A Dog's Journey Page 15

  “What about Molly? I mean, what happens now?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it. I told her if anything ever happens to Molly again I’m going to write a book about how I was forced to run away because my mother was a dog abuser and I’m going to self-publish it and go on a national book tour. That gave her something to think about.”

  Rocky and I had both stopped wrestling when we heard my name. Now he jumped up and tried to climb on my back.

  “Rocky, stop that,” Trent said. Rocky dropped off of me and went over to Trent for reassurance.

  “Let’s walk,” CJ said, standing up. She and Trent snapped leashes onto our collars and then we went to the side gate and down the street. It felt so great to be going for a walk!

  “Oh, and then she tells me how helpful Shane was, that he was the one who said I was in LA. This is after I told her what a creep he is! She takes his calls and chats with him and probably does her laugh and everything.”

  “I tried to find you, you know. I mean, on the Internet, I was looking at postings, anything with your name on it.”

  “I should have called. I’m sorry. I just … It wasn’t the best time for me, and when things are bad, I can’t make myself communicate.”

  “I found something, though, while I was looking,” Trent said.

  “What?”

  “Actually, it’s more like what I didn’t find. I just noticed that on the real estate office site where your mom has an office? Her picture is there, but there are no property listings for her.”

  “Is it her glamour shot? I hate that.”

  “Yeah, I think so. It’s really fuzzy, out of focus.”

  “She’s pretty sure that someone’s going to see that picture and sign her to a record deal.”

  “You can go back three years on that site and find sales. Your mom’s name isn’t on any of them.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I guess it means that in the past three years your mother hasn’t sold or listed a house.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. Check it yourself.”

  “I had no idea. She’s never said anything about it.”

  Rocky went rigid and saw it the same time I did: a squirrel had bounded into the street and was now frozen, staring at us, probably paralyzed with fear. Our paws digging into the snow, the two of us strained at our leashes, the squirrel darting over to a tree and scrambling up it. CJ and Trent led us over to the tree. Rocky put his paws on the tree and barked, a joyous noise that let the squirrel know we could have caught him if we’d really tried.

  “Hi!” a woman called from behind us. I lifted my nose and could smell that I had met her before, though I wasn’t sure where.

  “Sheryl, hi,” CJ said. “This is my friend Trent.”

  The woman bent and held out her hand for Rocky and me to sniff. She had a glove on that smelled delicious, but I knew better than to try to take it in my mouth. “Hi, Trent. Hi, Molly.”

  “We met at the Christmas party,” Trent said.

  “Yes, of course,” Sheryl said.

  They stood talking for a little bit. Rocky and I kept glancing around for squirrels, but then some uneasiness came over my girl and I snapped my attention back to her. “Um,” CJ said. She and Trent looked at each other. “Sheryl, at the party, when Molly signaled … We never heard. I mean…”

  The woman nodded. “Of course. Well, there was … a lump. But it was so small, and I was so busy, I would have kept putting it off if it hadn’t been for Molly.”

  I wagged.

  “We caught it in plenty of time, my doctor says. So…” The woman gave a light laugh. “I called and told your mother about it all; didn’t she say anything?”

  “No, she didn’t mention it. But I’ve been … traveling.”

  The woman leaned over and kissed me. I wagged and Rocky stuck his head in the way. “Thank you, Molly,” the woman said. “You saved my life.”

  When we got back to the house, Trent and Rocky left and CJ and I went inside. There was a room I never went into because it was where Gloria liked to sit and look at papers, and this was where we went now. There was no food and no toys, so I had no idea why we’d bother with the place. CJ pulled open drawers and looked at papers, while I curled up in a ball and contemplated a nap.

  “Oh no,” CJ said quietly. I heard the word “no,” but it didn’t seem that I was a bad dog.

  CJ suddenly stood up and went down the hallway. She felt angry and she was stomping her feet. “Gloria!” she shouted.

  “I’m back here!”

