The Lost - J. D. Robb [63]
What? What was this? Incredulous, I watched Sam and Benny walk up a wide, yew-bordered path to a low brick building with glass doors. And disappear inside.
No. No. I howled it, but nobody heard. I raged until my throat hurt, but nobody cared. What had I been thinking? The universe was not an orderly place. Ghastly miscarriages of justice were allowed to persist, and no wise hand balanced horrible, unnatural inequities. I was lost.
I never thought things could get worse.
“Hi, yes, I’d like to make an appointment to have my dog spayed.”
Behind Sam’s chair, I choked on a piece of empty cottage cheese carton from the garbage.
“Tuesday? Is that as soon as you can do it? Right, the holiday weekend . . . Okay, next Tuesday, then. Eight a.m., that’s fine.”
I ran around the chair, put my paws on his knees. No! I shook my head so hard, I hit myself in the eye with an ear. He kept talking—I started barking. No! No!
He laughed. “Yeah, that’s Sonoma,” he said into the phone. “I know. It’s like she heard us.”
The days that followed were peculiar. I would lie at the top of the stairs at night, guarding the house, and think, Well, another day gone and I didn’t run away. I could have: the basement window was still unlocked. Home alone every day, there was nothing to stop me from making a break for it. But I didn’t go. The human world was falling apart around me. Running away and reconnecting—somehow—with the real me was my only chance, but I stayed.
Why? The chances of actually making it were tiny—that was one thing. The time Sam let me go with them to Hope Springs had opened my eyes to what would really be involved, the distance, the danger, cars going sixty-fi ve miles an hour. It might take weeks, not days. I was scared.
Also, it’s hard to describe how seductive being a dog is. How tempting it was to give up. Forget who I used to be and sink into this new self, a self whose boundaries seemed to be nothing but love. To give love and get love—that was what my needs were narrowing down to. I could feel it intensifying every day. Friendship, sweetness, play, companionship—with the exception of evil Monica, that was all I cared about. Going, going, almost gone were any feelings about justice, fairness, tit for tat—and never mind anger, disappointment, umbrage, pride, ego, disapproval. Jealousy—I still had that. I wanted all the love my loved ones had. And that was a failing, but one I knew I’d never overcome. It came too naturally.
And it’s just so damn nice to be a dog. I can’t overstate the pleasures of sinking into a light doze about five times an hour. Drifting off . . . waking up . . . drifting off . . . dreaming . . . waking up . . . You fall into a pattern of sleeping and waking that, over time, averages out to almost constant half-asleepness (or half-awakeness) and it’s very . . . nice.
Another example, just a small thing, but—the game of sock. Tug-of-war, I should say, but Sam and Benny called it “sock,” as in “Want to play sock? Sonoma! Get the sock!” I tried to remind myself that tennis was the best game—Tennis, Laurie! You’re good at it, remember? Tennis is the best!—but it was hard. And face it: I got so much more joy out of sock than I ever got out of tennis.
Anyway, I didn’t leave. The days drifted by in a pleasant haze, long periods of comfortable idleness punctuated by bursts of extreme excitement—They’re home!—and profound contentment. I worried, and sometimes I had bad dreams, but time passed and it became increasingly clearer that the dog side of me was winning.
On Thursday, the principal at Benny’s school left a message on the machine that he’d been in a fight. She was sending a note home with him. She wanted to talk to Sam about it as soon as possible.
Benny in a fight? Impossible. What kind of fight? Was he hurt? No, or she’d have said, or there would’ve been something in her voice besides calm professionalism. I paced instead of napping the rest of the afternoon.
Mr. Horton came over twice to let me out, the second time in late afternoon, five or six, something