Ever by My Side (33 page)

“I’ll drive,” said Kathy, holding her hand out for the car keys.

“Really,” I said. “You sure?”

“Positive. I have something else I want Emily to see.”

And for the first time, I caught a whiff of something brewing, some flash of conspiracy, as though I was about to be literally and figuratively taken for a ride.

An hour later and without a single navigational hiccup—the “tell” that betrayed any hint of spontaneity—we pulled into a small and isolated farmyard, where our arrival was greeted with the faraway chorus of several dogs barking.

“There’s no harm in looking, is there, Emily?” said Kathy, making as much attempt to hide her wink as Emily did to hide her smile.

Right here, right now, I should like to point out to any parent more gullible than me that “just looking” is not really an option for children when it comes to puppies. It’s like sitting on Santa’s lap and not being allowed to ask for a gift. It’s like wandering around a candy store with a big brown paper bag and being told the bag must remain empty. Unless you want to subject your offspring to years of psychiatric counseling, unless you are one cold and heartless bastard and you are not afraid to wake up in the middle of the night and find your bed is on fire, chances are high your child is walking away with a dog.

A man stepped onto the porch to greet us. He was wearing shirts on top of shirts, plaid and wool over a white T-shirt, layer upon layer like a Russian matryoshka doll. His face was tan and leathery, the color of his jet-black hair at odds with all the wrinkles and furrows,
and his mustache was black, full, and dastardly, tweaked to fine points at the tips. Not, I imagined, that Emily noticed, for at his side, tail wagging off the charts, was a pretty little yellow Labrador bitch.

“I called the other day,” said Kathy, “about the puppy.”

I never flinched. I already knew there had been a plan and, by now, I realized it was probably a good one involving research, references, and the word of friends in the know and other veterinarians. This was a reputable breeder or we wouldn’t have come this far. This was the solution I should have seen. If this had been a dog for me, I would have looked no farther than the adoption center. If this had been a Labrador for me, I would have been more than content with a rescue. But this was never about me. This was about a sick little girl in a hospital bed. This was about making a very specific promise come true.

“Sure,” said the man, gently extending his right hand with a flat palm facing down. The yellow Lab read the signal, adopting a sitting position and a perfect stay as the man came forward to meet us. We all noticed the dog. A little different from poor old Max. “Why don’t you follow me,” he said. “I’ll show you her mom and then I’ll show you the puppy.”

I appreciated the fact that he wanted to do business in this order. No hurry. He seemed to be saying, “Get a sense of the type of dog I breed, this facility, the appearance of the dogs, and in particular, their temperament.”

Mom stood in a large dog run and bounded over to meet us. She was remarkably similar in appearance to the dog that had stood by the man’s side.

“You saw her sister when you pulled up. And as you can see, she’s more English than American, a little more squat with shorter limbs and a classically thick tail.”

The dog honed in on Emily, nuzzling, trying to lick her hands and face, working her hips like Shakira. I had to admit, the mother was strikingly pretty, her head broad but not masculine, her eyes expressive, her ears attentive.

There are many times in life when I choose to keep what I do for a living to myself—sitting next to strangers on a flight, garbled chitchat with my dentist, the overly familiar waiter—and this was one of those times. I was paying attention, digging for details about parent history, about specific health issues, and in particular seeking information pertinent to hips, elbows, cancer, and longevity, but I preferred to appear thorough rather than pushy or clever. No one likes the arrogant veterinarian looking for flaws, trying to score petty points, especially dog breeders who are respectful and good at what they do.

Emily tried to appear content during this preamble, but I was subject to many sleeve tugs, cupped little hands by my ear and whispers of “When do we see the puppy?”

“She was the only one in her litter,” said the breeder as we walked into his kitchen, assaulted by the sleepy warmth of the room. The first yellow Lab we had met was still in a stay when we returned to the house, tagging along by her master’s side when she received the command, released into another part of the house as we were guided toward a large dog crate near a fireplace.

“She’s already used to a crate,” he said, with his back to us, rustling the bed of newspapers as he reached inside. We sensed, rather than saw, something being scooped up, something sleepy and delicate, some fragile treasure that had to be moved slowly. Emily was losing it.