  We went to Gloria’s room. She was sitting in a chair in front of a television.

  “What are these?” CJ asked loudly, rattling the papers. Gloria stared, her eyes narrowed, and then sighed.

  “Oh. Those.”

  “Is our house in foreclosure?”

  “I don’t know. It’s too confusing.”

  “But … It says we’re six months behind. Six months! Is that true?”

  “That can’t be right. Has it been that long?”

  “Gloria. It says we’re in foreclosure proceedings. If we don’t do something, we’re going to lose the house!”

  “Ted said he could loan me some money,” Gloria said.

  “Who’s Ted?”

  “Ted Petersen. You’d like him. He looks like a male model.”

  “Gloria! There are all kind of bills in your desk that aren’t even open.”

  “You’ve been snooping in my desk?”

  “We’re behind in our house payments and you don’t think I have a right to know about it?”

  “That office is my private place, Clarity.”

  The anger was slowly leaving my girl. She dropped into a chair, the papers falling to the floor. I sniffed at them.

  “Well, okay,” CJ said. “I think we’re going to have to tap into Dad’s trust.”

  Gloria didn’t say anything. She was looking at the television.

  “Gloria, are you listening? You always said there’s a provision in there that if we really need the money for something, like if I needed surgery or whatever, we can withdraw funds. I’d say losing the house counts.”

  “Why do you think we’re behind in the first place?”

  “Sorry?”

  “There wasn’t enough in there.”

  CJ was very still, and I could hear her heartbeat. I nuzzled her hand in concern, but she ignored me. “What are you saying? Are you saying you took the money? Dad’s money? My money? You took my money?”

  “It never was your money, Clarity. It was the trust your father set up so that you could live. All the money I spent was for you. How do you think I paid for your food, for the house? How about our trips, the cruise?”

  “The cruise? You invaded the trust so we could go on a cruise ship?”

  “Someday you’ll be a mother yourself. Then you’ll understand.”

  “What about your stuff, Gloria? What about your cars, your clothes?”

  “Well, obviously I had to have clothes.”

  CJ jumped to her feet. The rage in her made her whole body rigid, and I cowered from it. “I hate you! I hate you! You are the most evil person in the world!” she screamed.

  Sobbing, she fled down the hallway, and I was right on her heels. She scooped up some things from the kitchen counter as we went out the door and she went to Gloria’s car and opened the door. I jumped in—front seat!

  CJ was still sobbing as we drove down her street. I looked out the window but did not see the squirrel Rocky and I had chased earlier. CJ’s hand was to her ear, holding her phone.

  “Trent? Oh my God, Gloria spent all my money. My money, Dad’s trust, it’s gone! She said she took it out for me, but that’s a lie, it’s a lie, she went on vacations and she bought herself stuff, and it was all my money. Oh, Trent, that was my college fund; that was my … Oh God.” The grief in CJ was overwhelming. I whimpered, putting my head in her lap.

  “No, what?… No, I left. I’m dr
iving.… What? No, I didn’t steal her car. It’s not hers; she bought it with my money!” CJ shouted.

  She was quiet for a moment. She wiped her eyes. “I know. Can I come over? I’ve got Molly.”

  I thumped my tail.

  “Wait,” CJ said. She was quiet, her body still, and then a new emotion boiled up in her: fear. “Trent, it’s Shane. He’s right behind me.”

  CJ twisted in her seat, then faced the front. I felt a heaviness that I knew meant the car was changing speed. “No, I’m sure. He’s following me! I’ll call you back!”

  CJ tossed her phone onto my seat and it bounced and fell to the floor in front of me. I looked at it but elected not to climb down to sniff it. “Hang on, Molly,” CJ said. I had trouble holding myself steady. I heard a car honk. The car turned and I fell against the door. We stopped suddenly and then were driving again. Another turn came.

