The Travels of Zoe, the Wonder Dog
By Carrie Jacobson
Chapter 12
The story so far: Zoe, a little, blind lhasa apso, was left at the Pike County shelter when her owner lost his job and had to move in with his wife’s mother, who’s allergic to dogs. He left her at the shelter in the middle of the night, and Kaja, a big red dog, came and took her away. They have made their way through the woods, and crossed the Delaware on a rickety bridge. In Barryville, at the very edge of the river, Samantha and Ashton Morrone are building a fort that’s also a raft. The Morrones own a small hotel on the bank of the river. The kids have brought the dogs inside and begged to keep them both. Angie, their mom, would like agree. Pete, their dad, has said no. The dogs can stay for the night, but that’s all.
That night, the dogs sleep in a little hallway at the front of the house. Kaja can’t remember the last time she slept inside a real building. In the winter, she found an abandoned shed where she stayed on a series of frigid, snowing nights. It was half falling down, and missing most of its roof, but it was shelter from the wind. Kaja would curl into a tight ball, her nose deep in her thick, red coat. She was grateful for the shelter. If she’d had something like this, though, she’d have stayed all winter.
Zoe snuggles into Kaja’s warm side, and the big dog’s smooth breathing lulls her. She loves the smell of this dog’s red fur, and she loves how strong and muscled her body is beneath. Kaja is warm, too, and little Zoe is tired and drained and cold, and the warmth feels fine on this cool September night.
In the morning, Angie comes downstairs first. She looks through window of the hallway door, sees the dogs sleeping together there on the cool floor. The big dog is looking at her, a question in her eyes. The little dog is fast asleep, and as Angie watches, the big dog puts her head down again and snuggles around her friend.
Angie puts the coffee on and starts a pan of oatmeal. It’s September, and it’s cold enough this morning for oatmeal. Another fall, another year, another summer vanished into a poorly remembered patch of rain and heat and sun. This year, she’d promised herself in the spring, this year I will spend my days outdoors. I’ll sit on the deck in the long summer twilights, and I’ll pay attention to the birds and the woods and the river. I’ll live outside, like I did when I was a kid, like my kids do now, and I will savor each moment of sun and heat, each single drop of summer.
But somehow, all those promises had drained away in the bustle of work and visitors that is summer in a hotel in the Catskills. Now the air has the bite of fall, the kids start school next week, and their hotel has its first vacancies since May. Summer is over, and somehow, Angie is surprised. And a little sad, too.
“Pete,” she says when he comes downstairs, “I want to keep the dogs.”
“Oh, Ange, we can’t keep them, honey. I mean, I’d like to keep them, too, but we just can’t. You know that.”
“No, I don’t know that. I don’t know when having a hotel meant you couldn’t have a life. Couldn’t have a dog.”
“Two dogs,” he said.
“But you and I both had dogs growing up. I think it’s important for the kids.”
“Angie, you know that you would end up taking care of any dog we had. The kids won’t do it, not after the first couple weeks, you know that.”
“Yes,” she said, “I do know that. And you know what? That’s fine. I guess I say it’s for the kids, but really, I miss having a dog. I really do. And look at them,” she says, pointing through the window. “Look at them.”
Pete looks. He sees two dirty, scruffy dogs. One is old and blind. The other looks like she could bite your leg off, and might, given half a chance. He looks at the dogs and he sees veterinarian bills, and grooming bills, and arguments with the state health department. He sees cars full of dog hair and rugs full of muddy footprints. He sees poop in the yard and vacations either changed by bringing a dog or made more expensive by leaving it. And then he looks at his wife’s face and sees a kind of longing he hasn’t seen since before the children were born.
“One,” he says. “I’ll agree to keep one.”
“But Pete, look at them! We can’t split them up.”
“Honey, it’s just too much. If we didn’t have the hotel, I’d say keep them both and get five more. But we just can’t. You know that.”
She does.
But she also knows that these dogs need to be together. So after Pete leaves for work, and before the kids wake up, she feeds the dogs, using most of the small bag of food she bought last night, and tossing in some left-over turkey, too. She pets them both, buries her nose deep in the coat of the big red dog, picks the little blind dog up and hugs her close, and then opens the side door.
“Go on,” she says, and finds tears stinging her eyes, spilling over onto her face. “Go on, you two. Wherever you’re headed, I know you’re going together. Go on, now, and be safe.”
And she wipes her tears and smiles, watching the two friends trot away, following the river south.
Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com
Tags: Carrie Jacobson
