Page 11 of The Goode Girls of Maple Lane
THE DOG ISbeing kept comfortable—or as comfortable as possible—on a large mat covered with a fuzzy blanket on the floor of a consultation room. One of her front legs is shaved where she’s had an IV, though she’s not currently hooked up to anything. She’s lying on her side this time, with all four legs stretched out and her eyes closed. Even with her sores, her weight, and her hairless tail, she’s absolutely perfect. Because she’s a dog, and all dogs are perfect.
A vet tech in lavender scrubs is sitting by her head, stroking her ears. She says they’ve been taking turns, keeping the dog company and monitoring her vitals while encouraging her to hold on until I arrive. Everyone here is an animal person. I don’t need to explain why I’m so attached to this dog after briefly meeting her in a shelter a week ago. They all get it.
“I’ll give you some time alone,” the tech says. “Be back to check on you in ten?”
I nod, because it’s all I can manage. Then I take her place on thefloor and she heads out, shutting the door behind her with the softest, gentlest click as the latch catches. It’s so quiet, but my nerves are so taut, it might as well be a thunderous gong, ringing out from a mountaintop.
“Hi, girl.” I run a hand over the dog’s ear and down the back of her sweet, soft, perfect head. “You’re not having a very good day, are you?” I lean a little closer, bury my fingers in the thicker hair at the back of her neck. She’s not wearing a collar of any kind. I wonder if she ever had one. If someone, early on, before they decidedthiswas acceptable pet-parenting, picked out a color, and the shape of a little metal name tag, and got her name engraved. “Millie? Harley? Honey? Bailey?” I give each name a moment to settle before I try the next. “Cocoa? Kiki?”
She doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t whimper or snort. She just breathes, and I can only hope the sound of my voice and the feel of my hand in her fur are a comfort to her.
I don’t really know what to say. One of the things I’ve always loved about animals is that they don’t expect you to say anything at all. There are no awkward elevator silences. There are no awkward anything silences, but all I have right now is my voice and my touch, and after a lifetime of being given so little of what she needs, this dog deserves everything I’ve got.
I pull my phone from my pocket, and while I pet her with one hand, I scroll a baby name site with the other, reading through names fromAtoZ. The vet tech checks on me somewhere aroundF. I tell her we’re doing okay, which is a pretty big stretch, but code we both understand. She assures me the room is ours as long as we need it, so I let her know I’ll pop my head out and call for someoneif anything changes. Otherwise, I’ll hang out here for a while, which I do.
For the next hour or so, I read names, ask the dog what she thinks, and will her to live.
“Zelda? Zoey? Zora?” I try as I get to the end of the list.
No response, other than shallow but even breathing.
I turn off my screen and rest my phone in my lap, squeezing my eyes shut and letting a quiet whisper of a curse slip through my teeth. I’m thinking about slashing tires again, and this is not the moment to give in to my murderous rage. I can return to it later.
“Maybe I’m going about this all wrong.” I open my eyes and look down at the dog, still petting her head, her ear, her neck. “We shouldn’t pick your name off a list. We should make it special. Lady Marmalade was named after my favorite song at the time. I used to holler my way through it, missing every note. My poor parents.” I smile a little, but only a little. “We could pick a song for you. Or a musician, or a character from a book, like Pilot fromJane Eyre, or even an author, though I’m not much of a reader these days unless it’s an anatomy textbook. As a kid, though, I used to pore through books. I remember checking Agatha Christie mysteries out of the library five at a time because that was the limit for kids under sixteen. I loved the—”
I stop short, my rambling halted by the gentle nudge of a nose against my thigh.
And then she opens her eyes.
She opens. Her eyes.
At first, she stares straight ahead, like she did at the shelter, unfocused, but after a few seconds, her eyes shift until she’s blinking upat me. Her head is still resting on the blanket, her body otherwise unmoving, but she’s definitely looking at me, with her tufty brows twitching and more life in her eyes than I saw last weekend. They’re a warm, dark brown, almost black, each with a pair of highlights from the overhead fluorescents and a tiny crescent of white at the base.
“Hi,” I say, a barely there breath of a word, and again, “Hi.”
She blinks, and her nose inches forward to tap my thigh again.
A rush of emotion races through me, though I’m not sure which emotion. Relief, or maybe fear, because it’s only a nudge. It could be a goodbye, but also... it’s a nudge.
I scoot closer so I can lift her head onto my lap. There’s hair everywhere at this point from all the petting so I pluck away a few strands that are stuck to her nose. Her wet nose. Her no longer hot and dry nose. Her nose that twitches as I clear it of hair.
A nudgeanda twitch. And open, curious eyes.
My hope surges.
I stay with her, rambling nonsense for several more minutes with her head on my lap as she adds a twitch of a paw to her repertoire, and then another, and then a faint but happy groan when I rub the inside of her ear with my knuckle. After several more minutes, when I find myself laughing through tears at some random observation I make about how it’s too bad neither of us can reach the treat jar sitting on the counter on the opposite side of the room, tucked among examination equipment, I hear the quiet thump of a tail hitting the mat.
This is how Everett finds me as he’s ushered into the room with another vet tech: cry-laughing with a dog whose tail thumps for a second time when he kneels and asks how we are.
“I think she might pull through,” I say.
His eyes sparkle behind his glasses as he pulls down the sleeve of another beautiful sweater he probably inherited from one of his sisters, and uses it to dab at my eyes.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah. And she has a name. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will. I hope she will.” I bend down to kiss the top of her head and then whisper near her ear, “Hold on, Aggie. Hold on and come home and have the life you should’ve had all along.”
Chapter Five
