Laura Caldwell - The Dog Park

“Jesus Christ,” the owner muttered, chuckling and looking down at the dogs. “I’ve never seen them like this.” He looked at me. “You got a special dog.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking a breath of relief at the sight of Baxter batting a paw at one of the bullies who replied by simply ducking his nose, ready to take another punch.

“What’s that collar he’s got?” the guy said.

“I made that collar to piss off my ex-husband.”

This caused him to laugh.

I told him about how Sebastian hated it and always tried to replace it with something plainer.

“He’s crazy,” the guy said. “That’s a good-looking collar.”

“Right?”

“Heck, yes.”

I told him about the leash, how both had been in the video. He hadn’t seen it, so I explained the video.

He pulled it up on his phone. He laughed and laughed, then played it a second time, actually holding it out for the bullies, who sorta seemed to watch it for a bit.

“You want me to make you one?” I said, immediately wondering if I’d taken the whole bully diplomacy a little too far.

But the guy just said, “Sure! Could you do one in red and another in blue?”

“You got it.” We exchanged information. He took off the red collar of one of the bullies, and I eyeballed the size.

My phone started ringing again. I pulled it out of the pocket of my jeans. More surprise.

The screen read, Mom.

There is nothing more irritating than a person raised in a loving household, one who has been provided everything, but who finds something lacking in that setting. Nothing except being that person.

I knew this because I had always greatly disliked myself for feeling the lack of love from my parents, Simon and Muriel Champlin. They were so in love with each other that they were nearly oblivious to everyone else. It was clear how much they adored each other, and it was understandable. They were exceptional people who were exceptional together. And when two people love each other like they do, it’s an exclusive thing. They tried to spread it to me. They tried. And they did love me in their way. But I always knew I didn’t have what they did, that they couldn’t feel toward me the way they did toward each other.

So my mother and I didn’t speak with any regularity. But now she was talking quickly and excitedly. “I saw Baxter on TV!”

My parents lived out east, in a college town with a historical race course, and the only time they’d met Baxter was during a short holiday visit a year and a half ago.

“You saw it on TV or the internet?” I asked. My mother rarely watched TV.

“It just ran on our news here.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. I turned it on to see the weather. Your father is hoping to do some work outside tomorrow.”

My parents were both artists. My father had been an urban planner first, then he became fascinated with remnants of demolished government and legal buildings. He eventually brought the materials home and retrofitted our garage to become his studio. He crafted large, avant-garde items—a huge witness stand from chunks of cement, a Doric column from cobbled shards of copper, the scales of justice from molded scrap metal. The town purchased the scales of justice to decorate the front of the courthouse. Now such pieces were all my father did, and he got paid well for them.

My mother was a completely different artist. Technically trained and meticulously detailed, her oil paintings and mixed-media pieces were delicate, lovely. But there was also something savage within them—red streaks hidden deep in a meadow, a blade in a child’s profile. My mother said she was exploring. My father, she said, had been the only person in her life to allow that exploration. It took her years, but finally a gallery in New York was interested in her. They represented her, helped create an audience for the double-edged quality of her art. She became a working artist. But she always catered to my dad, always put him first.

So now it made sense that my mother was watching the news only to check the weather for my dad, who lately took much of his work outside in decent weather.

I explained to my mother about the Baxter incident, how Vinnie shot the video and posted it, how it ran on Chicago’s morning news. And now my mother was telling me it had been shown on her local newscast.

My mother asked me about the collar and leash, and I told her I’d sewn the stars on it, told her about the sale I’d just gotten from the Labrabullies’ owner.

“Good for you! They’re gorgeous!” My parents were happiest when I was being creative, the way they were. “We have neighbors who just got two Irish setter puppies. Would you make the same collars for them? We want to give them a gift.”

“Sure, I’d love to.” It was always a treat to feel a sense of cohesiveness with one of my parents (even if only about dog accoutrements).

“Honey,” my mom said, her voice holding a little trepidation, then trailing off at the end. Finally she said, “I know this Baxter thing is fun, but is it okay? I mean are you okay?”

“I’m very okay, Mom. I’m actually great.”

“Is any of this excitement about the video bringing up past...inclinations?”

I felt a flash of irritation. “Mom,” I said in a low, strained voice. “I never had those inclinations. That’s not why it happened.”

Here was the other reason my parents and I didn’t talk often. They knew about the Amalie Project and what had led to it.

“I know,” my mother said. “You’ve told me that. But we worry.”

“Don’t!” I wanted to say, Why didn’t you worry about me when I was growing up? Why didn’t you ever worry until I was in too deep? Before I slipped away?

My mother sighed. “Okay, okay.” Silence and then she asked, “So when do you think you can have the collars done for the puppies?”

“I’ll put it at the top of my list.” I wanted to be nice to my mom. There was no reason not to be. She and my dad were who they were, never anything else. “I’ll send them within a few days.”

“Oh, take your time. Don’t put stress on yourself.”

“It’s not stress.”

“You just don’t want to get so overwhelmed that you go back to past habits.”

“Mom!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I took a deep breath. I asked about my dad. She gave me a quick rundown—all was good—and then she was off to find her husband.

7

The next call surprised me even more than my mom’s.

Sebastian.

He’d seen the video online, and he actually sounded a tad excited himself. Not like my mom had, but definitely amused, interested.

“Isn’t it hysterical?” I told Sebastian about Baxter darting and Vinnie shooting the whole thing.

We fell right into conversation, the way we used to a long time ago—no awkward “Hi, how ya been feeling? Okay, how about you?” chitchat.

When something like this happened—rarely, I grant you—it made me remember that when we were “us,” Sebastian and I had a hell of a lot of fun.

One of the reasons I’d shut down my online dating profile without even going on a date was because I feared that no one could be quite as fun as Sebastian when he wanted to be. And I knew fun, having been deeply involved (way too deep, it would turn out) in my teens and twenties with a touring rock band.

The problem, toward the end of us, was Sebastian hadn’t desired much fun with me. It had made me terribly wistful—remembering the days when Sebastian was on, when we were engaged. Sometimes, he would wake me at five in the morning and he would make some crazy dish—whatever he’d found at the ready-market that morning, whatever his imagination lit upon. Once, it was pretzels and scrambled eggs with cheese and hot sauce. His were the most bizarre breakfasts and the most delicious because he infused them with that fun. He brought that sense of fun to each day. He loved to “call an audible,” as he put it, hitting a last-minute Cubs game, or going to see a blues band at Kingston Mines.