J. RoBB - The Lost

How wonderful to be back, even under these, the most peculiar circumstances imaginable. I was feeling a kind of excitement that went beyond the fact that I was home again. The smells! I could even see better than usual, which was odd, considering that in daylight I saw slightly less well. Maybe it was because I had such big pupils. Whatever-everything was incredibly sharp and interesting and I could not get enough of the smells. Feral, musky, smoky, dusty-my vocabulary would run out before I could name them all. Anyway, it didn’t matter if I was sniffing a “squirrel”; I could only concentrate on that spicy-dirty smell, the essence of “squirrel.” I could flare my nostrils, inhale, and taste it on the roof of my mouth, the back of my tongue, all the way down my throat and into my vitals. And it was fascinating.

The phone was ringing when we got home.

“Hi, Delia,” Sam said, and I skidded to a stop on my way to the kitchen for a drink of water. My sister! “We went this afternoon, yeah. Well… not much change, I guess. No. Although sometimes I swear she can hear me.”

Sam carried the phone to the living room sofa and sat down. “Right. I know… Right.”

These long pauses while Delia talked were driving me crazy. What’s she saying? I jumped up next to Sam-who reacted as if I’d thrown up on him, leaping to his feet, sweeping me to the floor one-handed. Sheesh.

“Well, we just keep hoping. No change on the scale, the nurse said today. They call it the Glasgow Coma Scale. It evaluates… Right. So nothing new there, apparently, which you can look at… Right, exactly.”

More silence on Sam’s end. Frustration! I put my hands-I mean my front paws-on the arm of the sofa and slowly, slowly raised myself. He had the phone to his other ear, though; I could hear Delia’s voice but not her words.

“I played it for her today. Well…” He laughed. “Not, uh, not to the naked eye. I’m sure, though, deep inside she was boogying.”

Delia’s mix tape. I remembered now; I’d heard snatches of it, but thought I was dreaming. Our favorites from high school-“Love Shack,” “Vogue,” “Losing My Religion.” Sweet Delia.

She lives in Philadelphia with her growing family. She must’ve visited me in the hospital and rehab, and yet I couldn’t quite remember it. So much of that time passed in a dream state, some gray twilight zone between being and not being. I saw myself as if from a great height, and the connection between the two me’s would be strong one moment, tenuous as a paper-clip chain the next.

“Hey, that would be great. Sure, either weekend is fine. Whichever’s better for you guys. You can always stay here, you know. Plenty of room; it’s just… the two of us. Well, whatever’s easier. That’s fine.”

More talk on her end. When was she coming?

“I’m okay. You know. Yeah. Well, that, too. I’ve put the cabin on the market.”

What? Oh, no.

“Yeah, it’s a terrible time, but I couldn’t see a choice. The bills… you can’t believe. Insurance, sure, but not enough. Nowhere near. Thanks. Thanks, but we’re okay.”

Oh, Sam. Not the cabin. And not now, right after we bought it. You’ll lose all the closing costs, the mortgage fee-thank goodness there was no prepayment penalty-and you’ll have to pay them again, the buyer’s and the seller’s closing costs. Oh, this was terrible.

“I’m looking now. I’ve already started,” Sam was saying. Looking for what? “Tomorrow, in fact, I’ve got a… Yeah. Oh, something will turn up. Um, he’s all right, basically. No, I don’t tell him that. No, I keep it… Right, very hopeful. But the longer this goes on, the less chance…” Sam rubbed his eyes with his free hand. “He starts school in three weeks, so that’s… Yeah. A good distraction. Oh, he’d love that, thanks, Delia. And how are you? And Jerry and the kids…?”

More frustrating pauses. I padded around the room, unable to settle, until Sam hung up. Then I sat at his feet, the perfect dog. Minutes passed before he even saw me. “I forgot to tell her about you.”

I noticed.

Half smiling, he put his hand under my chin. I turned my head and pressed my cheek into his palm. With my eyes closed, it felt as if I were absorbing his sadness, taking it into a place in myself where it couldn’t hurt him as much. Was this what dogs did? And what I gave back, what I exchanged his sadness for, was simply love.

He took his hand away and stared. His eyes were alert, puzzled.

Sam. Sam, it’s me, Laurie. I put a paw on his knee, not letting him look away. Do you see me? Help me. Rescue me. For an instant, I swear he knew.

But then time moved, “reality” returned, and he laughed-uneasily-and gave a tug on my ear. “Come on, Sonoma. Bedtime.”

In the kitchen? I couldn’t believe it. He wanted me to lie down on the brand-n ew, corduroy-covered dog bed he’d bought on the way home from the vet’s that still smelled of the plastic wrap it came in. Pew. He gave me a few per functory pats and stood up. So did I. We went through that a few times-“No, lie down, lie down. That’s it. Good girl”-until I gave up. And then, then, he turned out the light and closed the swinging kitchen door. Didn’t even leave a radio on for me.

I waited for about half an hour, listening to Sam upstairs in the bathroom, then the creaks and cracks of the house settling, the next-door neighbor smoking his last cigarette on his screen porch, the occasional car purring by. I even heard Sam turn his bedside lamp off-amazing. He’s a good sleeper and he conks out fast; I waited ten more minutes. Then I nosed the door open and escaped.

Treading quickly on the rugs, carefully on the hardwood so my toenails wouldn’t clack. New instincts were kicking in. I felt like a huntress.

That earthy, humid, little-boy smell in Benny’s room was stronger than ever, as if it had been fermenting in the dark. Bath time must be in the morning under Sam’s regime. I went to the source, creeping onto my son’s low bed with such grace and precision, he never stirred. As usual, he’d thrown his covers off. He lay on his stomach, arms flung out as if he were flying. The soft, quick sound of his breathing kept time with my heartbeat. I wanted to taste him, lick all the skin his hiked-up pjs exposed, but settled for discreet snuffling, deep, silent inhales of his calves, his feet, the delicious back of his neck. I settled myself along the length of his leg, touching as much of him with as much of me as possible. And guarded him.

Time passed-I didn’t know how much. The numbers on Benny’s Spider-M an clock ran together; I couldn’t make sense of them. Sometime deep in the night, I gave him a last nose caress and crept out of his room.

Into Sam’s. Where the smells were much subtler but equally intriguing. More so, in their way. Our bed was higher than Benny’s. I put my front paws on the foot of the mattress and cautiously raised myself so I could see Sam. For a long time I just watched him, asleep on his back, one arm over his eyes. The sheet covered half of his bare chest; under it he’d have on his running shorts-his summer pajamas. In the light from the streetlamp his skin looked hard and bluish pale, like marble. God, I’d missed him. I missed him right now. Quiet as a ninja, I got all four feet on the bed and curled up on my wide, empty side of it in the smallest ball I could manage. And fell into the second-deepest sleep of my life.

I’m sealed in icy water, trying not to breathe. If I breathe, I’ll die. Darkness is closing in. I can see only through a narrowing tunnel. I flail my limbs, knowing it’s useless, unwise, but the fear is too strong. Help me! (Did this happen? Is it real?) When I can’t bear it any longer, my mouth opens and I suck in-water. Panic devours me. I scream, but there’s no sound because there’s no breath. I have one last clear thought: This is so stupid. The last emotion is fury-I kick, I punch, I push-