The Dog That Talked to God

by Jim Kraus

  I agonized over that first night. I placed him in the crate, patted him on the head, closed the door, and told him, “Good night.” He looked back up at me with those impervious eyes—not with sadness, but something more akin to resignation. Too small to climb the steps to the second floor anyhow, he had to sleep somewhere safe. I expected a long night of whines and barks, but I got nothing. Not a single peep. The next morning, a bit earlier than usual, I hurried downstairs. Rufus sat in the middle of the crate, not smiling, but waiting for me. He jumped out of the crate into my hands and began his puppy-nibbling.

  We happily went outside. Rufus needed to know what dogs had come calling during the night. He tried once more to kill the shrub at the corner of the yard. He had found his spot.

  At the end of those two weeks, I took down the ropes separating the family room from the kitchen. Rufus waited until I coiled them up and placed them in a drawer, then he took off with a joyful bounce and ran, full tilt, through the family room and into the sunroom, sliding on the polished hardwood floor, and crashing into the pair of hassocks, rolling, paws akimbo in the air, as happy as I had yet seen him. He had been looking at this route for a long time, and now he was relishing his first chance at experiencing in a joyful, headlong charge.

  You had to admire both his inscrutable patience and his joyful verve.

  He was almost big enough to scramble up into one of the chairs or onto the sofa in the sunroom. I spent little of my time in the family room—the room that lay between the kitchen and the sunroom. The room had seemed to grow too large, too uncozy, despite my best efforts of adding warmth. The acoustics were odd as well; the vaulted ceiling swallowed up dialogue on the television, and I did not like turning up the sound to the volume in my mother’s nursing home. So, even on the chilly days, I usually had my morning coffee in the sunroom. Well, with the exception of these past few weeks. I would have felt guilty about abandoning poor little Rufus in the kitchen, all by himself for breakfast as well.

  So I sat in the sunroom again, my back to the sun. Rufus snuffed and sniffed his way around the room, then sat at my feet, looking up. We had been outside, and he had noisily eaten kibble for breakfast, so I assumed that he wanted up.

  I placed him on the sofa with me and he explored each cushion. Then he placed his paws on the back of the sofa, as if he wanted to climb up. The sofa had a wide back, with plenty of room for him to navigate. I picked him up and placed him there. He paraded back and forth once, then sat near my shoulder, staring out into the back yard, growling ever so slightly when he caught a glimpse of a squirrel in the trees that grew along my back property line.

  In the future, that would become Rufus’s favorite daytime resting and/or sleeping spot. He could watch out over his world, be close to me, and nap peacefully as the sunlight flowed, diffused by the slats, through the wide wooden blinds.

  Friends came over to visit that first month, after hearing I had acquired a dog. They oohed and aahhed over the puppy, picking him up, with some planting kisses on his head. I had determined not to be the sort of semi-crazy pet lady who would do that. I have to say that human-to-pet smooches simply look wrong. Weird. I am pretty sure that Rufus did not like the forced smooches either, but he had no forearm with which to wipe off an unwanted kiss after being bussed on his forehead. Worse yet was the occasional trace of lipstick that remained afterward in his white eyebrows that I had to clean off when the over-affectionate guest departed.

  Over lunch at a local fish house (a restaurant I could never go into by myself because it just felt too much like a couples place) one of my friends asked what was going on in my life. I appreciated that; most friends felt uncomfortable delving into my personal life and its tragedies and found it easier to chatter on about gardening or the upcoming house tour for charity or their exercise classes at the YMCA.

  “I’m doing . . . okay,” I said. “It doesn’t get any easier. But maybe I’m just getting used to the way things are now. And the dog helps. Somebody in the house to talk to.”

  Beth pushed her blonde bangs from her eyes. (The blond was not natural, but then, what in today’s world is totally real and unadorned?)

