I sat right up. I blinked. It was Saturday morning. Aunt Brat had the surgeon on the phone! And unless I was terribly wrong, she looked happy! She put him on speaker. I listened.
“So his images show a ruptured disk, and actually, that’s good news.”
Really?
“He can have surgery. It’s a long recovery, but I expect he’ll do well.”
Oh yes . . . yes . . . yessss. . . .
I squeezed my aunt’s arm. She showed me her tightly crossed fingers. “So, when you say he’ll do well, what is the success rate? What may we expect?” Aunt Brat wanted to know.
“It’s very good. Ninety-five percent of my surgeries are one hundred percent successful.”
“What will he be like afterward?” I couldn’t help piping up.
“It’s a significant period of rehabilitation. You have to severely limit his activity for six to eight weeks,” he emphasized. “It’s a lot of healing. He’ll need around-the-clock attention.” Aunt Brat and I nodded at each other. We had this. “Eventually,” said the surgeon, “he’ll be good as new.”
I fell over sideways and pressed my face into Aunt Brat’s old sleeping bag. “Good as new! Guffer!” I muffled my own squeal.
When I looked up, Aunt Brat was grinning.
“Can we come see him?” I blurted at the phone.
“I’m sorry? What? Oh, can you see him? No time for that today. We’ll be going into surgery within an hour. Maybe sooner.”
“All right, then. It’s a go,” Aunt Brat said.
Wow. Our big broken dog was going to have an operation. I climbed out of bed and went to stand in the niche. I leaned on the still-warm brick and looked at yesterday’s yellow dog drawings. My eye landed on one sketch: the dog sitting with his back to the viewer, his head and nose in profile as if catching a breeze.
Behind me, Aunt Brat was wrapping up the call.
They’re going to open up his beautiful back, I thought. I cringed. That was going to haunt me all day long. Worth the worry, I told myself.
Aunt Brat stood next to me now. We looked at my drawings together. “A grouping of Guffers,” she said. “Beautifully rendered, I might add. You’ve captured him.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It felt good. Well, as good as anything felt yesterday. I guess I was drawing my wishes. Aunt Brat, I’m still worried about him.”
“Oh, I’m with you on that. We’ll have to stay busy. So you get dressed. Then let’s go down for coffee, and some breakfast for you,” she said firmly. That was fine. I was suddenly hungry.
Down in the kitchen Elloroy sat with his mug and his reader. I came up behind him and wrapped him with one arm. “Hello, youth and beauty,” he said. “Heard you got some good news.”
“Yes!” I said. I topped his coffee, then poured my own with the milk and honey. He smiled at Aunt Brat and me as we stood at the kitchen window sending Eileen messages, then laughing at the happy faces she sent back to us. If I knew Eileen, she was dancing a crooked jig across the floorboards at the Feed. Huh-haw!
Guffer . . . in surgery. . . .
I held some little part of my breath most of the day. I pushed away a thousand little pinpricks of fear.
Well, Chelmsford was Chelmsford, and somebody who’d been to the Feed early in the morning must have seen Eileen dancing that jig. That person must have asked her why. Before you could say “big yellow dog,” word had gotten around that the one on Pinnacle Hill was down for the count. That’s why Raya and Sari knew to come with hugs and muffins (with raisins) and their own genuine concerns about the dog who had so often harassed them. Sari brought cream-colored wool and circular needles. She got me knitting again.
Not long after, Gwen and Florry Gerber joined us. So we were six women around the table buttering muffins, sipping from mugs, and even laughing.
Then Elloroy came out of his suite to say the most surprising thing I could possibly hear. He said, “House full of goddesses today, I see.”
56
When the Call Comes
By late Saturday afternoon, I was pacing. Still no call from the animal hospital. Every time the slightest sound pinged, I bothered Aunt Brat. “Was that your phone? Did you leave it close enough to the window? Is it charged?”
She answered in the gentlest way. “No, yes, and yes.” She was anxious for news too. Both of us began to envy Eileen her busy Saturday at the Feed.
Even Elloroy looked up from his reading several times to ask, “What do we know about the big yellow dog?”