  CJ took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, I think he’s gone, Molly,” she said. She leaned over to pick up her phone, grunting, and then something slammed me so hard I lost track of everything. I heard CJ scream and a shock of pain went through my body and I couldn’t see. I felt us falling.

  It took me a long moment to understand what was happening. I was no longer in the front seat. I was lying on the inside roof of the car and CJ was above me in her seat. “Oh God, Molly, are you okay?”

  I could taste blood in my mouth and was not able to wag my tail or move my legs. CJ unbuckled herself and slid out of her seat. “Molly!” she screamed. “Oh God, Molly, please, I can’t live without you, please, Molly, please!”

  I felt her terror and her sadness and wanted to comfort her, but all I could do was look at her. She cradled my head in her hands. Her hands felt so good on my fur. “I love you, Molly. Oh, Molly, I’m so sorry, oh, Molly, oh, Molly,” she said.

  I couldn’t see her anymore, and her voice sounded distant. “Molly!” she called again.

  I knew what was happening. I could feel the darkness rising all around me, and, as I did so, I remembered being with Hannah, on the last day I was alive as Buddy. How, when I slipped away, I found myself thinking of baby Clarity and hoping she would find a dog to take care of her.

  With a jolt, I realized something.

  I had been that dog.

  NINETEEN

  Always before, when the warm, gentle waves swept over me and washed away my pain, I let myself drift with the current, floating without direction. Each time I had been reborn before it had been something of a surprise: I always felt as if I had completed my mission, fulfilled my purpose.

  Not this time. My girl was in trouble and I needed to get back to her. When the waves came and the sensation of her hands on my fur faded from me, I actively pushed, fighting to make my limbs respond. I wanted to be reborn.

  When awareness came and I knew I had returned, it was a relief. I had the sense that I had been asleep for less time than in the past, which was good. Now I just needed to grow large and strong enough to find my way back to CJ and be her dog.

  My mother was a light brown color, as were my two siblings—both sisters, both aggressively seeking to feed. When sounds began to emerge from the liquidy fuzz as distinct and identifiable, I could hear barking dogs. Lots of them.

  I was back in a place of barking dogs. After a time, the din became so much a part of the background that I stopped hearing it.

  While the light was still muddled and my limbs were weak, I could do nothing more than sleep and feed, but I remembered what to do, how to push forward to my mother, and bit back my impatience with how helpless I was.

  There were a couple of different women whose voices I could hear occasionally and whose presence I could feel from time to time. My mother’s body would tremble as she wagged her tail as these people came; I would feel it as I nursed.

  The first time my vision had cleared and I saw one of these people, though, I was shocked. She was a giant, looming far over us. “Such cuties,” she said. “Good dog, Zoey.”

  My mother wagged, but I was staring up at the enormous woman, blinking, trying to focus. When her hand came down to pet my mother, I cringed—the hand was huge, larger than me, larger than my mother’s head.

  As we got older, I watched my sisters skittering over to say hi to the giant women when they came to the cage. Fearful, I hung back, not even trailing after my mother when she went to be petted. Why weren’t my siblings afraid?

  When the woman picked me up, her hands enveloping me like a blanket, I growled at her, though her strong fingers held me trapped. “Hello, Max. You a fierce dog? You going to be a watchdog?”

  Another giant woman came up to peer at me. I growled at her, too. “I’m thinking the father is a Yorkie, maybe?” she said.

  “Sure looks like Chihuahua-Yorkie mix,” the woman holding me said. Her name, I would soon learn, was Gail, and of all the people in that loud place, she spent the most time with me.

  They called me Max, and my sisters were called Abby and Annie. When I played with my sisters it was always with a sense that what I should really be doing was finding CJ, though always before, when I’d been in a place of barking dogs, she’d found me. What I needed to do, probably, was wait, and she’d come. My girl had always come.