“Open your arms,” he said, before turning around.

Emily knew the request was directed at her, and, as soon as she did, her arms were filled with a soft and stirring yellow creature.

I never felt taken advantage of. Kathy had told the breeder the story, told him who was going to be, at least on paper, this puppy’s primary caregiver, and besides, I wouldn’t have missed seeing the expression on Emily’s face at that precise moment for anything in the world.

There is something different about the relationship between young children and animals. Perhaps it comes down to innocence, the honest exchange of emotions at their most simple and pure. Whatever the reason, when that little dog settled and snuggled into Emily’s arms you could feel her excitement like an aura spreading from her body, an instant connection forming between two living things, a moment of silent intensity that says I am yours and you are mine.

I squatted down by her side and whispered, “Is this the puppy you were looking for?”

All she could manage was a tearful smile and a nod, her inability to articulate the words telling me all I needed to know.

I
n contrast to the naming of Sophie, arrived at democratically after a lively debate over nominees among the whole family, the child strapped into the backseat informed Kathy and me that
she
had decided her dog would be called Meg.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Emily remained in a state of rapt shock. She looked like a mother coming home from the hospital, clutching her newborn, her expression a mixture of concentration, excitement, and pride.

“I like it, Em, but why Meg?”

She didn’t hesitate.

“It has to be an
M
word and ‘Marmalade’ didn’t sound right.”

Under certain circumstances, and this was one of them, there is no point in arguing with the carefully considered logic of a nine-year-old. Besides, “Meg” felt like a good fit—simple, monosyllabic, and feminine. Emily would go on to exploit variations on the theme—Meglet, Meggy-Moo-Cow, Meghan, Peghan, Peggy, and Peglet—but we were all happy with her choice.

As soon as we arrived home and pulled into the garage, Kathy pointed out a large cardboard box hidden away in a corner.

“It’s a large dog crate. Collapsible. We should probably set it up.”

She read my double take.

“What?” she said, unable to contain her iniquitous grin. “One way or another we were getting a second dog. I figured we’d need a crate either way.”

“Well prepared, my ass,” I thought, secretly impressed, searching mother and daughter for furtive smiles at having carried out their carefully orchestrated and perfectly executed plan. But the grifters stayed in character, and I went for the crate while Emily entered the house carrying Meg like a waiter delivering a large platter to a table, arms extended, a nutritious offering for Sophie.

Of course there was no savagery, drama, or hysteria. How could there be? Meg was a yellow five-toed sloth—irresistible, klutzy, doughy, huggable, kissable, and soft as a grape. The only thing we had to watch out for was Sophie mistaking her for a stuffed toy and wanting to give her a fearsome terrier shake. Naturally, Sophie was curious. She sniffed, licked, and at one point snapped out a clipped bark as if to say, “Just you remember who’s the boss,” but that was pretty much it.

It is in the nature of all gifts, birthday, Christmas, or otherwise, for most children to drift from a phase of undivided attention to comfortable familiarity to neglect and even rejection. To Emily’s credit, she doesn’t see dogs as gifts. She doesn’t see them as friends. To Emily, dogs are family and thus you have no choice but to love them and be there for them. There followed an extended period during which Emily became a helicopter parent to her dog, placing me on permanent call for professional consults regarding every possible physiological hiccup from “Is she still breathing?” as Meg slept to hollers from the backyard insisting, “Dad, come see if her poop is okay.”

There were some tears, primarily over sleeping arrangements.

“It’s not fair. Whitney gets to sleep with Sophie every night.”

She was right, it wasn’t fair, though I had never been a fan of these slumber parties. Despite a childhood in which Patch, Whiskey, and Bess all made it onto the parental bed, communal spooning wasn’t for me. As with most respiratory disorders, Emily’s existing problems were exacerbated by horizontal recumbency during sleep, and huffing on dog fur—for I was in no doubt that Emily would be snuggling up tight—was the last thing she needed. And besides, as the breeder had pointed out, the crate was Meg’s security blanket. It felt like home to her and she sought it out, and also being downstairs helped with the practicalities of toilet training.