“Not enough.” I sighed. I worried that something had gone wrong. My mother had been bumped from the transplant list all those years ago. How much did I trust medicine of any kind? It’d been hours. Guffer’s surgery must have become complicated—
Stop telling yourself bad things, Lydia!
Then Aunt Brat’s phone rang. I scooped it up and checked the screen. “It’s them!” I cried. I nearly threw that phone into her hands. Then I held my breath.
“Hello?”
“Speaker! Speaker!” I whispered at her. She fumbled. I pulled at the phone and hit the button for her. Elloroy turned in his chair to listen.
“. . . did very well. He’s going to be just fine. . . .”
Elloroy’s mouth dropped into an old turtle smile. I landed myself flat on my back on the floor, arms wide, with the gray-green sweater laid out underneath me like my own private sea to float on. I gazed at the ceiling, my chest rising and falling. Oh, it is an amazing thing when joy rides on your breath in both directions.
Above me, Aunt Brat put her hand to her chest. She bent forward and spoke into her phone. “Ha! Oh! Thank you! We are so relieved!”
The surgeon explained that they’d be keeping Guffer over several nights. “Maybe as long as a week.”
“A week?” I sat up and mouthed the words to Aunt Brat. She nodded, as if begging me to be patient.
“We want to keep him very still—sedated—while the wound knits. First days are crucial. He’s been through a lot,” the surgeon cautioned.
“Well, can we come see him?” I blurted.
“We ask families to give it some time. We don’t want him to get excited, and we don’t want him to feel depressed when you leave him again. So please sit tight, and just try to keep sight of what’s best for your dog.”
I resented that. I would have little else in this world in my sights. Didn’t he know that?
Still, I listened while the surgeon told us how to prepare for Guffer’s care. Aunt Brat scribbled notes.
“Before you know it,” the surgeon said, “he’ll be home again.”
For that entire week, whenever I wasn’t at school pretending that I could concentrate, I prepared for the dog’s homecoming. I recruited my adults. We moved living room furniture to set up an area where Guff would be confined but would not have to be in the crate that he dreaded so much. The coffee table would be his gate. Eileen brought home a foam pad mattress that Guffer would be able to get up and down on easily. We put it right beside the couch so that one of us could always spend the night beside him. We agreed to alternate on that duty, but I was already planning to cover all shifts. How could I not?
April vacation was coming in perfect time for Guffer’s return. I’d have nine days off, Eileen would take the next week off. Aunt Brat’s last day of regular classes for the semester was at the end of that week. We were covered for the first part of Guffer’s rehab. We’d figure out the rest.
57
The Tale of Little Goats
On Tuesday afternoon our handywomen, Saundra and Nan, who had built the niche in my room, came to construct a ramp for Guffer. It’d be a long while before he could do stairs again.
I watched them at their sawhorses from the window as they expertly cut notches in two long boards. They fit them over the porch steps and topped them with a sheet of plywood. Soon they were finishing the job, tacking down a strip of carpet for traction.
A small utility van pulled up beside the carpenters. By now, I knew who
was likely to stop at Pinnacle Hill. But I did not know this vehicle. “Someone’s here,” I said. I watched a woman with gray-brown curls hop out. Her dark green barn coat flapped open. Eileen nudged me over so she could see out too.
“Oh, that’s the farm vet,” Eileen said. “Doc Marin.”
“That’s unexpected.” Aunt Brat stood up. She tidied her stack of papers on the table. “She must be here to visit the baby girls.”
“Barn party!” Eileen said.
We grabbed our jackets and tested Guffer’s new ramp on our way. Aunt Brat and Eileen called hellos to Doc Marin. Soon, the four of us stood in the goat barn together.
This was the vet who’d helped Aunt Brat with the goats in the very beginning. Eileen thanked her—no trace of hurt feelings.
Doc Marin looked Gigi and Effie over, admired the healed ears and the new ski-boot prostheses. The goats showed off how well they’d adapted by hopping along the clean barn boards and up onto the fat tree stumps Eileen had gotten from Jaycinda. “They look healthy. They’re gaining muscle,” Doc Marin noted. She laughed because goat antics just naturally make people laugh. But her real reason for being there was that she had a story to tell us.
