The Dog That Saved Stewart Coolidge (31 page)

Stewart and Lisa hugged in the midst of the crowd while Hubert bounced and barked in happiness. Heather was busy signing autographs and having pictures taken with the mayor and every member of the city council. Even the Tops attorney, Robert Kruel, asked for a picture and an autograph. The Action News camera crew was busy getting all sorts of feel-good images of the dog and the citizens lined up to pet him and Bill Hoskins beaming and shaking everyone's hand—while passing out business cards, of course.

The only person who immediately left the meeting was Mr. Arden.

Once he saw that there would be no justice served, he stormed out in a huff, mumbling to himself about backwoods kangaroo courts and pea-brained elected officials, wondering if he could force a stock boy to remove all the posters and how he might mark that on the official time sheets that were turned in weekly to the central office.

S
TEWART ROSE
exceptionally early the next morning, still excited and happy over the outcome of the previous night's meeting. He actually had had to go to the mayor, after he was done taking pictures with Ms. Orlando, and ask him what the council decided.

“That means I get to keep Hubert?”

The mayor, who looked as relieved as anyone at the meeting, grinned. “It means you keep the dog, Mr. Coolidge. But stop by city hall tomorrow and buy a dog license. It's eight dollars and forty-five cents. But two dollars less if the dog is—you know—fixed.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor, thanks so much.”

This morning, both Stewart and Hubert had been up well before sunrise. Stewart had his necessary cup of instant coffee while Hubert sat next to the kitchen table, grinning and watching him.

“Looks like we're a team now, Hubert. Officially.”

Hubert started to wiggle, just a bit, and that wiggling backside had always preceded his full-bounce dance of happiness.

“You should be happy, Hubert. You don't know how close you came to being given to Mr. Hoskins. Or worse. Really. That could have happened.”

Hubert was having none of that. His eyes indicated that he never had any doubt that he and Stewart were somehow meant to be together.

“I bet you think it's all part of God's master plan for my life, don't you?”

At this, Hubert did bounce, and dance, and growl with happy growls, his backside almost overtaking his front paws as he maneuvered about the kitchen, his nails making small tap-dancing sounds on the smooth linoleum floor.

“How could you be so sure, Hubert?” Stewart asked. “I mean, you're a dog, and dogs don't understand faith and God and all that.”

Hubert abruptly stopped all movement. He actually appeared hurt.

Stewart saw his eyes. He thought he could see a reflection of disappointment.

“You do understand?”

Hubert bounced and growled.

“And you know about God and faith and stuff?”

Hubert looked hard at Stewart, then began to bounce again, smiling.

Then the dog stopped.

“And this was part of the plan all along? Your plan?”

And Hubert danced and growled his way around the kitchen and did not stop until Stewart, laughing, got out his leash and put on his shoes.

Spring had turned to summer during the dog's thievery streak and the mornings grew warmer and the walks longer. Hubert trotted along, smiling, looking back over his shoulder every so often, as if to make sure Stewart was following him. When Hubert saw that his walking companion was still with him, he smiled, and turned back to sniffing and exploring as they walked.

They walked along the nearly empty streets of town, and when the dawn colored the sky red, Stewart made a left turn and headed back home.

“Time for breakfast, Hubert. You hungry?”

Hubert bounced up and down, indicating that he might be nearly famished, even with the two celebrative real hot dogs he ate last night.

Stewart added a cup and a half of kibbles to Hubert's dish and Hubert looked back at him as if to ask, “Where are the hot dogs this morning?”

“Hot dogs are only for special events, Hubert, not a steady diet.”

Hubert waited another moment, just to make sure Stewart was absolutely serious about that new dietary restriction that Hubert had not agreed to.

Obviously.

Stewart did appear totally serious, and Hubert methodically nibbled on his food, taking a long time to eat.

Stewart made himself another cup of coffee and was about to sit down in the living room and watch the sky brighten when he heard a very faint, very soft, tapping at his door.

