How to Look for a Lost Dog (14 page)

“The Hendersons weren't irresponsible after all,” I say. “It was an accident.” Rain left their house without her collar, just like she left our house after the storm without her collar.

“Yes. A sad accident. We'll never know how Rain wound up so far from home, but she did. The Hendersons looked for her in their town – they put up flyers and placed an ad in the paper – but no one called to say they had found her.”

“Because we had her.”

Mrs Kushel cocks her head to the side. “But now you've done a very brave thing, like Ms Perlman said.”

“Okay.”

“The rest of the story you learned yourself. The Hendersons had to abandon their home after the storm, and they're living with relatives now. That's why it was so hard to locate them.” Mrs Kushel pauses. “They want Rain back, Rose. They love her and miss her and want her very badly.”

“Okay.”

The very next day Uncle Weldon picks me up from school, as usual. He drives me home, as usual. When we reach our house, I cross the planks as usual, and I see Rain watching me from a window. What is not usual is that Uncle Weldon is still sitting in the truck. He's waiting for Rain and me.

I put my school things inside. Then I clip Rain's leash to her collar and walk her around the yard for a while. She pees and poops, and sniffs at her favourite things – a stump, the bottom porch step, a particular spot near the garage door. Uncle Weldon watches us from the truck.

My father is not at home. He's probably at The Luck of the Irish. But I can tell that he was working on the new bridge this morning.

I think my father doesn't want to say goodbye to Rain.

I lead Rain to the truck. She sits between Uncle Weldon and me as we drive along. She looks out the window seriously.

The other day Mrs Leibler told me to try to see things from someone else's perspective. “Put yourself in that person's place, Rose,” she said. “What do you think she's thinking? What is she feeling?” I'm not sure what Rain is thinking or feeling now, but she looks like she's watching the road for people who are making driving mistakes.

Uncle Weldon and Rain and I ride to Happy Tails. We don't say much. Our space in the truck is very quiet.

I stroke the white toes on Rain's front feet. Her toes are as soft as pussy willows.

Uncle Weldon turns onto the drive to Happy Tails. He parks the truck and then he looks at me for a long time.

“Are you all right, Rose?” he asks.

I stare out the window and remember my father whacking Rain on the back and fishing for us under the table.

“I think the Hendersons will take good care of her,” I reply.

I help Rain out of the truck and lead her along the walk to the door of Happy Tails. Rain starts to shake, which makes me believe that she remembers Happy Tails and that she isn't happy to be back here. Beyond that, I don't know what she's feeling.

Mrs Caporale is waiting for Uncle Weldon and Rain and me at the door. She puts her arm across my shoulder. “You're making four people very happy, Rose,” she says. “What you're doing is honourable and brave.”

Everyone calls me brave. Is this what bravery feels like?

“Come into my office,” Mrs Caporale continues. “The Hendersons are there.”

I look up at my uncle and he offers me a smile. Then he puts his hand on my back and we follow Mrs Caporale through a doorway.

Sitting on chairs in the small office are a man, a woman, a girl who is about my age and a boy who is probably the prime number age of seven. They're sitting silently. But when they see Rain they all jump to their feet, and then the girl and boy slide onto their knees and throw their arms around Rain.

“Olivia!” the girl cries.

The boy doesn't say anything. He buries his face in Rain's fur.

The woman starts to cry so I don't look at her any more.

I watch Rain. She sat quietly at first, but now she's standing up and wiggling. Not shaking, wiggling. Every inch of her. She licks the boy's face and then the girl's face. She leaps up against the man's legs. The woman kneels down and Rain puts her paws on her shoulders. She whines in her happy way and then she jumps down and dances back and forth, sticking her snout in the Hendersons' hands.

This is Happy Rain.

And these are happy people, I think. I remember what their house looked like. I try to think about things from the boy's and the girl's perspectives. I decide that they must have been as sad to lose Rain as I was, and that they must feel as happy now as I did on the day Uncle Weldon and I first came to Happy Tails. I think that they still don't have their home, but now they have their dog back.

When Rain stops dancing around and the room grows quieter, Mrs Caporale brings out some papers for Mr and Mrs Henderson. They sign them and then for a moment everyone stands still looking at one another. I drop my eyes to Rain.

Mrs Henderson crosses the little room and puts her arms around me. I hold very still, my arms at my sides, while she hugs me.

“Thank you, Rose,” she says.

“Yes, thank you,” says her husband. He looks like maybe he's going to hug me too, but he changes his mind and smiles at me instead.

“Thank you,” say the girl and the boy, whose names, I know now, are Jean and Toby.

I think for a moment and then I say, “You're welcome,” and I stare at each one of the Hendersons.

Uncle Weldon clears his throat. “Well,” he says, “I should get you home, Rose.” He turns to the Hendersons. “Would it be possible for Rose to have a few minutes alone with Rain?”

“Of course,” says Mr Henderson, and everyone leaves the room except for Rain and me.

Rain is sitting on her haunches in the middle of the floor. She's still very excited, and when I sit down next to her she jumps to her feet and puts her face against mine, breathing hard.

“That's your family,” I say finally. “You're going to go home with them.”

Rain continues to gaze at me.

I wrap (rap) my arms around her and feel her soft fur against my cheek. “I love you,” I tell her.

Rain leans into me and we sit that way until I hear a knock on the door.

“Rose?” calls Uncle Weldon. “We need to leave now. So do the Hendersons. Have you said goodbye?”

“Yes.”

I stand up and lead Rain through the door. She sees the Hendersons and runs to them.