She’d gone out on a call to check a few animals that’d been left behind after a foreclosure on a property. “It’s about a thirty-minute drive from here,” she said. “The owners lacked husbandry experience. The place was too much for them. Sad state of decay all around.”
“And the animals?” Eileen asked.
“Surprisingly, no serious heath issues. I reached out to a rescue group and they’ll all be homed this week. But while I was tending to the animals,” Doc Marin said, “a neighbor stopped over. I had the feeling she wanted to talk, and finally, she did. She mentioned that there had been twin pygmy goats born there earlier in the winter.”
“Oh my goodness,” Aunt Brat said. She pressed her hand to her collarbones.
“Huh,” said Eileen.
“Of course, that rang a bell,” said Doc Marin. “The neighbor told me that both babies showed serious frostbite early on—ears and hind feet.”
“Frostbite,” Eileen echoed.
“The neighbor had the feeling the owners couldn’t afford to call a vet. She offered to help but the owners declined, and seemed ashamed. She pushed them, but they shouted her off their property. This neighbor hadn’t seen the goats again.”
“And this was when?” Eileen ventured.
The vet gave a nod. “Well, I’d bet my last nickel the goats from that farm are the same ones you found abandoned at the Feed. These babies, here,” she said. She gave Effie a rub on the head with her knuckles. The goat leaned closer for more.
I closed my eyes for a few seconds. I remembered those raw but clean cuts. “But wait,” I said. “Is that what frostbite looks like?”
“Very good question,” said Doc Marin. “No. What you’d see first is swelling. That’s from liquid in the cells freezing and rupturing the walls.”
That is the science. . . .
“The damage is permanent. The tissue starts to fall off. It can even snap.”
I shuddered. Aunt Brat hunched her shoulders uncomfortably. But Eileen was nodding and holding her gaze on Gigi and Effie. She understood. She knew goats. “Well, it can happen. Shouldn’t. But it can,” she said.
“Yes, little newborns are especially vulnerable. They need the warmth of the barn,” Doc Marin said. “But the hind feet on these animals had been clean-cut, right at the pastern joint, as you know. The ears, too, looked sliced, not snapped, which is why I didn’t initially think of frostbite. In retrospect, I should have. We’d had a cold spell—you might remember. As dreadful as it sounds, I think these people tried to amputate.”
“Oh, dear God—they should not have!” Aunt Brat looked ready to empty her stomach. I felt a wave of light-headedness. Eileen sighed sadly.
Doc Marin told us, “They probably thought removing the bad tissue was the best treatment. Misguided, to be sure. I’m surprised these goats didn’t bleed out. Once the wounds got infected the people probably just didn’t know what to do. My guess is they dropped these animals at the Feed in desperation. So . . . I think we have the answer to the mystery.”
“Well . . .” Eileen gave her head a shake and a scratch. “Misguided isn’t quite the same thing as cruel,” she said. “But nothing changes what happens from here. We keep the goats and we protect them from harm. For all their days,” she added.
Later, her words came back to me:
Protection from harm . . . for all their days. . . .
That’s what it is to be at Pinnacle Hill Farm, I thought. Guffer would be home soon where we could protect him—though not soon enough for me.
58
Coming to an Understanding
The week stretched long. But things were looking very good for a Thursday homecoming for the Guff. I talked about it all day long at school—I couldn’t help myself. The good thing was, my eighth-grade class and I were outdoors most of the afternoon. This was the long-planned-for field trip to the state reserve to release the fingerling trout we’d raised in the school’s tank.
I was never so glad to be wearing Moss Capperow’s boots as when my feet sank into the soft earth at the edge of the Bigelow River. Sari Winkle pulled me back gently, while the water slurped over my toes. Raya, Moss, and Axel wore high waders and stepped right into the easy current. They settled the buckets full of young fish into the water and waited for the temperatures to equalize. I liked that care was taken not to shock the fingerlings.
When all was in balance, my friends slowly tilted the buckets. Our trout slipped into their new home and swam.