Lisa stood there, in shorts and an oversized man's shirt, appearing as if she might have slept in those last night.

“Do you have any tea?”

Stewart heated water and Lisa greeted Hubert with a long hug of celebration, which Hubert appeared to expect that morning.

When the tea was ready, Stewart added twenty seconds of microwave to his coffee, so his coffee and her tea would be at the same temperature.

They sat in the two chairs in the living room.

Lisa sipped her tea and remained silent, appearing to be deep in thought. Stewart didn't mind. He just liked having her near.

“I have some big news,” she said, almost with a hint of fear, or perhaps regret, in her words.

Stewart waited. He had a good idea what that news might be. His heart hurt, just a little, but he had steeled himself for every eventuality.

People leave. I have to accept that.

“Heather Orlando…she offered me a job. As her assistant producer.”

“In Pittsburgh?”

Lisa thought Stewart was being funny and smiled, then realized he considered the question legitimate.

“Yes. In Pittsburgh. On the Action News team.”

Stewart maintained a calm exterior, but his interior was suddenly in turmoil.

How do I respond?

“That sounds like your dream job.”

“It is. It's not reporting, but I'll be working on a news show. This is huge, Stewart. Huge.”

“That sounds great,” he said, hoping he sounded truthful.

Hubert arrived in the living room, his chin still dripping water from his after-kibble drink. He looked at Stewart and tilted his head as if not understanding something. Then he looked at Lisa, stared for a moment, and whimpered. Then he lay down between them, a little bit away, so that he could see both of them without turning his head.

After a long period of silence, Lisa said, in a mouse-small voice, “Come with me.”

Stewart had not expected those words, nor that request. None of it matched his daydreams of the past several months.

“But I don't have a job. I mean, I don't have a job in Pittsburgh.”

Lisa leaned forward in her chair, suddenly very earnest. “You could work at a Giant Eagle store if you had to. Or you could go back to school at Pitt. They offer a degree in law enforcement. I looked it up last night. I couldn't sleep.”

Stewart listened, totally unsure what to say next.

I guess they need bag boys in Pittsburgh, too.

Hubert whimpered and looked at Stewart with deep, serious eyes.

“But…what about us?”

Lisa's bottom lip trembled, just a quiver or two.

“We are a couple, aren't we?” Stewart added. “I mean…we're us, now. Right?”

Lisa smiled and nodded.

“We are, Stewart, we are. Us. Me and you. I love you, Stewart.”

Hubert stood up and growled and whimpered and looked for all the world as if he were trying to tell Stewart something important. He walked over to Stewart and butted his thigh with his head, like he was trying to impart some wisdom to Stewart—or like he was simply telling Stewart to “wake up and smell the coffee.”

Even if it was instant.

“Well…” Stewart began, then he paused.

Hubert barked, twice, very seriously, very firmly, and stared at Stewart, then at Lisa, and then back at Stewart.

“Well, I love you. So we should get married,” Stewart finally said.

Lisa smiled. She more than smiled, but that was all her face could do that early in the morning.

“Stewart, that's what I was thinking, too.”

L
ISA CLIMBED
the steps to the apartment, on the third floor of a grand old Victorian—this one well maintained and freshly painted, in Shadyside, just to the east of the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, and only a fifteen-minute bus ride from the Action News studio. She walked softly, almost on tiptoe, and carefully inserted the key into the door, hoping it would not click too loudly.

She nudged the door open and peered inside.

Lying in a pool of afternoon sunlight, on the couch they'd bought at the resale shop in Wilkinsburg, was Hubert, his paws hanging over the edge of the cushions, his head resting on the thickly padded arm of the sofa.

He was snoring.

She crept up to the couch and sat down beside him. He snorked once, and raised his head, and when he saw it was Lisa, he smiled and growled a happy greeting, his tail wagging.

