Page 22 of Scout Takes the Lead
I drained the last of my beer. “I should get going,” I said. “I have to get to work later.”
“Thanks for coming over,” Kenny said. “It’s nice to know that Cheyenne and I both have friends.”
I thought about what Kenny had said as I walked home. We had become friends, because of the dogs. I’d lost touch with most of the guys I knew in the Army—either they were still serving, and in remote locations, or they’d come back to their families and were busy with them.
When I got back home, I sat on the floor with Scout. He rested his head on my leg and I began to brush his golden fur. “What am I going to do, boy?” I asked. “Should I keep you? Kenny seems to think you and I have bonded and that we’re good for each other. But I’m not sure.”
The fur came off in big soft clumps, and I started stacking it in a plastic grocery bag. “You deserve the chance to have fun, playing with a family and with other dogs,” I said, as I kept brushing him. “I don’t know that I can ever give you a life like that.”
He looked up at me, and his big brown pupils took up almost all the space in his eye socket. There was so much love in that gaze and I knew that I couldn’t give him away. It might not be fair to him, but I loved him and I needed him, and I didn’t have so much love in my life that I could afford to give up on some of it.
Eventually I got all the loose hair off Scout. “There’s enough here for another dog,” I said. “But you’re enough for me.” I logged onto the computer and handled calls for a few hours, then worked on the dollhouse until I could fall asleep.
The rest of the week, I followed my regular pattern—walking Scout, training him, working online, going to the gym, building the dollhouse. But for the first time I felt like there was something missing in my life. A woman. Was that woman Grace de Windt? I didn’t know. But I felt more comfortable with her than with any other woman I’d met so far in Florida. Was that because I kept myself so closed off? Or was it just that we had Scout between us? In any event, that was over.
12: Interruption: Grace
I was still upset when I got home and called Becca. “The evening was going so well,” I said. “But then he freaked out on me.” I described hearing the cherry bombs and how Alex had reacted. “I know what he was trying to do, but it reminded me of my father knocking my mother around and I couldn’t handle it.”
“It sounds like it’s as much your problem as his,” Becca said.
“Excuse me? Are you making excuses for a guy throwing me to the ground?”
“He told you he did it because he was trying to protect you. Not to hurt you.”
“I don’t know. It reminds me too much of my parents. The first time my father sprained my mother’s wrist, it was because he grabbed her and nearly dragged her away from a man she was talking to at church. My father said he saw something evil in the man’s eye and he had to protect her.”
“What did your mother say?”
“At first she said the man was just speaking to her in Spanish about something happening in Puerto Rico. But eventually she said she was wrong to talk to him.”
“This doesn’t seem like the same thing,” Becca said.
I looked down at my wrist, which had been scraped up on the pavement. “Whether he was trying to protect me or not, he hurt me. Alex has red warning lights flashing all over him. You were right. I keep trying to find guys I can fix. Only I can’t fix him.”
I thought about my conversations with Dr. Altman. She had been more concerned about fixing myself rather than other people. But it was all the same, wasn’t it?
I wasn’t surprised when I got the apologetic text from Alex the next morning. That’s what abusers do—-they hurt you, then they apologize. Oh, baby, I didn’t mean it. Give me another chance.
Only Alex didn’t ask for another date. He said he was dropping out of the class.
I put down my phone after reading his message. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I admit I was crushing on Scout almost as much as I was on Alex. He was such a handsome dog, with such a sweet personality, warm and loving and yet clearly protective of Alex.
Alex needed help with his dog, and maybe down the road Scout could help him with his PTSD. There wasn’t any reason why he couldn’t come to class anymore, as long as I kept my distance from him. And there were no loud noises to set him off.
I thought about Alex and Scout off and on during the week. I understood what he’d done, really. But it had still scared the shit out of me. Did I want to see him again? I met Becca for dinner on Wednesday night, and she brought Navajo, who she said was suffering from separation anxiety. She kept the dachshund in a bag over her shoulder, and every now and then he’d poke his long brown snout out and sniff the air.
“I can’t figure out what to do about Alex,” I said, after we’d ordered drinks. “Suppose he comes back to the class, and whenever I look at him I see my father and remember what he did. That would be awful.”
“Does he look anything like your father?”
“Not at all. My dad was shorter and blond and nowhere near as muscular as Alex.”
“Then why would you think of him when you see Alex? Just because of that one incident?”
“I don’t know. But what if I can’t talk to him? That would be even more hurtful to him than letting him go.”
The server brought us bread and butter, and Becca broke a piece off and fed it to Navajo. “This guy means more to you than just a training client,” she said. “I can tell. You haven’t gotten this torn up about a guy for ages. I think you should give him another chance. At least text him and say that you think you can help his dog, and he should keep coming to the class.”