They call goodbye and say thank you to me several more times. I stand at the window in Happy Tails and watch Rain climb into the Hendersons' car. Then I watch the car pull out of the parking lot and turn onto the drive. I can see Rain's head in the window, her long proud snout, and her pink nose that is the exact colour of an eraser. Jean Henderson leans over and whispers in Rain's ear, and Rain cocks her head to the side.

The car turns a corner and Rain disappears.

The bulletin board in our classroom changes to
spring is coming
!

The air grows warmer.

My father finishes the bridge and now he can drive our truck over it.

Sam Diamond takes his car back.

The afternoons at my house are quiet. My father says he is out looking for work.

When I am at home alone I study my list of homonyms.

I look through my mother's box.

That is all.

There is an ache inside of me, a pain.

Is this what bravery feels like? Or loneliness?

Maybe this is an ache of sadness.

On a day when the grass in our yard is more green than brown, and the air is warm and smells sweet, and the branches on the trees are fuzzy with new leaves, Uncle Weldon drives me home from Hatford Elementary. He drives across the finished bridge and parks the truck.

My father is standing at the front of his own truck, tinkering with things under the hood. He hasn't been back to the J & R Garage since the day Jerry frickin' fired him. He works on his truck and in the yard now that the bridge is finished. I do not think his job search is going well.

One afternoon last week when Uncle Weldon was driving me home I said, “I guess my father could drive me to school and back now. He still doesn't have a job.”

Uncle Weldon started shaking his head before I even finished speaking. “Let's not mention that,” he replied.

That's what I was hoping he would say. “Okay.”

We rode for a little while longer and then I said, “From my father's perspective, I don't think he wants to run into Mrs Kushel or Mrs Leibler. Seeing them once a month is enough for him.”

“I think you're exactly right.”

Now on this spring day I climb out of the truck. Then Uncle Weldon climbs out of the truck. This is unusual.

“Hey, Wes,” my uncle says.

My father steps away from the hood and straightens up. He wipes his hands on a rag that is hanging out of one pocket. “Hey.”

“Do you have a minute?” asks Uncle Weldon.

“I guess.” My father looks wary.

“Well, I've been thinking. Rose here… Rose here should have another dog. Don't you agree?”

I take a step backwards. “I didn't say that!” I tell my father.

“Nope,” says Uncle Weldon calmly. “This is all my idea.”

My father snorts. “
Rose here
didn't appreciate the dog she had, the one I got her. She gave it back. She gave it back when she could have kept it.”

Rain is a she, not an it. My father is angry.

“Rain wasn't her dog,” my uncle replies.

“She could have kept it,” my father repeats. “She didn't have to go looking for the owners.”

Uncle Weldon clenches his jaw.

I take another step backwards.

“I was just trying to do something nice for her,” says my father. “I got her a dog and she gave it back. The one great thing I did. The one great thing.”

“Look, Wesley.”

“Not another word. I mean it. Not another word.”

When my father says “not another word”, he does mean it.

Uncle Weldon retreats to his truck, opens the front door, and slides behind the wheel.

“Just think about it. Rose has so lit—” He catches himself. “It's lonely for her. I mean, when you aren't around.”

“Rose is fine. She has all she needs here. She's just fine.”

“But a dog—”

“You think you know best? You don't know best.” My father slaps his hands on the side of his truck.

Uncle Weldon sits motionless behind the wheel.

My mind is whirling. I try to send a message to my uncle.
Please don't say another word. Not another word.
If my father forbids Uncle Weldon to see me, then I will have nothing left.

My uncle opens his mouth. “Are you sure
you
know what's best for Rose?” he asks quietly.

My father pulls a wrench out of his pocket. He aims it at the windscreen of Uncle Weldon's truck, but then he lowers his arm to his side. He puts the wrench back in his pocket, shakes his head once, and gets to work under the hood again. His hands are trembling.

Uncle Weldon puts his truck in reverse and begins to turn around. He waves to me through the window, and I give him a small wave back.

Then I run to my bedroom and close the door.

On nights when I have trouble falling asleep, I lie very still on my back and pick a number. The more awake I am, the higher the number I choose. Then I silently count backwards by three.

One warm night when rain is dripping softly off the roof of the house, I have been lying in bed for nearly an hour and a half and I am still not at all sleepy. I think about school. I think about Rain. I think about Parvani, who now tells me every time she finds new homonyms. I think about Rain some more.

Sleep will not come.

495, 492, 489, 486, 483. I am in the 350s when I start to make mistakes. Finally I feel floaty and drift to sleep.

BANG!
The door to my room flies open and in the doorway I see the shape of my father silhouetted by light from the living room.

I look at my clock. I have been asleep for less than twenty minutes.

My father flicks on my light. “I'm taking you to Weldon's,” he announces. “Right now.”

I raise myself up on my elbows. The time on my clock is 12.02. Why is my father up and dressed at this hour? He hasn't been to The Luck of the Irish tonight.

“What?” I say, but my father is already crossing the living room. I hear the front door open.

I think about what he just said. “I'm taking you to Weldon's.” Not “We're going to Weldon's”, but “I'm taking you to Weldon's”. This sounds like I'm the only one going to my uncle's house. It sounds like I might stay there for a while.

I hurry into the kitchen and grab a garbage bag from under the sink. I hear banging noises outside, as if objects are being thrown into the back of the truck. I whisk the bag into my room and stuff clothes into it, as many as I can grab quickly. I set my backpack next to the garbage bag. I make sure my homonyms list is in the backpack. I'm sliding my mother's box off the shelf in the coat closet when I hear my father shout, “Rose! Get out here right now.”