“Don't get up, Hubert.”

He didn't.

She sat, quiet, next to the dog, stroking his side. Hubert's eyes closed. In a moment, Lisa was asleep as well, a quick afternoon catnap for the both of them.

Ten minutes later, the door opened again. This time it was not opened silently. Stewart walked in, wearing a gray police academy sweatshirt.

Lisa jumped up and hugged her husband and he hugged her back and Hubert stretched, allowing them to have their private greeting, which they apparently enjoyed, and then he slowly made his way off the couch, grinning and growling and dancing about the living room, surrounded by the two people who loved him and the two people whom he loved in return.

And at that most perfect of moments, at that most clear and wondrous of moments, the two most important humans in Hubert's world stood together, his world now complete—and he basked in the smile of his Creator in the warm afternoon sunshine on the third floor of a house just east of Pittsburgh.

 

1. Hubert, the good dog, did not really have a human understanding of God—yet helped Stewart find his way to faith. Do you think God would use an animal—like Hubert—to draw people closer to Him?
   
2. It seemed as if all the main characters in the story had a painful past—Lisa, Stewart, and Hubert. Do you think that pain prevented them from finding the truth—or helped them find the truth?
   
3. Lisa assumed that Stewart had a faith in God simply because he had a Verse-a-Day calendar in his apartment. Was she simply fooling herself or did she truly believe that was all it took to indicate a belief in God? Does that say something about Lisa's spiritual maturity?
   
4. When Stewart “finds” Hubert and takes him in, he seems to realize that he is skirting the law, if not breaking it outright. Is breaking the law, or staying silent about a “crime,” ever the proper thing for a believer to do?
   
5. Obviously, Stewart had some unpleasant experiences and memories of the church that his mother attended after leaving the family. With that in his background, were you surprised at his willingness to go to church with Lisa? Or do you think it was simply an attempt to get closer to her without having any intention of paying attention to what was preached in her church?
   
6. Stewart's grandmother is an obviously controlling, negative person. How was Stewart finally able to stand up to her and establish his own independence? Was it his relationship with Lisa—or Hubert—that helped him most?
   
7. Lisa obviously had issues in her past that she was ashamed of and had promised not to let happen again. Do you think her mother was justified in reminding her so often of her past failures—and reminding her so often of the need to be careful? Do you think such reminders could have had negative, and unintended, implications for Lisa's behavior?
   
8. Hubert had a very painful and traumatic past—as evidenced by the scars on his head and back. But in his innocent and simple way, he simply chose not to think about those memories. Is that something we should strive for as well—saying no to unpleasant memories? Or do we have to deal with every unpleasant memory in some fashion?
   
9. When Stewart heard the sermon about the lost sheep, he didn't really understand it, nor did he think he was one of the lost. But yet the sermon helped him draw closer to the truth. Obviously, he didn't get exactly what the preacher meant—and Lisa did not really push him to acknowledge what that pastor meant. Was that wrong on her part? Should she have been more “confrontational” about Stewart's grasp of the true meaning? Would that have helped him—drawn him closer—or pushed him farther away? How much should we insist on “proper orthodoxy” for those who are outside the church but are seeking to come inside?
   
10. At the end, Stewart and Lisa decide to get married—almost as a spur-of-the-moment decision. Do you think that was wise? Should they have waited longer? Did Lisa truly know that Stewart had found faith?
    

Available from Center Street in Summer 2016 wherever books are sold.

A preview follows.

G
RETNA
S
TEELE
SHUFFLED
past the television. She kept the set muted, but it stayed on for the entire day.

“Nobody in this ‘retirement village' can hear worth beans. Why should I turn up the volume? I'm already being forced to listen to six other programs from every apartment on this floor.”

What was being shown on the screen caught her eye. She shuffled to a stop and pulled the remote out of the pocket of her pastel housedress. She stabbed at the yellow button while pushing the remote toward the TV, to help push the electronic beam toward the set's electric eye.

