Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [23]
“Do you have a water dish for the dog? If you are going to be the nursemaid for this guy, you might consider a way to feed him.”
Sam looked too large in the house, too scruffy with his dark stubble blossoming from his face. The front part of her brain got up and bumped the old animal brain away. Taking a breath, she said, “There’s a pan under the stove, I’ll use that. Did you bring in the amoxicillin? Seven more days with the meds, right?”
The dog, limping and exhausted from his ordeal at the clinic, the ferry ride, and the bumpy ride in the back of the truck, now slid to the floor and panted.
Sam picked up Rocky’s phone and called his wife. “Yeah, it’s Isaiah’s rental, off Bracken Road. OK. See ya.” Sam leaned his backside against the chipped Formica of the counter. “She’ll be here in about twenty minutes, then we have to pick up the kids at day care.”
Rocky uncovered the rectangular pan from beneath the stove. She tore open the top of the Science Diet bag of kibbles and scooped out a handful and let them chink into place. The dog picked up his head, looked at Rocky, and she thought he smiled. She knew Labs and retrievers always looked like they were smiling, putting them in the same category as panda bears and koalas, disarming all humans. She just couldn’t believe anyone could smile that much. Bob had disagreed with her. “No, Rocks, these dogs really are smiling. They are in a state of contentment,” Bob had said.
By the time Michelle pulled up, Rocky had put the cap back on the adrenaline, but her armpits were drenched from the experience. She had not had a panic attack, but the effort of averting one had drained her. When the couple left, she was exhausted. Sam had been her first visitor. Isaiah and Charlotte didn’t count because they owned the place.
She looked at the dog. “I’m no bargain, but I’m all you’ve got until we can find your owner. I’ll try to be a good host.”
The cat had kicked up a royal fuss when Rocky let her inside, hissing and pushing her spine into a curve of hysteria, then fleeing for the dresser in Rocky’s bedroom. Both Rocky and the dog ignored the behavior and viewed the tabby as far down on the list of critically important dilemmas.
Rocky was struck by how quickly the black dog had recovered from his injury. The gaping wound left by the broken shaft of the arrow drew together faster than she thought possible. In the first years of Bob’s vet practice, she sometimes helped him with late-night emergencies. She saw dogs and cats with legs pointing in the wrong direction, jagged skin flaps peeled off necks and shoulders, and crushed hindquarters. She learned that animals could survive the worst horrors, that skin grew back together and bones mended, and that dogs always acted with a sort of immortal grace.
The dog looked at Rocky. She took the throw rug from the bedroom and bunched it up near him. He was her first save and she didn’t want this to go wrong. He slept in the kitchen on the first night, near the front door, like a shy houseguest not wanting to intrude.
He had all the signs of depression: listlessness, lack of enjoyment in the things normally enjoyed, he even turned his black nose up at food. And his sleep was fitful, waking several times during the night. Being a dog, he couldn’t say things like, “It wouldn’t matter if I was gone, no one would notice.” But Rocky wondered if that was exactly what the Lab would say if he could. She did what she could for him in the first days of his foster care, postoperative life. She was assured that his recovery would not be a complicated one. Infection would be annihilated by the broad-spectrum antibiotic, he would be stiff and sore from the surgery, shocked by whatever happened to cause an arrow to be shot into his shoulder, but dogs were made