Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [67]
Isaiah moved toward the door. “We’ve got twenty minutes to the next ferry. The Townsends have made up their mind Rocky, and they have heard your offer. They have declined. The dog is leaving with them. Let’s not make this any harder on them than it already is,” he said. “You’ve taken good care of him, Rocky. That’s the job.”
Ed took the leash off the kitchen counter and snapped it onto Cooper’s collar. The dog’s ears dropped and the center of his eyebrows rose. Everybody, including the dog, looked at Rocky for the next move.
“Come on, Coop,” said Rocky. She moved slowly, dreamlike, wishing herself anywhere but here. She followed the couple and the dog to their car. The coffee that she had been drinking since six A.M. started to form sharp gravel in her intestines. Ed opened the back door to the car and urged the dog in. Cooper looked back at Rocky as if she were coming with him. She bent down and put her arms around his neck, scratching his chest the way he liked and kissed the top of his head. Her throat tightened.
“Get in, Cooper,” she said.
The dog hesitated, then leapt with surprising ease into the backseat that had been covered with a ragged towel. Rocky winced when she saw that Cooper’s fur was still damp from this morning’s walk. The Townsends wouldn’t like that.
The Townsends backed up their sedan, turned around, and drove off. Cooper was sitting in the backseat and as they pulled out, he turned his head to look toward Rocky.
She stared at the departing car long after it was out of sight, frozen to the spot.
“You did the right thing,” said Isaiah. He cleared his throat and pushed his hands into his pockets. Rocky spun around at him.
“Don’t talk to me today, or tomorrow! This is not the right thing and you know it. This stinks. A dog run! A fucking dog run! He’s not that kind of dog. He’s a people dog, he has to be with his person. That’s me.”
Rocky felt the last two words settle into her as the shocking truth. She turned her heel on Isaiah and walked back into the house and felt the unstoppable convulsions of sorrow howl out of her as she leaned against the door. Isaiah knocked.
“Go away!”
He was quiet outside her door, then slowly scuffed off the deck. She heard his truck pull out. After her sobs emptied out, she splashed cold water on her face. It wasn’t fair that she had to keep losing everyone she loved. She could stop this disaster from happening; she had a choice this time. Her keys to the truck hung on a nail by the door. She grabbed them and ran to the truck. The battery, which had been acting peevish, gave its death rattle, the reluctant sound of a battery that would like to oblige, but has lost its juice. She kept turning it over until there was nothing but a click from the ignition.
She pounded the steering wheel with her fist. “No, no, no!”
The dock was one mile away. She had five minutes before the ferry left. Sometimes in the winter their schedule was less than exact. She pulled off the backpack, and started running. These were different muscles than walking muscles but she hoped they were in working order because she was going to take them to the limit. She could make it and she would stop them. She was the Animal Control Warden. She had some authority.
Her legs responded to the emergency. The sandy gravel tried to drag her down, but she pushed off with each step as if nothing else mattered. She hit the paved road just past Melissa’s house and she got up on her toes and ran like she had seen sprinters do. There was one hill as she rounded the main island road and gravity took an extra measure from her. She heard the ferry blast its departure horn. She tilted her head back to suck in more oxygen and pumped her arms as she blew past the closed fudge shop and T-shirt shop. She skidded around the corner to the dock. The ferry was already churning up water and was fifty yards out. There was only one car on the ferry, and she could still see the top of Cooper’s black head through the window. She reached the end of the dock and without