She knew the extra push made the television respond faster.

The older analog TV, the size of a small refrigerator, barked into full voice.

Sad music was playing.

“No. Not sad. Plaintive. Manipulative.”

Gretna often self-narrated the small events in her daily routine.

She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. She had glasses somewhere, but seldom wore them.

“They make me look old. I may be eighty-five, but I don't have to dress the part,” she often said.

The commercial continued. A series of dogs with sad faces appeared on the screen.

“Adopt one of these,” the announcer said, with just the right amount of gravitas, “and you'll be making the world a better place for one lucky dog or cat. And yourself.”

And then Gretna noticed something. The commercial was not the finely tuned, slick presentation of a national campaign. It was not a video done by some corporate animal rescue organization. This had to have been locally made and produced—perhaps by some volunteer at the shelter who happened to have a decent video camera.

In the foreground were two sad dogs, each apparently selected because they could emote maximum pathos. In the background stood another dog. This dog was black and active and bouncing and grinning and looking directly at Gretna, almost as if he was daring her to look away, to not be affected by the announcer's plea, smirking and wiggling and grinning cheek to jowl.

“That dog has guts,” she said to herself. “He's not buying into their propaganda.”

Then the black dog in the background stopped and simply stared, but his grin remained at half power. Gretna was sure the semi-happy beast was staring directly at her.

She thought for a moment.

“So where is this place, anyhow?”

And in a few seconds, the announcer gave the address. Twice. And asked for donations three times.

It took less than an hour for the taxi to arrive. Gretna climbed in, pulled out a small pocket-sized notepad, and made a most deliberate show of writing down the cabbie's name and cab number. She made sure the cabdriver saw what she was doing.

“Mizz Steele, you don't scare me. I drive you six times in a month,” the driver said with a thick accent. Gretna thought it was perhaps Caribbean, perhaps Middle Eastern. Even African. He was from somewhere else and not here—of that Gretna was certain.

Gretna leaned closer to the Plexiglas partition, narrowing her eyes, determined.

“Maybe.”

“I did, Mizz Steele. Last time, we go to de Giant Eagle. Remember? You paid in quarters.”

“Maybe.”

The driver, one Sharif Moses Yusry, sighed and put the cab into gear.

“Where to, Mizz Steele?” he asked. “De Giant Eagle again?”

Gretna scowled at the rearview mirror.

“No. I don't eat that much. Or spend that much. Who do you think I am? A drunken sailor?”

The cabdriver sighed, signaling that he knew arguing, or even adding a comment, was futile, but stopped when he reached the end of the circular driveway.

“So…where to, Mizz Steele?”

Gretna flipped the page on her notepad.

“Sixty-six twenty Hamilton Avenue.”

Sharif did not pull out.

“What's there?”

Gretna scowled again, then responded with a more agreeable tone.

“You're a cabdriver, for heaven's sake. If you don't know where it's at, then let me call for another cabdriver who does know.”

Sharif slumped in the front seat.

“Mizz Steele, I know address. I know street. What will I look for? A house? A store? What?”

“And that's none of your business, actually. But if it helps you find the place without taking me on a wild-goose chase, then it's the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania.”

Sharif remained still, even though his surprised expression was reflected in the rearview mirror.

“You adopt a kittycat?”

Gretna leaned back in the seat.

“Again, none of your business. But, no. I'm adopting Thurman.”

Professor Wilson Steele set his cup of coffee down on the round kitchen table with precision—the very same table that had been in the kitchen since Wilson was a child: chrome legs and Formica top, the table surface mainly gray with a squiggling pattern of red and gray lines, which Wilson always thought looked like snakes, or some sort of 1950s virus, worn almost colorless in a couple of spots by several thousand meals eaten at those very places.