Funny how I don’t remember Sophie’s discovery of the “little girl’s room.” Probably this selective amnesia is the mark of a receptive student. Then again I had failed to appreciate the excretory advantages of owning a small breed of dog. Minimal amounts of food in mean minimal amounts of waste out, and what Sophie lacked in ladylike technique—to this day she favors a bowel movement while on the move, walking forward, as though she might distance herself from the unsightly process somewhere back there—she more than makes up for with neat, tidy packages that are a breeze to clean up. When we lived in Arizona, these discreet nuggets practically turned to dust as soon as they hit the scorched earth, instantly vaporized by the power of solar radiation.

How had I managed to forget the digestive prowess of the larger breeds of dog? It was as though my experiences dodging backyard sloppy joes and tributes to Mister Whippy, courtesy of Patch, Whiskey, and Bess, had never happened. Inexplicably, I found myself horrified by the inordinate amount of stool generated by young Meg.

If you ask a veterinarian to think of a breed possessing a powerful oral fixation—driven, nay,
compelled
to ingest, unable to resist
inappropriate or excessive amounts of food—the Labrador will instantly come to mind. There is a reason for this breed’s badge of honor when it comes to eating. I myself have been guilty of this unfair and sweeping generalization, but when Emily made it clear she wanted a Lab, I held fast to the idea that there are exceptions to every rule. And I’m sure there are; the trouble is, Meg isn’t one of them. From the start, Meg ate as though she was headed for the chair. She would never try to steal from Sophie, heaven help her, but if Sophie lost interest, even for a second, Meg’s chops were all over the bowl, all but licking the glaze down to dry ceramic. And it wasn’t just dog food that caught her attention. It was anything that could fit inside her mouth and therefore it was anything and everything. We used to have an antique Persian rug in our living room. I say used to. I’m not sure of the nutritional value of tassels nor what constitutes their flavorful irresistibility, but Meg worked hard and systematically to suck the goodness out of every corner before it was eventually consigned to the trash.

Early on, we realized the importance of teaching Meg not to jump up on the kitchen table or kitchen counters where she might graze on something inappropriate. To our surprise, she appeared to grasp the concept—until I discovered Meg’s restraint was rooted in laziness, the acquisition of leftovers abandoned by Emily on low-lying coffee tables and couches requiring far less effort for a curious dog.

Still, I found it hard to understand how much was coming out of Meg relative to what was going in. Her weight seemed appropriate, she was growing at a normal rate, not too thin, not too fat, but her propensity to crap was disproportionate to her intake, even taking Sophie’s stolen rations into consideration. The kids swore they weren’t giving her table scraps. So where was all this output coming from?

This question lingered over the following months, but the answer remained elusive until the early hours of one morning when I awoke to the sound of something solid but hollow rattling back and forth downstairs. By this time Meg was no longer in her crate, having transitioned to a cozy dog bed near the kitchen, and from here she was perfectly positioned to go on sentry duty as our guard dog. Sure, she was still a puppy, and there was almost no chance of her biting a stranger, however, she had one incredibly useful asset on her side—a ridiculously masculine, booming, and intimidating bark. She sounded like some big old wrecking-yard guard dog. When strangers registered the origin of the bark, it was like the canine equivalent of that moment in the movie
The Crying Game
when you discover “she” is really a “he,” only the other way round and, in Meg’s case, based on her vocal cords and not her naughty bits.

But back to the strange sound from somewhere below me, making me wonder if someone was trying to break in. I raced downstairs and there was Meg on her bed, considering me with what looked like guilty chocolate eyes. I might have suspected a sleepy “What’s got into you? Chill out, if someone’s breaking in, I’ve got it covered.” Instead I read, “Now I’m done for.”

I snooped around all the same, checking doors and windows before noticing that the trash can was partially pulled out of its usual position, away from the wall, sitting askew. I looked at the trash can. I looked at Meg. She kept her eyes on me, neck outstretched, chin on her bed, beating her tail three times. I looked back at the trash can, back at Meg—three more beats. It was like she couldn’t help herself, unable to lie, begging me to stop embarrassing her by looking at the trash.