A Dog by Any Other Name
Karen Walker
The taxi pulls up; I get out with my suitcase. Dad and my brother stand on the porch, staring.
It’s so cold—my breath and their welcome home freezing in mid-air—but Dad’s face is sweaty. His mouth is a knot like the one he’s twisting in the leash.
“Here’s Lady,” Dad says to me.
It’s a black dog. Medium-sized. Not fat, but not skinny either, with stubby legs and a thick tail. A Labrador Retriever like my Lady. I take a quick look underneath. Female, too.
But Lady has two white toes on one front foot and one on the other. This dog doesn’t.
I used to paint Lady’s nails with polish while we talked. Words dripped off her long bubblegum pink tongue, how Dad had yelled and kicked her for barking in the house. She flicked an ear. I’d better be careful, be quiet.
“The dog’s missed you. Hasn’t she, Joe?”
My brother’s eyes go from Dad to the dog and back. Just like when we’d pass on the stairs the morning after, he doesn’t look at me.
I drop my stuff and reach out, touch the fur. It’s like Lady’s.
She's the thick, soft blanket on my bed. Because Labradors are water dogs, tears run right off.
I pull her over me when it’s cold or when my bedroom door squeaks and Joe appears. When I'd I tell Dad, he’d say my brother was a shadow or a mouse or one of my many, many nightmares. But no one could tell me my dog was nuts too. When Lady growled, I knew Joe was really there.
I come closer. The animal shies away.
Dad shoves her to me with his boot. “The dog probably thinks you’ve abandoned her.“
No. Lady knew I had to go away. I showed her a brochure of the treatment centre—see, I said, an indoor pool and a bigger, nicer room than ours. She panted she didn’t want me to do it again.
As the ice cracked, someone had grabbed me and dragged me off and screamed what the hell was I doing. Did I want to fall through? Crazy, crazy, stupid kid! I should be ashamed to scare my family like this.
I was ashamed. Shouldn’t have taken her with me, made her watch. Lady wouldn't sit and stay so I tied her to a tree on the bank. She paced a circle in the snow, howling at me to come back.
The ice near the shore was pale blue, the colour of Dad’s prescription. Wish those pills had worked: maybe they would've if I had swallowed more. But all I got was dizzy, and then I barfed. Laying on the cold, hard bathroom floor, I thought of the pond down the road. To make sure this time, I walked further and further out until the ice was bluer than the pills.
“They should've discharged you weeks ago.” Dad jerks the leash. The dog startles, flashes a snarl.
That starts him sputtering. “You’ve been gone so long your dog doesn’t even know you.”
I’m eye to eye with the dog. Hers are round and questioning. Remind me of the counsellors’ eyes around the table. She's shaking a bit, her head nodding. So did theirs when I finally came up with a story—opening up like they wanted, “unburdening”—so I could get out of there. At least the dog isn’t taking notes.
“Animals forget. We can, too, about everything.” Dad elbows my brother. “Right, Joe?”
The dog begins panting. She has something to say. But as I lean in to listen (and ask her what’s going on), I see a black spot on the tongue. Lady didn’t have that.
Joe puts his hands in his pockets. He says: “I want to tell her what happened.”
That surprises me. My brother has never admitted anything.
And it surprises Dad, too. His tongue flops around in his mouth then hangs out and, like this strange dog, he can’t form words.
As Joe explains—there was nothing we could do, we tried: don’t cry, this one will be just like her—I turn and run, leaving the three of them to tangle and yelp and snap on the porch.
They don’t need to tell me. I know Lady went to the pond. When I get there, I’ll go around and around that sad tree, howling as she did for me, then join her way out on the ice.
Karen Walker
The taxi pulls up; I get out with my suitcase. Dad and my brother stand on the porch, staring.
It’s so cold—my breath and their welcome home freezing in mid-air—but Dad’s face is sweaty. His mouth is a knot like the one he’s twisting in the leash.
“Here’s Lady,” Dad says to me.
It’s a black dog. Medium-sized. Not fat, but not skinny either, with stubby legs and a thick tail. A Labrador Retriever like my Lady. I take a quick look underneath. Female, too.
But Lady has two white toes on one front foot and one on the other. This dog doesn’t.
I used to paint Lady’s nails with polish while we talked. Words dripped off her long bubblegum pink tongue, how Dad had yelled and kicked her for barking in the house. She flicked an ear. I’d better be careful, be quiet.
“The dog’s missed you. Hasn’t she, Joe?”
My brother’s eyes go from Dad to the dog and back. Just like when we’d pass on the stairs the morning after, he doesn’t look at me.
I drop my stuff and reach out, touch the fur. It’s like Lady’s.
She's the thick, soft blanket on my bed. Because Labradors are water dogs, tears run right off.
I pull her over me when it’s cold or when my bedroom door squeaks and Joe appears. When I'd I tell Dad, he’d say my brother was a shadow or a mouse or one of my many, many nightmares. But no one could tell me my dog was nuts too. When Lady growled, I knew Joe was really there.
I come closer. The animal shies away.
Dad shoves her to me with his boot. “The dog probably thinks you’ve abandoned her.“
No. Lady knew I had to go away. I showed her a brochure of the treatment centre—see, I said, an indoor pool and a bigger, nicer room than ours. She panted she didn’t want me to do it again.
As the ice cracked, someone had grabbed me and dragged me off and screamed what the hell was I doing. Did I want to fall through? Crazy, crazy, stupid kid! I should be ashamed to scare my family like this.
I was ashamed. Shouldn’t have taken her with me, made her watch. Lady wouldn't sit and stay so I tied her to a tree on the bank. She paced a circle in the snow, howling at me to come back.
The ice near the shore was pale blue, the colour of Dad’s prescription. Wish those pills had worked: maybe they would've if I had swallowed more. But all I got was dizzy, and then I barfed. Laying on the cold, hard bathroom floor, I thought of the pond down the road. To make sure this time, I walked further and further out until the ice was bluer than the pills.
“They should've discharged you weeks ago.” Dad jerks the leash. The dog startles, flashes a snarl.
That starts him sputtering. “You’ve been gone so long your dog doesn’t even know you.”
I’m eye to eye with the dog. Hers are round and questioning. Remind me of the counsellors’ eyes around the table. She's shaking a bit, her head nodding. So did theirs when I finally came up with a story—opening up like they wanted, “unburdening”—so I could get out of there. At least the dog isn’t taking notes.
“Animals forget. We can, too, about everything.” Dad elbows my brother. “Right, Joe?”
The dog begins panting. She has something to say. But as I lean in to listen (and ask her what’s going on), I see a black spot on the tongue. Lady didn’t have that.
Joe puts his hands in his pockets. He says: “I want to tell her what happened.”
That surprises me. My brother has never admitted anything.
And it surprises Dad, too. His tongue flops around in his mouth then hangs out and, like this strange dog, he can’t form words.
As Joe explains—there was nothing we could do, we tried: don’t cry, this one will be just like her—I turn and run, leaving the three of them to tangle and yelp and snap on the porch.
They don’t need to tell me. I know Lady went to the pond. When I get there, I’ll go around and around that sad tree, howling as she did for me, then join her way out on the ice.
