wolf ”
Immediately, I hear howls, see wild eyes, enormous teeth, huge paws prowling in the moonlight on hard-packed snow that glistens blue and silver. Wolf: danger and magic, poverty and chaos too: the wolf at the door, wolf in sheep's clothing, crying wolf. Life lived at night, remotely, inexplicably.
“My father asks if he's sure. The vet says yes. My father says it's the best dog he's ever had, he tells him how she's saved my life twice.
“The vet says, ‘The problem is, Doctor, it's illegal to have a wolf in the city of New York. You'll have to take her back to where she came from or give her to a zoo.’
“My father says, ‘Doctor, you have been my patient for twenty years. If you want to go on being my patient, listen to me. This dog is a member of the family. I will not get rid of her. I will not separate her from the people she loves or put her in a cage.’
“The vet says, ‘Let me make one call’
“He finds out that he can get a wildlife license for us. Which he does. And this is how we got to keep Brownie.
“Well, we kept her for another three years. We'd take her up to the Catskills in the summer. She'd sleep in the woods at night and be waiting for us at the hotel in the mornings. One morning she wasn't there. We never saw her again. But I knew it was all right. I knew she'd returned to her pack.”
“You don't think she just went into the woods to die?” I ask.
“She was too young for that,” he says.
“Perhaps she was killed by another animal.”
“I believe she went back to join her pack. I'll tell you why. I've made a study of wolves, for reasons I'm sure you find obvious. You see, in a pack, only one female, the alpha female, the dominant one, is allowed to mate. If a beta female wants to mate, she has to leave the pack.”
“You think that's what Brownie did?”
“Most definitely, yes, I think so.”
“So she left when she was young because she wanted to mate, and then when she got older she wanted to go back to the family.”
“I would say so.”
“It's sort of a story about female desire, then,” I say. “And what happens when that ends, and it's replaced by an urge for conformity.”
His eyebrows are almost up to his hairline now. “Maybe it's a story about that for you. For me, it's a wonderful story about a wonderful dog. And I have many more stories about this dog that I could tell you. But I won't be seeing you for quite a while because everything you're doing, from my perspective, is perfect, just keep doing everything you're doing. One hundred percent.”
Separation
The social worker said: “I think he needs a group experience.”
Not looking at JoAnn, handing a piece of paper with a black design JoAnn saw later was the steeple of a church. Ascension Play School.
“It's no trip for you,” the social worker said to JoAnn. “See that building there, behind the Episcopal church. They wrote to us, saying they're offering a scholarship to any child of ours who might benefit from a group experience.”
Child of ours?
Of yours?
No one's but mine.
She put her hand over her mouth, to keep back something. Sickness? Bad words that would cause trouble later on? Words that would be put down in the file. She knew their ways. This Mrs. Pratt was not the first of them, she'd had a lot of them in towns over the years.
The game was shut your mouth.
The game was shut your mouth and keep it shut.
The game was shut your mouth and give them what they wanted.
Town after town. Arriving. Making your way to the county seat, the hall, the metal desks, the forms to be filled out, the bad lights with their buzzing noises, and the questions.
Name?
Her husband's. Not an out-of-wedlock child. Her son. Hers, but everything all right before the law. The husband, not abandoning, but driven off. Pushed out. No room for him, he knew it, and was sorry, but he knew. One day: “Well, I'll be shoving off.”
“All right.”
A night she stayed up, when the baby had the croup. Her husband saw her happiness. He saw how happy she was, after the steaming shower and the rush outside to the cold air, after all this, the easy, even breathing. And her humming. Song after song.
“Well, I'll be shoving off.”
“All right.”
Rubbing the boy's wet head with a dry towel. Wet from the steam she'd set up in the bathroom. His hair that smelled like bread. She put her lips to it, and breathed it in. His easy breath, the wet smell of his hair. And looked up at the father, at the husband, sorry for him, but it was nothing, he was right to leave, there wasn't any place for him.
Humming, his damp head and his easy breathing. Happy, happy. All I want.
He needs a group experience.
All I have ever wanted.
Her childhood: blocks of muteness. Of silence because what was there to say. Neglect, they called it. She was kept alive. Fed. Clothed. She saw now that could not have been so easy. The flow of meals, sweaters, jackets, in the summer short-sleeved shirts and shorts, a bathing suit, washed hair, injections that were law. She felt sorry for her mother, whom she could barely remember now. She had trouble calling up the faces of the past.
Her memory: the outline of a head, a black line surrounding nothing. The faces blank. Unharmful ghosts, but nothing, nothing to her. And of course no help.
It was why she didn't like the television. All the filled-in faces. She wanted, sometimes, to ask people about their memories. Do you remember people when you are away from them? The faces? At what point do they come alive?
Even her husband's face grown ghostly.
But she never said these things. She kept to herself. Smiling, quiet, clean. She and her son.
Never causing trouble.
Keeping things up.
Arriving on time for the social worker.
The clinic.