  “No . . . I mean how are you really doing? You don’t come to church anymore. Or hardly ever come. No one from our Sunday school class ever sees you. I’ve asked. We’re worried about you. Or . . . well, I’m worried about you. You only come out when somebody calls you for lunch.”

  For a moment, I felt sad that I disappointed so many people. Then a moment later . . . no a second later . . . I grew angry. Why do I have to answer to so many other people about how I spend my Sunday mornings? Is it any of their business? I think not.

  I decided to lie. I decided to smile and lie. Once more. It was just so much simpler than the truth.

  “I’m fine. Really. It’s hard to go to church. I see so many familiar faces, and I keep imagining that they either pity me or are waiting to pounce on me, offering some off-kilter advice. Or set me up with their third cousin on their mother’s side who is way into comic books or is a Star Wars or Star Trek fanatic. Trekkies do not make for good potential dates.”

  The best defense is a good offense, they say. Put the blame on others.

  Beth smiled. I know she knew what I meant about the matchmakers in the church. Then a more serious look appeared in her eyes. “Mary, are you sure? Maybe it’s time to find another church, then.”

  I took a deep breath. Of course I had considered that option. Every Sunday since the accident, I guess. But I couldn’t. He . . . Jacob . . . grew up in this church. His father had been an elder for decades. If I left now, people would talk. His parents were still here—for the summers, anyhow. Mesa, Arizona, for the winter. (Cubs training camp was their version of Lourdes.) How would I explain to them why I was leaving the family church? I couldn’t. They were not what I would call generously spirited people. They waged a letter-writing campaign when the new pastor started taking his tie off for the summer services. Personally, I don’t see how a few feet of expensive fabric makes a man more devout or righteous or reverential—but there it was.

  It’s where our baby had been baptized.

  That’s all I need to say. There could be no leaving.

  And, at the moment, there could be no going either.

  I did attend—maybe monthly. Or thereabouts. I slipped in the back after the service began, and slipped out a split second after the benediction and hurried into the narthex before the final “Amen.” I ran into more people than I wanted to even at that.

  So I still attended. Just on my own terms. Abbreviated, to be sure, but it was all I could handle right now. Maybe, in the future, in a year or two more, I would start full power again. I would join the Ladies Bible Study. I would volunteer in the nurs . . . no, not there. I would volunteer in the library. I would begin to go back to Sunday school. I would begin to reintegrate my life with the family of God again.

  But not now. Not now at all.

  “No, that’s silly. I’m just healing a little more slowly . . . than I expected.”

  Beth pushed her hair back again.

  Why didn’t she get a different haircut? I want to smack her hand every time she does that.

  “But you are healing? Right? You’re not simply fading away from . . . you know—church and Jesus and all that, are you? I mean, that would be a shame.”

  “No, I’m fine. Or getting to be fine. Really.”

  Beth reached over and patted my hand, like an aunt does to an unruly seven-year-old niece. “It will be okay. You know, things happen . . . ”

  DON’T SAY IT! DON’T SAY THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON. DO NOT SAY THAT!

  I forced myself to take a deep, cleansing, calming breath. Beth seemed to sense the possible impending eruption.

  If I hear once more that “all things happen for a reason” or “God wanted them in heaven” or “You’re young—you can marry again—start over” or “Everything works out in God’s perfect plan . . .”

  My life has
not happened according to God’s plan! The accident was not part of God’s merciful plan to draw unrepentant sinners to him. How could that be? Why take those two people, God? Why? Maybe they are in heaven—no—they are in heaven. But I’m here. I’m left here. I’m alone. There is no reason for that. I’m sad and miserable most of the time and alone. There is no part of this that would fit into God’s master plan. It does not make sense. Don’t say it!

  “. . . you know that little things happen, like not going one Sunday, and then it happens again, and pretty soon, you don’t go at all and it’s for no real reason.”

  Beth smiled as if she had dodged a plummeting chandelier. Or an angry bullet. I think she knew.

  “It’s not that. Well, maybe it is, a little.”

