The Dog That Talked to God Read online

  There were still three pictures of my son on display: one in the sunroom, a small one, his face nearly hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt; one in the bedroom that used to be his, a group picture of his friends at a church day camp the summer before I lost him; and one in the formal living room, a horrid picture of the three of us, taken for the church’s pictorial directory. Jacob in a tie and a jacket nearly luminescent in the harsh lighting and my hair looking more wispy and flyaway than usual, with John serene and happy between his mother and father.

  Jacob was represented in a handful of pictures, spread out over the house.

  Furtively, I would walk about, usually late at night, after dusk for sure, and talk to the pictures, asking my husband, my late husband, about things in my life and what I should do about the insurance for the house and if I needed to roll over his IRA into something else. I would ask him about what color I should paint the family room and if I should highlight my hair, and if the plumber who quoted replacing the leaky toilet in the guest bath could be considered honest or not.

  I talked and talked and talked and tried not to be a crazy lady. I tried to avoid talking directly to the picture, you know, talking while staring at a dead man’s face. I was shy, even circumspect about it. But I did it. A lot. And I waited to hear an answer.

  Sometimes, I would get a very strong, nearly visceral feeling. Unmistakable.

  Like the question about the plumber. I heard . . . felt . . . and came to the conclusion that the plumber I considered operated on the up and up. And he did the job quickly. There were no leaks. He cleaned up after himself. And he charged me less than he quoted. I think he realized I was a widow and took pity on me.

  That’s how Jacob talked to me. Not like Rufus. No . . . their communication styles were very much different. One . . . maybe one I made up. The other one was real.

  One . . . I wanted. The other . . . came to me, came upon me, without my looking for it.

  There is a difference. A big difference.

  Since Rufus arrived in my life, I have talked less to the photos of Jacob, though I still do so, once in a while, in a quiet hiss of a whisper, in the fading light of day. I wait for the nudge from beyond.

  Sometimes it happens . . .

  Ava snapped her fingers.

  “Mary? Are you listening? You said you would answer my question.”

  I blinked.

  “What? What did you ask again? I guess I was thinking about . . . something else there for a minute. A book problem, I think.”

  Ava placed her hand on my forearm.

  Funny how much communication is done without words through the simplest of gestures—like one person’s hand placed on another person’s arm. I have lived now for years with little human contact—skin to skin touching, that is.

  Oh, there is the quick, shoulder-to-shoulder hug at church, or at the supermarket. There is the handshake from insurance salesmen and car dealers.

  But there is little discretionary touching in my life.

  That’s why widows go to the beauty parlor every week. It is the human touch they crave, without knowing it. No one needs their hair cut and styled on a weekly basis. With the possible exception of the queen of England, perhaps.

  Ava’s hand on my arm got my attention. A connection—a physical connection—grabbed me. The intimacy—even that slight touch—got to me like no words could ever do.

  “Are you ready to start dating?” she asked.

  The words registered, but I think I must have looked shocked, or puzzled, or gobsmacked. (Don’t the English have such great words?)

  “Well? It’s a legitimate question. I waited a year after my divorce. Healing time. And it has been lots longer for you, Mary. It’s time, right?”

  I struggled to find a word, or words, to answer her with.

  (I have discovered recently that most grammarians, the modern ones anyhow, now say that it is okay to end a sentence with a preposition. I don’t think I have ever been a stickler for not doing so, but now, when it happens, I no longer worry that an aggressively proper copy editor will flummox my sentence construction to prevent ending my words with a “with” or a “for.”)

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “That’s not an answer.

  “It is too.”

  “It’s time, Mary. You know it’s time.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You’re young. Sort of, anyhow. And you—and I—neither of us are getting any younger. You need to. Date. Really.”

  “I don’t. Really. It’s too soon. Much too soon.”

  But I did crave that touch. Not sexual, I think, but just touch. Hand in hand. A hand on my forearm or bare shoulder. How wonderful it would be to be held by a man with strong arms . . . protecting me . . . enveloping me.

  “It is not. You know it.”

  She glared at me for a moment, then tilted her head.

  “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

  “I am not.”

  “Rufus,” she said, trying to recruit my best friend to her side, “doesn’t she need to go out? It’s time, isn’t it?”

  Rufus sauntered over, looked at me, then put his paws on Ava’s knees and looked back at me in a pretty snide dog manner.

  They had ganged up on me.

  “I’ll . . . I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise you.”

  And I was determined to get back at Rufus for siding with my other best friend.

  Later that evening, after Ava had left, after she made me promise, again, to think about what she had said, twice, I gathered my coat and Rufus’s leash. I was still smarting from his cozying up with Ava, as if he thought that chumminess wasn’t obvious to me. He took her side on this dating thing.

  I shivered when the word came into my mind.

  Dating? Good grief.

  Ava was right. It had been a long time. And there were those times when I nearly ached for the touch of a man. I did not admit that to anyone—not to friends, not to Rufus, and certainly not to the pictures of Jacob.

  But dating? Another man? A stranger? Kissing some other man? Wouldn’t that amount to cheating? Adultery, even?

