David Wroblewski - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Edgar closed his eyes and waited until he could hold it all in his mind, and once that happened, he wanted so badly to ask his father about it, to be sure he’d understood things correctly, that it nearly made him cry. But the only way left to him was through the records. And yet-he felt this, but couldn’t find the words for it-something else made the dogs valuable, too, something that hadn’t been among this sudden cascade of ideas. He wished he could read his grandfather’s side of the correspondence to understand what he’d meant by “the next dogs.”

No matter how naïve or wild-eyed his grandfather might have sounded to Brooks, Edgar thought John Sawtelle’s vision might not have been so quixotic.

He had a feeling, in fact, that it might already have come to pass.

A FEW WEEKS AFTER THE FUNERAL, AFTER THE SHOCK HAD WORN off and some of the kennel routines were established again, Edgar’s dreams began. In them, his father did the most ordinary things-walking along the driveway to fetch the mail, reading in his armchair, lifting a puppy in the dim light of the whelping room to take a closer look. Edgar looked for some connection between his last waking thoughts and what he saw when he fell asleep. One night he found himself walking creekside with his father, the sumac and chokecherry green and jungle lush, though he knew, even in the dream, that outside his window the fields lay buried under thick drifts of snow. Then his father turned and said something, something important. When Edgar woke he lay still, trying to fix those words in his mind, but by the time he shuffled into the kitchen, he couldn’t even remember whether his father had signed or spoken.

Trudy peered at him over her coffee cup.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

Nothing.

“Was it a dream?” she asked. “Your father?”

Her guess surprised him. He didn’t know how to answer. Was she having dreams, too? It seemed possible-some mornings she looked as fragile as a baby bird. She was trying to shield him from whatever bad feelings she had, he could see that. She stayed up late sitting at the kitchen table and pretending to work. Half the time he cooked dinner for her because she seemed to have forgotten to eat. She only pushed the food around on her plate, then stood and began to wash dishes. When she talked with people in town she was calm and poised (though tired-looking), but beneath it Edgar saw something fractured.

And there was, he discovered, a kind of selfishness in him about those dreams. They might have been false memories, but they were memories nonetheless, stolen time. In the end he just shrugged and headed out to start the morning chores. He hadn’t fooled her, but they didn’t talk about it, either, which, for the time being, was good enough.

HIS MOTHER HAD HIM set up a low barrier in the mow-a pair of uprights with dowels sticking out, like a track-and-field hurdle. A rough curtain of red ribbon hung from the rod. She asked Edgar to bring up one of the dogs. At first he intended to use Essay, who loved to climb and jump. Then he remembered his mother’s admonition about training the dogs on exercises they had already mastered, so he chose Finch instead. He stayed the dog on the far side of the barrier, then walked to his mother’s side.

“Have him jump the barrier,” she said.

She wasn’t asking for a stupendous feat: the rod was on the lowest set of dowels, six inches above the floor. Finch could step over it. When Edgar signaled a recall, Finch wandered forward. He sniffed the uprights then skirted them without stepping over the rod. He trotted the remaining distance and finished in front of Edgar, swishing his tail and glancing back and forth between the two of them.

“What did you think of that?” his mother asked.

He did it wrong, Edgar signed.

“All right, let me put it another way. What did you do wrong?”

Nothing. He knew exactly what I wanted. He had to go out of his way to avoid it.

“Is that so?”

Edgar looked at Finch, whose mouth was hanging open slightly, ears erect, eyes shining with mischief. Of course Finch knew he was supposed to jump the barrier-not only had Finch seen other dogs do the same thing, but Finch himself had jumped that barrier many times, even when it was set much higher (though never reliably, Edgar had to admit). Certainly, Finch wasn’t scared of the barrier, as some dogs were. And on top of all that, it was obviously the shortest path between them.

Yes, he signed. You saw him.

“Okay,” his mother said. “We’ll forget for a moment that when Finch finally got here, you didn’t acknowledge it. He’s still waiting for that, by the way, but he’s a patient dog. He knows you’ll get around to it. There’s even a chance he won’t have forgotten what you’re praising him for by then. In the meantime, why don’t you take him back around? Maybe we can do this over and figure out what the trouble is.”

Abashed, Edgar scratched Finch’s chest and smoothed the fur over the dog’s forehead. He looped his fingers through his collar, but before he could take a step, his mother said, “Stop!”

He turned to look at her.

“Why did you just praise Finch?”

He laughed, silently, shoulders shaking. His mother seemed determined to ask absurd questions.

Because he came when called.

“Really?” She looked puzzled. “Okay. Well.” She raised an arm and signaled them forward with a limp hand, a queen dismissing courtiers. “Proceed.”

He led Finch across the mow, giving the uprights a wide berth so as not to accidentally reinforce the incorrect path. When they’d gotten halfway back to the starting position, his mother again shouted, “Stop!”

They stopped. The barrier was within reach of Edgar’s left hand. Far away, near the mow door, his mother stood with her fingers woven into her hair like a madwoman, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” she said.

This was an act, he knew, and it made him laugh all over again.

Taking Finch to his stay-spot.

“But you didn’t go over the barrier!”

You didn’t ask me to go over the barrier.

“Exactly,” she said. “You see? You can’t train a dog to do something if you don’t know what you want him to do. When you recalled Finch, you didn’t know what you wanted. How can I tell? Because you said one thing to him and expected something else, just like I did. If I had known what I wanted from you I would have asked for it. But I didn’t know until you were already past the barrier. Now I know what I want. Come back here. You’ve taught me what I want.”

Dutifully, he led Finch back to her side.

“Thank you,” she said, bowing a little.

You’re welcome, he signed, bowing in return. He was having a hard time keeping the grin off his face.

“Who was the teacher in that exchange?”

He pointed at her.

“Oh really?”

Oh. I taught you.

“So who was the teacher?”

I was.

“Right. What do you say when someone goes out of their way to teach you something?”

Thank you?

“Exactly. Why did you praise Finch before?”

Because he taught me something?

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

Telling. Because he taught me something.

“Exactly.”

When his mother dropped her theatrical stance and smiled he wasn’t sure where his tears came from. He didn’t feel sad-in fact, he was laughing-but his vision suddenly blurred up. Tears of shock, he supposed, at discovering he’d spent his entire life on the kennel and yet still misunderstood something so elementary. And the force of her personality could be overwhelming. He turned away and passed a sleeve over his face before something even more embarrassing could happen.