Wilson had rotated the table one-half turn fifteen years ago and now sat at a relatively unworn location, his chair still facing the same direction as it had when he was younger—the same direction he had always faced, since birth, the truth be told.

Or at least since being able to sit in a high chair.

His seat faced the kitchen window over the sink and had a prime view of the large oak tree in the side yard.

Or
used to have
view of the oak tree.

The tree had succumbed to natural causes a decade earlier, and it cost Wilson an obscene amount of money to have it cut down, chain-sawed into smaller sections, and hauled away. He would have left that spot bare, but without the oak tree as a shield, he could see directly into the kitchen of Rod and Linda Heasley, an overbearingly friendly couple who were relative newcomers to the neighborhood, having arrived some twenty years earlier.

Linda Heasley had had the temerity to wave to him after the oak was dispatched. Yes, wave to him as he sat and enjoyed his cup of coffee in the morning.

He assumed that social protocol required him to wave back.

And on that same day, between the writing classes he taught at the University of Pittsburgh, he had ordered an obscenely expensive thirty-foot maple tree to replace the oak and harangued the nursery to deliver it the following day.

The maple wasn't as full or as large as the oak, but it was a serviceable screen between the two houses.

“Good fences—and big trees—make good neighbors,” he said to himself, the same thing he had said to himself every time he sat at stared at the maple tree, which was now coming into green.

Wilson's house, originally his parents' house, sat, as the crow flies, only two miles from where his mother now lived. It had a phone that had been placed in an alcove and that at this moment began to ring. This was the same alcove that had held that phone ever since he was young, during the time when the family owned only a single phone. Wilson believed that the architect of the house had designated this small niche to be the “phone alcove,” on the premise that a family would have but one phone and one outlet only—as God intended it to be.

Now Wilson had a wireless phone system with four separate phones scattered throughout the house. But to Wilson, talking on this specific phone, located in the alcove, made it an official phone call. So it was the one he usually picked up.

“Are you home?”

Wilson sighed.

“No, Mom, I'm hang gliding off of Mount Washington. Of course I'm home. You called the landline. I have to be at home to answer that, remember?”

“Do not get snippy with me, young man. I was merely making conversation.”

Wilson took a deep breath and stared at himself in the hall mirror. He wondered how many reflections this mirror had seen over the decades it had hung there. Wilson ran his hand over his short salt-and-pepper hair. It was only just a bit thinner than it had been when he was young, but still gave him a very average, nearing-senior-citizen-status, grayed appearance. He had never considered himself handsome, nor notable in any physical way, just average—average height, average weight, average coloring, modestly blue eyes, average, all of it average, tending to invisibility.

Sweet invisibility.

“Well…you have to come and get my dog.”

Wilson did not speak for a long moment. He did not have a dog growing up. As far as he knew, his mother never had a dog growing up. No one in their family had dogs. So this was probably not a flashback to some childhood memory.

“Your dog? You do not have a dog, Mother.”

He typically used the word “Mother” rather than “Mom” as his exasperation rose.

He heard her sigh with an increased degree of that same exasperation.

“I do too. He's right here. Aren't you, Thurman?”

Wilson heard some sort of rusty noise in the background. A manner of vague growling.

It could be the TV. That was always on.

“Mom. A dog? Are you drinking enough water? Remember what Dr. Farkas said. You get dehydrated and you start hallucinating. That happens easily with his older patients.”

He heard his mother snort in derision.

“I'm not an older patient, that quack. And I am not seeing things. Thurman is here with me. And he can't be. With me, I mean. Because he is definitely here. So you have to come and get him.”

Her grip on reality was clearly starting to become tenuous.

“Okay, Mom. Settle down. I have to go to class now. I'll stop over when it's done. This afternoon. Okay? And take care of your ‘dog.' Okay?”

“You're a good son,” Gretna replied. “Such a good boy.”

And then she hung up and Wilson was not sure if she had addressed the last comment to him or to the dog, imaginary or otherwise.