  Yes, there were a few earlier attempts to entrap me into dating—all of them at church. What is it about churchgoers who seem to think it is unnatural for a woman to be alone? I know, there are those verses that say something about “better to marry than to burn with lust.”

  I wasn’t burning with lust, exactly, though I did miss all that went along with lust. In the good, married sense of the word. Please. But what I missed more than all that biology and anatomy was being held, being wrapped up in someone’s arms. I missed being connected by touch.

  Hugs are hard to do without.

  Rufus bounced and wiggled as he always did, making it difficult to attach the leash to his collar.

  “Rufus, stop wiggling,” I barked at him, my voice not at all kind and gentle.

  He stopped and looked back up at me, as if my harsher tone was unfamiliar and unsettling.

  We stepped out into the cold. I could see my breath form in the shadowy light of the streetlight at the end of my driveway. Rufus sneezed once. He sneezed a lot. Dr. B. ruled out allergies. “He sneezes. It’s what he does. No big deal. He’s a snouty sort of dog.”

  We hurried to the corner, then turned south. We would take the route that included the sidewalk that ran alongside the small retention pond behind the big houses. The pond lay on private property, and one homeowner plastered her fence with stern NO TRESPASSING and PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR PET signs. Not a welcoming attitude. The sidewalk was community right-of-way, but we always hurried past the pond. It was darker, not dangerously darker, but it was less traveled at night. Streetlights lit most of the rest of the way.

  As we stepped into a pool of darkness, halfway between streetlights, I stopped.

  “Why did you side with Ava?” I asked Ruf
us, and immediately realized how delusional I sounded—expecting a dog to answer me.

  “I don’t know. What’s dating, anyhow?” he replied.

  “Dating? Well, it’s when two people go out together so they can get to know each other better. Dinner. Coffee. Movies. That sort of thing.”

  Rufus stared across the waters of the pond. During the summer, a large egret lived along the shore. It swooped over us once, taking off and spooking the bejeebers out of both of us. Now Rufus kept an eye out for it. He was not a dog that liked being spooked.

  “Do dogs date?”

  How do I answer that?

  “No. They don’t. But people do. They have to get to know each other before they . . . get married or move in together.”

  Rufus pulled gently at the leash, the cord ratcheting out, clicking loudly.

  “That man in those pictures on the wall. The pictures you talk to.”

  He meant Jacob, of course.

  “Yes?”

  “Is he dead?”

  My throat tightened.

  “Yes. He and the little boy in those pictures died in a car crash several years ago. The man was my husband. We were married. The little boy was my son.”

  I felt the tears start to form, and I fought to hold them back. I did not want to wander through the dark, my eyes fractured like stained glass from salty tears.

  “I thought so. You get sad when you look at them. But I wasn’t sure. You never told me. I thought I should wait to ask you about them.”

  “I do get sad sometimes. I miss them very much.”

  We walked on a short distance, Rufus’s nails clicking on the cement sidewalk. They would need to be clipped during his next visit with the groomer. He did not like the groomer. Too many dogs, a shampooing at the hands of a stranger, rattling hair clippers. It was an unnerving experience for him.

  “I think you should date.” Rufus had the speaking part of conversation down. His timing was not as solid. A kind and caring person would most likely have waited longer to give me that opinion—especially following on the heels of my unburdening about my husband’s and son’s deaths.

  We turned the corner onto Western. It was uphill until Hawthorn. It wasn’t steep, but I never liked this part of the evening route.

  “Really? Why? Why do you think I should date?”

  Rufus could not shrug, of course, but he nearly shrugged just by using his tone of voice.

  “Aren’t people supposed to be together? I see that on television all the time. People together. A man and a lady. People talk a lot about getting together.”

  “But I don’t have to be with someone. I have you. I can talk to you.”

  “That is true. You do.”

  We walked in silence, the empty branches clacking together in the breeze, like mute, cold, wooden fingers drumming on a desk in another room.

  “But I’m pretty sure you need to be with another person.”

  “Pretty sure?” I asked. I was debating with a dog.

  Good grief.

  “I think that’s what is supposed to happen. Isn’t that what he says it should be like?” Rufus asked.

  Of course this conversation was already semi-crazy and totally delusional—talking to a dog, carrying on a normal face-to-face, or face-to-muzzle, conversation as it were, asking the dog his opinion on what I should do with my life.

  Perfectly normal, right?

  “Who? Who says?”

  Did he have a secret life that I did not know about? Did he talk to the black lab next door—that stupid, pushy, knuckle-headed beast? What kind of advice could that animal provide?

  Rufus stopped to sniff at a leaf that skittered in front of him. When his investigation stopped, he lifted his head and replied. “Why, God, of course.”

  5

  Rufus clammed up for two days. He didn’t say a word during our walks, even though I asked him repeatedly about his communication with God. I suspect he meant the God of all, and not some canine deity that I was unaware of. But I couldn’t be sure. Could there be a dog god of sorts that all dogs knew about, and about whom humans were clueless?