The dentist, who said it was all right if she sat on the chair and he sat on her lap to be examined. Otherwise he'll scream.
Fine, then, Mrs. Verbeck. Just keep it up. Keep him away from sugar snacks. Fresh fruit. Apples or carrot sticks. Water rather than soda or other sweetened drinks.
Yes, thank you. Yes.
You've done a good job. Not one cavity. You floss his teeth?
I will.
We'll show you how. Miss Havenick, the hygienist, will show you.
“Let's open our mouth, Billy.”
Not yours. His.
And mine.
She wanted to phone the call-in radio and ask one of the doctors. Are the faces of people empty to other people as they are to me?
Except his face. The one face I have always known.
At night while he slept she sat on a stool beside him just to learn his face. So that she never would forget.
An angry baby. Happy only in her arms.
He doesn't take to strangers. Thanks, no, I can manage. Thanks.
Did anyone look at her face? In the shadowy childhood, family of shadow, furniture the part of it that she remembered most. The green couch. The red chair.
Did anyone look at my face?
He needs a group experience.
But we are happiest alone.
But never say it. She knew what people thought. Children need other children. They believe that, everyone believes it.
Only I do not believe it.
Only he and I.
Happy, happy in the studio apartment, in the trailer, in the basement rented in the rotting house. Happy in the superm
arket, laundromat, bank where we stand on line to cash the check from welfare. Singing, eating meals we love, the walks we take, bringing back leaves, pinecones. Puzzles we do in silence, cartoon shows we watch.
She wanted to say to them: “We're very happy.”
She never said these things. She moved.
Five towns. Five different states.
He needs a group experience.
This time she thinks they may be right. Now he is four years old. Next year, no hope.
No hope. No hope.
All I have ever wanted.
On the first day of school, she dresses him. She didn't dare to buy new clothes for school. She puts on him the clothes that he has worn all summer. Black jeans with an elastic waist. An orange short-sleeved shirt with a design of a bear on the left breast pocket. White socks, his old red sneakers he is proud of. Velcro. He can do them himself.
The teacher says: “He's never had a group experience?”
“No, just with me.”
“Maybe, then, for the first few days you can stay with him. For a little while. Until he adjusts to the group situation.”
She sees the other mothers bought their boys and girls new clothes. And for themselves. She parks the car behind the church and waits till they have all gone in the little building, like a hut, built for the children. All the other mothers know each other. Like each other. And the children.
There is no one that we know.
The teacher is standing at the door. “Good morning Jessica, Kate, Michael, Daniel, Jason, Alison.” “And here comes Billy.”
Children are playing on the swings and slides.
Children are playing in the sandbox.
Girls are pretending to cook at the toy stove, using toy pots and spoons and dishes.
Boys are in the corner making a house of large blocks, then shoving it down, building it, knocking it down, fighting, building.
Billy hides his face in her shoulder.
“I won't leave you.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” says the teacher. “After he gets more used to the group, you'll feel that you can leave after a while.”
The teacher's pants are elastic-waisted, like the children's pants. She wears blue eye shadow, her fingernails are pink as shells. She is wearing sandals with thin straps. She is wearing stockings underneath the sandals. JoAnn wonders: Maybe they are socks that only look like stockings. Maybe they stop.
At night he says: “Don't take me back there.”
“All right,” she says. Later she says: “I made a mistake. We have to go.”
The second day of school he will not look at anybody. When the teacher puts her hand on his shoulder to ask if he sees anything he might like to play with, he pushes her hand away and looks at her with rage. “No one said you could touch me.” He hides his eyes. He grinds his eyes into his mother's shoulder blade.
She's proud that he can speak up for himself. But she is frightened. Now what will they do?
In the playground, he lets her push him on a swing. She lights a cigarette. The other mothers don't approve, although they try to smile. They tell her about their children, who had problems getting used to school.
“My oldest was like that. Till Christmas.”
No one is like us. No one is like he is.
One morning he says he's tired. She tells him he doesn't have to go to school. She keeps him home for three days. Both of them are happy.
But the next day it's worse in school. Only one of the mothers smiles at her. She says: “You know, maybe Billy's finding the group too large. Maybe he could just come over to our house. Daniel's used to the group. If they made friends, maybe that would help Billy in the group.”
“Thank you,” joAnn says. “But we're so busy.”
The social worker says: “You're not working on this separation.”
Everything has been reported. The social worker takes it as a bad sign that loAnn refused the other mother's invitation. Which she knows about.
“If I were you,” she says, ”… or maybe some counseling. For both your sakes.”
JoAnn is terrified. She tells the other mother she would like to come. The other mother writes her name and address down on a piece of paper torn from a pad in the shape of an apple with a bite out of it. It says “Debi— 35 Ranch Road.” And in parentheses, “Dan's mom.” For this, she buys her son new clothes.
He never cries anymore. Nobody can make him do anything he doesn't want to. His eyes are bright green stones. No one can make him do anything. This makes her feel she has done right.
