Church of the Dog (7 page)

“See that?” Grandpa points to the roof problem on the barn. “I saved that just for you.”

“Oh, goody. You know how I love heights,” I say.

Then I hear Grandma’s voice. “Oh, my land! Earl, who is this handsome stranger in our backyard? Get in here! I’ll make you a turkey sandwich! I made an apple pie just this morning! I had a feeling it was going to be a special day!”

“Come on, boy. Let’s go strap on the feed bag,” Grandpa says. He pats my shoulder again as we walk into the house.

I drop my bag off in my old bedroom, which hasn’t changed since I was a kid. My old bull-riding trophies cover the dresser, and ribbons hang from nails on the wall. I stop to study a newspaper picture of me and Tim holding up trophies. Several other newspaper pictures of me are taped to the edges of the mirror above the dresser.

I remember riding bulls as if I were riding in slow motion. The twisting and thrashing. My teenage body being whipped around like a rag doll despite my attempts to master control within chaos. Being spiked to the ground like a volleyball and running wildly to the fence to escape the horns behind me. And I remember feeling very separate from everyone else as I clung to the fence until the bull trotted out of the arena: me looking up at the crowd of smiling people and wondering what it feels like to be them, wondering if they really were as happy as they seem or if they felt as disconnected from everyone as I did but just hid it better.

Regardless of whether I made my eight seconds or not, Grandpa and Whitey would be standing together cheering. Then Whitey would work his way down to the chutes to give me pointers to help me on my next go-around.

Grandma would never go. She said it was enough to lose her kids; she didn’t need to watch her only grandson get killed, too. It was a point of contention between Grandma and Grandpa. His pride and her fear.

When I was twenty, I qualified for the circuit finals in Pendleton, which is a pretty big deal. Grandpa was out of his mind with pride. He had Whitey over several times a week to watch videotapes of the rodeos that had been on that week so he could point out the finer points of bull riding to me.

I can’t remember why I was late that day. I just remember the moment I realized that if I wanted to get there on time, I couldn’t take the long loop through Echo. I’d have to take the road my parents died on. I realized how humiliated Grandpa would be when I wasn’t there on time, but I couldn’t make myself drive the road. I started driving toward Echo to give myself a chance in case I thought of an alternative that would get me there on time, but in the end I realized it was hopeless. So instead of turning off to Echo, I just kept driving north until I reached Valdez where I wouldn’t have to face anyone, and I never returned. I got a job on a salmon boat and floated away.

I hear a knock at the back door, but before I can answer it, Daniel does. I watch their awkward introduction as I walk in.

“Hi, I’m Daniel.”

“Mara.”

They shake hands. He ducks his head. “I’ve got to go . . . uh . . .” He points up the stairs. “You know, unpack.”

“Oh, okay,” I say, disappointed. I wish I had done a better job of teaching him basic social skills. He makes his escape.

“Edith, I dreamt about waltzing the other night. I couldn’t get anyone to tell me whether it goes slow-slow-quick-quick, which would start me off on the wrong foot for the next measure, or whether it’s slow-slow-quick-quick-quick. Can you tell me?” Mara asks at my back door.

“Earl! Will you teach Mara to dance!”

Earl gets out of his easy chair in the other room and walks over to us. He looks at Mara for a minute while he decides. “I guess,” he resigns.

I sit down at the piano and play a waltz.

“What are we doing?” Mara asks.

“You’re following me,” Earl answers.

“Yeah, but what are we doing?” she asks again.

“Don’t worry about it. All you have to do is follow.” Earl steps all over her toes. “So this is the real reason you’re not married!

“Excuse me?” she asks

“You can’t court without waltzing!” he exclaims. Then he adds, “How do you think I wooed Edith? With my charm?”

“What charm?” I call out.

Mara laughs.

This takes me back to my first dance with Earl. He made my whole spine tingle. He was the handsomest young man in the county and by far the best dancer. I had wild roses braided in my hair. I noticed how he tried to get a whiff of my roses without getting inappropriately close to me. Catching glimpses of his temptation made me feel delicious. I’ve never felt more beautiful in my life than I did that night. I felt like a flower myself. He was the sun that made me bloom.

He was a different man then. Losing a child changes people. I sometimes think it’s worse for men, because they don’t cry— the ones from my generation don’t anyway. All those tears of grief just sit in their hearts and rot.

Speaking of grief, now he’s saying, “You’re not married because you need to learn to follow. And you’re not putting any effort into finding a man. Why aren’t you looking for a man?”