  I did not allow myself to become fixated on Rufus and his talking. I mean, what if his speech was really just my delusional thinking—a manifestation of my repressed desires and grief and doubts and whatever other mental hobgoblins lived in my gray matter? I felt certain it was not. I told myself that I was certain that I had actually heard what I heard, and that Rufus talks. . . . I guess most delusional people are sure that they are sane and rational. But I was sane and rational. Or rather, I am sane and rational. I have continued to write, and my prose is generally sane and logical. My plots have not begun to include little creatures from the planet Xerlon. I manage to feed myself and find appropriate, if not stylish, clothing. I pay the bills when they come due. I do not hoard aluminum foil or wrap it about my head to keep the federal government from scanning my brain during the day.

  So Rufus didn’t talk on command. I would wait. And if he never spoke again, I would simply keep his talk a secret and never tell anyone about these episodes. Ever.

  Perhaps what complicated my thinking or my receptivity was my wrestling with Ava’s question . . . or, rather, demand.

  Dating.

  I know. I had considered dating, a few times, and only to myself. In the aftermath of the accident, I was too grief-stricken, too paralyzed, too numb, too angry, too bitter, too anguished to even consider the option of trying it all again. Like a small child who takes his first ride on a two-wheeler only to have a terrible accident, ripping a knee apart in the process—well, that young child is not too keen on mounting a bicycle ever again. I was the same as that small, scarred, scared child.

  As the months passed, the concept of another man remained horridly strange, but I guess I knew dating did not lie out of the range of distant possibilities—really distant possibilities.

  And now, I have to face that fact. If I do not want to die alone, or at least die without human companionship, I have to consider that distant possibility.

  Dating.

  That night, a cold wind hastened in from the north. I usually pay little attention to the weather. It is what it is. My mother-in-law would watch The Weather Channel for hours on end, letting us know that rain would be coming in four days. The weather forecasters, always helpful, would warn her of impending doom at the hands of the weather. A stretch of below-zero weather? Stay home, make sure that the furnace operated properly, have firewood, stay in contact with family. A stretch of one hundred-plus degree days? Stay home, go to a cooling center if needed, drink lots of water, stay in contact with family.

  Weather forecasters did not predict the weather. They wanted to scare people into staying at home, cowering in the basement, watching The Weather Channel all the while—or at least until the dangerous weather passed.

  And you know what? The dangerous weather never passed. In Chicago, there are perhaps a couple dozen perfect days during the year. On those days you could safely venture out—but only if you had slathered on sufficient sunscreen to blot out the evil sun. And there is great consternation among the sun-fearers that no sunscreen in existence could prove effective at blunting the sun’s evil rays. It was a terrifying, never-ending pattern of threatening weather, followed by terrible weather, followed by downright dangerous weather.

  But I digress.

  Tonight, well, the weather tonight grew cold enough that my mother-in-law would have stocked up on groceries and ammunition, if she had been in town. No snow yet, but biting wind. I slipped into my well-puffed down parka, tightened the hood around my face, grabbed my bright yellow gloves and Rufus and I headed out into the iced air.

  I wear calf-high, superinsulated boots, no lacing required, and a thick, faux sheep-fleecy interior. In fact, I seldom wear socks with these boots, they are that warm and comfortable.

  We both walk briskly, movement being the key to staying warm.

  We turned a corner. Rufus stiffened and pulled at the leash.
Another dog approached, being held on his leash by an older gentleman. Rufus and I pass a number of other dogs and owners during our walks. I know none of their humans’ names. We humans know each other by our dogs’ names. Gus is a fat yellow lab, who waddles rather than walks. Sometimes Rufus will bounce around the older, fatter dog, both of them offering fake barks of challenge. Sometimes just a sniff and a growl will do.

  The other man greeted Rufus by name. I do the same to Gus. We act as our pets’ spokespeople. We both comment on the sudden drop in temperature. The other man said it is time to move south.

  “Eighteen months and I retire. I’ll be out of here in eighteen months and a week.”

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “My daughter lives in Orlando. That’s where Gus and I are headed. It will do his old bones good to get out of the cold.”

  No mention of a wife. Divorced or widowed. I think divorced. There are subtle clues that only the single man or woman can interpret. Rings, of course, are the biggest hint. But it also has to do with how questions are answered. A single man talking to a single woman states things differently. Not suggestive, by any means, but differently. Why? Because he knows he has no one to correct or advise him otherwise. Making an appointment is another clue—married people will always hedge, saying he or she must check with his or her spouse to make sure the date is open. Single people or divorced people never do. And theirs is also an element of need—not pathetic neediness—but a single person often really wants to connect. So conversations are quickly deeper. Married people already have a connection, so dialogue with them often remains superficial.

  Rufus and I bid our farewell and continue. The moon has been lost to us, behind a thickness of iced clouds. Despite the streetlights, the night seemed darker than usual, darker than most.

  “Do you like Gus?” Rufus asked me, his breath coming in puffs with each word. Out of the blue, he spoke again. I wish it had been a more explanatory statement—preferably about his divine communication skills.