  I decided to let her off the hook. She meant well.

  I speared the last of my tilapia. It was covered in a lemon beurre blanc sauce with a light, flavorful cream, probably made with really good wine, for sure, and some topping made with something crunchy and nutty and extremely delicious. I missed having good fish and refused to smell up my kitchen for days as I overcooked some nearly fresh halibut filet from the grocery store. This tasted much, much better.

  “Beth, I know you’re concerned. And I appreciate that. I do. You have no idea. I’ll tell you what: this Sunday, I’ll go to church with you. We’ll sit together. Like old times.”

  Except one of us—two of us—won’t be there like old times.

  “Well, then,” she said brightly, “that’s the old Mary I know. Call me on Saturday then. We’ll figure out where to sit.”

  “That’s a promise,” I said, smiling a bit too broadly, happily knowing that I had three full days to come up with an excuse for why I could not be there.

  Three days is a long time.

  I once wrote half a novel in three days.

  Not my best work, but—surprise, surprise—it was one of my best-selling efforts.

  Go figure.

  Yes, I’m an editor. And a writer. I know you’re thinking, Well, you certainly couldn’t prove it with this book. It goes on and on . . . and those ellipses and em dashes. What’s up with that? You think there is any other sort of punctuation you could employ? But it is true—I am an editor. With a master’s degree in English and no marketable skills, it is the career that pulled me into the whirlpool of misplaced commas and horrible, gut-wrenching shifts in narrative voice. I started out as a proofreader, which is the publishing industry’s fancy word for underpaid editor. I told friends that I enjoyed it, but not really.

  I proofread, correcting spelling and punctuation, and gritted my teeth over horridly florid descriptions of women’s clothing and their dramatic, breathy sighs over Bradford, a lost love, who miraculously turns up in Chapter 18 with amnesia, a scar, or rich. For three years I worked at a publishing house whose management team specialized in collecting tales of how they almost signed the next Stephen King or Tom Clancy. I heard the same tales over and over of how they missed signing the latest writer du jour because they offered a measly $100,000 advance, or because our acquisitions editor laughed like a hyena. But the team managed to get a few base hits, and they kept the doors open and the proofreaders paid.

  At the end of my first three years as a glorified proofreader (and this years before I met Jacob), I received an offer from another publishing house. They were located in the Loop in Chicago, which meant a longish train ride or a nightmarish car ride or a move, relocating to somewhere closer to downtown. The money was better, but with the added costs, I probably would break even.

  I suspected, after the interview, that I would have to start over with my wardrobe. While none of the women at the downtown publishing firm wore expensive couture designer garb, really, they all seemed to specialize in Bohemian Expensive—odd, off-kilter apparel that must have been purchased at eclectic, off-kilter boutiques in Lincoln Park, where the sales personnel wore black lipstick, had multiple piercings, and wore berets indoors without the slightest hint of pretension.

  I might have mentioned before that I am semi-unstylish.

  I made the mistake (which proved to be a wonderful serendipity) of mentioning the new job offer to my closest work friend—two cubicles down, single, master’s degree in English from DePaul, aspiring author of children’s books—and she related it to the proofreading supervisor, who quickly became apoplectic. It seems that our corporate culture frowned on losing staff to competition.

  The supervisor hurried into my office . . . cubicle . . . sat down, breathless, I guess, from the seven paces it took to get there from his office, and drew the uncomfortable guest chair close to my desk.

  “I heard about . . . your situation, Mary.”

  He said it with such earnest compassion that I thought I might be pregnant or have cancer.

  “We don’t want to lose you. I like your work. You’re really good.”

  This was all whispered, since, after all, we were in an open cubicle. I had to lean forward to even hope to hear correctly.

  He might have been coming in to tell me that people were talking and saying we were having an affair—that’s how close and whispery he was.

  “I want you to stay. I’ll promote you to associate editor. A little better paid, and you could actually change a writer’s horribly mangled syntax now and again. With an office. And I am prepared to offer you a raise in this amount . . .”