“Wow,” I breathed, and Sari hugged my arm as we watched them go.
“Good luck in the new place, tiny finger fish,” I whispered.
Sari Winkle leaned on me and giggled. I daydreamed of all the things that go home and find home and survive in new places.
We ate bag lunches beside the river. There were whispers—a secret in the air—something about all of us coming back here to the two picnic tables, the carpet of ferns, and the lichen-covered boulders. “For Springerle,” they said—or that’s what I thought. I wrinkled my nose at Raya and Sari.
“Springerle? Like the cookies with the pretty pictures stamped on them?” They put their fingers to their lips to hush me. They hid smiles and glanced at our teachers. In low voices my friends filled me in.
“Yes and no,” Sari whispered. “Same word. Springerle means ‘little jumping horses’ in German.”
“Yeah.” Raya leaned close. “And that’s sort of what we do. We jump our fences and run loose. Just for one night. One of our eighth-grade ancestors must have made it up. It’s a big Chelmsford tradition.”
“You run away?” I blurted.
“Shh . . . shh . . . yes. Our whole class. We come here. We stay out all night beside the Bigelow.”
“Happens in June,” Sari told me, eyes sparkling. “Plan for it, Lydia.”
“Right . . . ,” I said. Already, I knew I’d be the Chelmsford tradition breaker; I’d be the only eighth grader staying home. But there seemed no point in saying so now.
The bus rocked us back to school. I closed my eyes. My dog was coming home tonight. Everything was perfect.
I sprinted up Pinnacle Hill that afternoon. Our plan was to go straight to the veterinary hospital to reclaim Guffer. But Aunt Brat had news—itchy, scratchy news.
“I’m just off the phone with the hospital. Guffer’s stomach is funky,” Aunt Brat explained. “It’s just some diarrhea but they want one more day to get it under control.”
“And for that, we can’t have him yet?” I was crushed.
“Well, we could risk it, but—”
“Oh, let’s go get him, then!”
“I knew she’d say that,” said Elloroy. He raised a long finger.
“Well, of course,” Eileen said. She pushed at Elloroy’s hand. “That’s her dog! Don’t make it worse by statin
g the obvious,” she scolded him.
“I didn’t. You did,” he said. “You said it’s her dog, and that’s obvious.”
“Oh, all right, hush!” Eileen said.
Oh, both of you hush! . . .
“Lyddie, I know you’re disappointed,” Aunt Brat told me. “But it’s just one more night.”
I nearly burst into tears. I knew it was babyish, but I felt outnumbered. “Oh come on!” I protested. “You barely blinked when I put a hole in the wall upstairs and crashed through the ceiling. But a dog with a little diarrhea turns you shy? It’s not like he’s never pooped in here before,” I said. I pouted. Then I accidentally puffed out several laughs. Then we all laughed. I suppose that was good for us. But I had to cover my face because some crying was getting mixed in there.
At suppertime, Eileen sent grumpy-me to the pantry shelf for a box of bow tie pasta. At the back window, I heard it—the faint buzzing. I cupped my hands against the glass, set my face close, trying to see out.
Moss Capperow’s uncle was in Elloroy’s woods, I was sure. If I’d had to guess, he was out near the little stream where I’d set the mice free all winter. I stared. Suddenly, a horizontal beam of light cut through the trees—or, did it? I lost it so quickly. But the long, low light flashed again. It shrank, then spread wide, as if completing a turn. And all the while, there was that buzzing. I drew a breath inward.
“What’s the matter, Lydia?” Aunt Brat asked. She came up behind me.
“It’s Capperow. The uncle,” I said. I turned to face her.
“Capperow? What about him?” Eileen asked. She came around from the stove.
“He’s out there on his four-wheeler. In the woods. Right now,” I said. “He can’t do that anymore.” I stepped around my women. I made a beeline for the door.
“What?”
“Guffer will hear him. He’ll get upset. He’ll bolt up and hurt himself!” I thrust my arms into my jacket.
“Wait. Lydia!”
“I’m going out there,” I said. “I’m going to tell this to him straight.”
A Home for Goddesses and Dogs Page 21