  One day Abby, Annie, and I were let out into a small pen with some other dogs. They were all puppies and ran to meet us, too young to know you’re not supposed to directly touch noses and jump up on another dog without pause. I disdainfully slid to the side of the one who assaulted me, ignoring his tongue and moving to show him that we should be politely sniffing each other’s genitalia first.

  There were other dogs in other pens and when I gazed through the chain fence at them I received a shock: they, too, were enormous! Where was this place, where the dogs and people were gigantic monsters? I went to the fence to sniff a white dog and he lowered his head and it was ten times the size of my mother’s. We sniffed through the fence and then I backed up, barking, letting him know I wasn’t afraid (though of course I was).

  “It’s okay, Max. Go play,” Gail the giantess said to me.

  Other than when we were in pens, we were allowed no time to be off leash. I was being led down a hallway full of cages and dogs back to my cage when I spotted a dog who looked a little like Rocky: same eager set to the head, same thin-boned legs. I knew it wasn’t Rocky, but the resemblance was so strong it made me pause—though this dog, like so many others in this place, was gigantic.

  That’s when it occurred to me: it wasn’t that the people and the dogs were huge; it was that I was little. I was a tiny little dog!

  I had met tiny dogs in my life, of course. But I had never before considered that I might be one—I had always been large, because people sometimes need the protection a large dog affords them. CJ certainly did! I remembered being in the car with her, when the man tried to get inside and he hit the window with a stick and I made him go away by snarling at him. Would a tiny little dog be able to accomplish that?

  Yes, I decided. When it happened again, I could still snarl, still let the man know that if he opened the door I would bite him. Wrestling with little dogs had taught me they have very sharp teeth. I would just have to convince bad men that I would be willing to sink mine into their hands. That would stop them from trying to get into the car.

  Back in my pen, I watched Abby and Annie play and they watched me watch them. Naturally, they were looking to me for leadership, as I was obviously the more experienced dog. Or at least, they should, though when I went to join their frolicking they ganged up on me instead of submitting to my dominance. That was something else: little dogs usually wound up on their backs, pinned down. I would have to work hard to prove that just because I was small I wasn’t a dog that others could oppress.

  I put my new resolution into action the next time we were penned with other puppies, letting them know that no matter what their size, I was the dog to pay attention to. A goofy black and brown canine, all feet and ears, obviously destined to be as big as Rocky som
eday, thought he’d put me down with his superior weight, but I slipped out from his forelimbs and went after him with snapping teeth and he fell over on his back in docile surrender.

  “Be nice, Max,” Gail said to me. Yes, my name was Max, and I was a dog to be reckoned with.

  Once my sisters and I were no longer nursing, we were taken for a car ride, in cages, to some outdoor pens. Our mother was kept in a separate kennel, which upset Abby and Annie but didn’t bother me: I knew what was coming. It was the time when people came and puppies went home with them.

  The open pens had no bottom; they sat right on the ground. I wanted to roll in the green grass, luxuriate in the sun, but I was momentarily stunned by the smells and sounds. The roar of noise was constant, not with barking but with the same sort of mechanical rumbles and shrieks that greeted me the day I was tilted left and right inside a plastic crate, the day CJ picked me up from the place of barking dogs by the ocean. And the smells: cars, dogs, people, water, leaves, grass, and, on top of all of it, food—great gusts of food smells swirling around me. Abby and Annie seemed as dazzled as I was by the sheer volume of sensual stimulus—we just stood there, noses to the wind, drinking it in.

  Many people came by, peering into the pens and sometimes spending a little time playing with the dogs within. “Look at the puppies!” people would say when they gazed in on my sisters and me. Abby and Annie would race over in loving enthusiasm, but I always shied away. I was waiting for CJ.

  Two men were soon kneeling by our cage, poking their fingers through the fencing, and Gail came over to talk to them.

  “We think they have Yorkie in them. Their mother is the Chihuahua over there,” she said.

  Gail opened the gate and Abby and Annie bounded out, the two men laughing in delight. I slunk along the back of the cage, keeping my head low.