  He took a folded slip of paper from the breast pocket of his short-sleeved dress shirt, which he wore with a tie—a fashion abomination if there ever was one. He placed the slip of paper on my desk and slid it forward—all of three inches.

  His eagerness and excitement plainly evident on his face, he watched me open it. I was surprised: four hundred dollars a year more than the downtown offer.

  “If you need some time to think about it, that’s fine,” he whispered.

  I am a terrible poker player. Or I would be a terrible poker player if I played poker.

  “I’ll take it. When do I start?”

  He looked surprised. He would have stuttered had he started talking right away, which he didn’t.

  “Next week. Please, let’s keep this confidential until HR signs off on who has to move. Or who doesn’t get to move.”

  There was an empty office, smaller than my cubicle actually, but it had a door. The previous editor had a baby and told everyone she would be coming back and then we never saw her again. All the single women in the editorial group wondered if they would do the same. A number of proofreaders were silently vying for the coveted room with a door and a window, jockeying for the most favorable position. I figured that I had no chance, so I had not participated in the maneuvering.

  That’s how I became an associate editor. A year and two pregnancies later—not mine, of course, but those of other newly married staff—and I became a full-blown editor.

  I realize that this seems off target based on the title of this book. But I need to tell you a little of how I became a writer and now manage to stay home and do my work in my pajamas.

  I never do that—work in pajamas, that is. I hate the feeling of it being 10:00 a.m. and I am still pajama-clad. I can’t do it now that I have to take Rufus out for a morning walk, anyway. It’s up and change clothes and go out into whatever the weather is. Rain, cold, snow—the dog needs to go outside, and that means I need to go with him. Yes, I could boot Rufus out the back door and let him handle things on his own. But if I did that, when would I get any exercise? So, unless there is lightning in the sky, Rufus and I head outdoors. My neighbors marvel at our consistency.

  The neighbor to my right uses a service that cleans up their yard after their dog, so it may be faint praise. A truck comes once a week and the poor serviceman walks back and forth over their lawn, looking for the leftovers from a dog. How I pity that poor man. I know he gets paid fairly well to do what normal people would consider a really, really unpleasant occupational choice. Not much in job prestige, either. “I pick up dog poop for really lazy people and ge
t paid for it,” would not be the most effective pick-up line in a trendy singles bar.

  So, there I am, an editor. And that role, I must admit, I am born to do. I can see the weeds and chaff in a writer’s work, and usually have the kindness and tact to get writers to allow me to prune their work. Or more truthfully, they encourage me to do the pruning.

  After editing and helping rework a few novels that actually sold pretty well, several of those authors began to ask for me by name. Our publishing company is all too happy to oblige them. Anything we can do to edge the competition is smiled upon by management—most of whom don’t really understand what it means to edit a book. So I get a lot of smiles. I suspect that I should have parleyed those smiles into a better salary—but that sort of savvy horse-trading is not part of my nature.

  And you know what was strange in all this? After a few of our authors hit it large—not big, but large—the company’s editorial team seemed to take great relish in disliking them and their work. Familiarity breeds contempt, I guess, and a large number of our best-selling writers were not corporately beloved best-selling writers—at least among our editorial cubicles and tiny offices packed to the gills with free books.

  We seemed to like them a lot for their first and maybe second books, then they all morphed into being pains in our collective necks. Not so much me, since I have a pretty high level of tolerance for unknowingly sadistic, insecure, and inept writers. And who could blame authors for being needy and requiring constant attention? You slave and write and rewrite and worry and agonize over a book for six months or a year or all your life up to that point, and then you hand it over to a nameless, faceless editor who doesn’t tell you a thing until that person sends the manuscript back to you, filled with so many red slashes and cuts and suggestions and deletions and addendums and slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And then she asks—urgently—for you to make your changes and get it back to her in three days because she has a printing deadline to meet.