The morning that they are going to the house they take a bath together. They laugh, they soap each other's backs. Lately she sees him looking at her sex a second longer than he ought to, and his eyes get hard and angry when he sees she sees. She knows they will not bathe together much longer after this year. But this year. Yes.
Debi, the mother, has to look several places for an ashtray. JoAnn hasn't realized there are no ashtrays until she has already lit up. They are both embarrassed. Debi says, “Somehow most of the people I know quit.” She goes through her cabinets and then finds one from a hotel in Canada. “We stole it on our honeymoon,” she says, and laughs.
Billy knows his mother doesn't want him to play with Danny. She knows he knows. But she can feel his bones grow lively on her lap; she feels his body straining toward the other children. Danny and his sisters, Gillian and Lisa. And the toys. The house is full of toys. Trucks, cars, blocks, toy dinosaurs are scattered all over the wooden floors. But the house is so big it still looks neat with all the toys all over. The house is too big, too light. The house frightens JoAnn. She holds Billy tighter on her lap. He doesn't move, although she knows he wants to. And she knows he must.
“Look at the truck,” she says. “Should we go over and look at that truck?”
Debi jumps out of her chair, runs over to the children.
“Let's show Billy the truck. See Danny's truck, Billy?” She gets down on her knees. “Look how the back goes down like this.”
JoAnn doesn't know whether or not to go down on her knees with Debi and the other children. She stands back. Billy looks up at her. His fingers itch to touch the truck. She sees it. She gives him a little push on the shoulders. “Go play,” she says. She lights another cigarette and puts the match in the heart-shaped ashtray she has carried with her.
Billy isn't playing with the other children. He is playing alongside them. Danny and his sisters are pretending to make dinner out of clay. They don't talk to Billy; they don't invite him to play with them; they leave him alone, and he seems happy with the truck. She sees he has forgotten her. For him she is nowhere in the room.
Debi says, “Let's go into the kitchen and relax. They're fine without us.”
JoAnn feels the house will spread out and the floor disappear. She will be standing alone in air. The house has no edges; the walls are not real walls. Who could be safe here?
In the kitchen in a row below the ceiling there are darker-painted leaves. She tells Debi she likes them.
“I did them myself. I'm kind of a crafts freak. Are you into crafts?” JoAnn says she always wanted to do ceramics.
“I do ceramics Thursday nights,” says Debi. She brings a cookie jar shaped like a bear to the table. “I made this last month,” she says. “And while you're at it, have one.” She offers JoAnn the open jar. “I made them for the kids, but if you won't tell I won't.”
The cookies frighten JoAnn. The raisins, and the walnuts and the oatmeal that will not dissolve against her tongue.
“If you want, there's room in our ceramics class on Thursdays. I think it's important to have your own interests, at least for me. Get away, do something that's not connected to the kids. Get away from them and let them get away from you.”
JoAnn begins to cough. She feels she cannot breathe. The walls of the big room are thinning. She is alone in freezing air. Her ribs press against her thin lungs. Debi says: “You okay, JoAnn?”
“I smoke to
o much. This year, I'm really going to quit. I've said it before, but now, this year I'm really going to do it.”
They hear a child scream. They run into the living room. Danny is crying.
“He hit me with the truck.”
“Did you hit him with the truck?” JoAnn says. “Tell Danny you're sorry.”
Billy looks at them all with his bright eyes. Except at her. He does not look at his mother. He knows she doesn't want him to apologize. He knows that she is glad he did it. He did it for her. She knows this.
“We've got to be going,” says JoAnn, picking Billy up. He presses the truck to him. “Put the truck down,” she says.
He doesn't look at anyone.
“Don't go,” says Debi. “Really, they were doing great. All kids get into things like that. They were doing great for a long time.”
“We've got to go,” JoAnn says, looking in the pocket of her plaid wool jacket for the keys. “Billy, give Danny back his truck.”
“Danny, can Billy borrow the truck till school tomorrow?” Debi asks.
JoAnn pulls the truck from her son's grip.
“Thanks, but he doesn't need it,” she says, smiling, handing back the truck. “It isn't his.”
The truck falls from her hand. It makes a hard sound on the wooden floor. Hearing the sound, Danny begins to cry again.
“Let's try it again,” says Debi. “They were really doing great there for a while.”
JoAnn smiles, holding Billy more tightly. “Sure thing,” she says.
At night, while he sleeps and she sits on the stool beside his bed to watch, she thinks of him in the room with the other children. Him forgetting. She thinks of him pushing the truck back and forth on the floor beside the other children, thinks of the walls thinning out, and her thin lungs that cannot enclose the breath she needs to live.
Alone. Alone.
All I have ever wanted.
In the morning he says: “You should have let me take that truck.” She says: “Do you want to go back to that house?” “I want the truck.” “Danny's a nice boy, isn't he?” He says: “Are you going to leave me alone today?” “I don't know,” she says. “I'll see.”