Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [49]
He stopped eating; a few kibbles remained. He looked at the girl, and she saw her image reflected in the light of his eyes, a strange glint from the kitchen light giving her the opportunity to see her hair pulled tight, her eyes looked larger and not unlike a puppy. Lloyd stood, wagged his tail with encouragement, burped as best he could to welcome her and sat back on his haunches.
Her brain was rumpled, but her body read all the messages from Lloyd and slowly she reached forward, moving to her hands and knees until the dish was within reach. With her butt pushed up and her head down to the floor, she peered into the dog dish, and saw three kibbles amid the slick of saliva and Lloyd’s oily scent. She looked back at the dog. She took his soft-mouthed smile as a sign. She put her face into the dish and opened her lips around one kibble, and tasted the sweet grain and meats. She scraped her teeth against it and she remembered a hundred flavors that had been lost for months. She softened each kibble in her mouth and swallowed.
Chapter 15
Rocky brought a weekly report into Isaiah’s office. It was an accounting of dead animals removed from roadways, animals taken to the mainland, calls about lost cats, and calls requesting her help with troublesome animals. She also added, although Isaiah had said her level of detail was not necessary, an accounting of her walks on the shore, of sea gull carcasses, and of unusual high tides that ate a new inch out of the cove.
“You’re not responsible for the work of the ocean,” he said when he read one of her reports for the first time. “I know I mentioned that you could keep track of beach erosion, but I forgot that you would be such a scientist.”
“I think there should be an accounting of it, of the changes. Someone should know that a gull died.”
He put the report on his oil-stained desk, then he reached into a box beneath his desk and extracted a folder and put the report in it. He wrote on the manila folder with a ballpoint pen, “Life as recorded by the Animal Control Warden.”
“Agreed. Write down everything happening on our fair island,” he said.
And she did. After the dog came along, she added in his recovery and his speedy rehabilitation. She added in brief notes about her archery practice. One week she wrote, “Five hours archery, no change.” The next week she recorded, “Moved up to the twenty-five-pound bow. Now it is hard all over again.”
Rocky had just stopped by with the latest report. Isaiah read the report, nodded with approval and said, “I haven’t asked you because you told me not to back in October. But is this helping you in any way, pretending to be who you are not? Is this all constructed so you don’t have to talk about your husband? People handle death in all sorts of ways. I’ve seen some whoppers; people will try the never talking about it method, and on a rare occasion, it works. I can’t say why, but it’s not the way for most.”
He had both of his hands wrapped around a blue coffee mug that said, “Mutual Life.” Rocky still had her coat on and her nose stung from the cold wind that pummeled the island. She weighed her choices. There was something about the hiss of the woodstove and the way a jet of steam rose out of the dented aluminum pot of water on the stove and the way the black dog suddenly gave one deep-throated bark from her truck.
“Let me get the dog if we’re going to talk awhile. He gets worried that I’ll get into trouble if I’m gone too long.”
Since the dog had come into her life, Rocky had been thinking more about bodies, about how everyone might live in bodies but only like a prom dress or a tuxedo, a costume for the play. She had watched Lloyd struggle with his injury, fight to survive, endure the worst loneliness and despair, just to keep living in his black-furred body that had miraculously healed. But his body had changed. His limp was integrated into a slightly