“Looking for a man for what?” she asks.

“To marry.”

“Oh, gee, Earl,” she stammers nervously for a minute. “I just barely escaped marriage. I was engaged to a man who tried to break my spirit. I think I’d rather go through life solo than go through that again, if you don’t mind.” All the while she beams up at him with love in her eyes, like she would look at a grandpa.

“Edith, did I break your spirit?” he asks me facetiously.

“Not yet!” I call back to them with all the spunk I can muster.

“He divided all the bills every week, split them exactly in two, and billed me at the end of the week. He charged me ten bucks for a trip to the hospital once,” she explains.

“What kind of man does that?” I ask.

“Men didn’t used to do that. I think they’re confused by all you women acting like men,” Earl says as they continue to dance.

“What are you talking about?” Mara asks, incredulous.

“Yeah, hardly any women stay home and keep the house anymore. How are the men supposed to do all the things men do when women are already doing them?” Earl asks.

“Earl, maybe women have had to do that because the divorce rate is so high and so many women are raising children on their own,” she answers.

“Maybe the divorce rate is so high because none of you know how to cook,” he says.

Mara laughs. “Yeah, that’s probably it. How simple! Or maybe it’s because none of them know how to cook.”

“Do you want a husband or a wife?” he asks.

“I just want my dog,” she says, getting better at following his steps.

“You really should open your mind,” I say.

“Even in times of extreme desperation, Edith, I still have one standard: no chewing tobacco. Fortunately, that standard has ruled out all the single men in a four-county radius and has saved me a lot of trouble.”

The house seems warm and full tonight. For too long this house has had only the two of us in it, not a family. Such a huge house for just two people. For decades this house has felt as empty as my heart after the kids died. But tonight the room seems to glow with joy as I try to reconcile the bittersweet conflict of a perfect moment—that is, enjoying the perfection, yet knowing it’s not the nature of these moments to last. Perfect moments make me realize how fragile my life is, along with everything in it.

Finally Earl says, “All right. You’re a pro waltzer now. You’re ready to be courted. Come back next week for the fox-trot.”

As we walk her to the door, I hear the squeaky stair and figure Daniel was probably hiding on those stairs, peeking around the corner, and secretly watching the whole lesson. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that stair squeak during important conversations, especially when we had company, I’d be a rich woman.

“Thanks, Earl. Thanks, Edith. Good night!” Mara sings out as she walks out the back door.

“Good night, dear!” I call out to her.

I go back to the living room put on an old record of dance songs, and then go upstairs where I pluck wild roses out of the dried flower bouquet that sits on my bureau. I had dried them last spring, and now I stick them in my hair and return downstairs to Earl.

He understands, and we dance close. He sticks his nose in my hair while we waltz and waltz. And for the next forty minutes I feel as delicious as I did sixty-one years ago.

“I don’t tell you enough how much I love you,” he says.

“I know you love me,” I reply.

“No, there’s no way you could possibly know how much you mean to me. I should’ve been tellin’ you, showin’ you for years.” His hand slips more firmly onto the small of my back, and he gives me the most loving kiss I have ever known. Tears stream down my cheeks.

Before I go to bed, Grandpa knocks on my open door. “I . . . I . . .” Grandpa stammers. “Um, I . . . I just wanted to say how nice it is you’re here,” he manages to get out, although I don’t think it’s what he came up here to say. “I . . . um . . .” he starts again. I can tell he’s trying really hard to say something. His eyebrows are scrunched together the way they do whenever he’s struggling with something. “I . . . I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Grandpa. It’s good to be here,” I say even though it is really not.

He gives me a smile and a wink and shuts my door. The door shutting was the worst sound in the world to me when I was a boy. And the stillness and silence that would follow took me back to the stillness and silence of my parents’ truck. No matter where I looked, no matter whether my eyes were open or closed, I could not stop seeing their bloody lifeless faces.

At once the feeling comes back, and I gasp for breath, trying not to panic more. I run to the window, wrestle with it until it opens, and stick my head out into the air. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I whisper to myself just to hear noise. “It’s okay,” I whisper until I believe it. But I leave the window open just so I can hear the cattle and the crickets as I try to sleep in this haunted room.

I’m up on the barn roof where I didn’t want to be. “I’m gonna stay down here so I can call 911 if you need it!” Grandpa kids me from down below.

“You’re too kind!” I shout back.

“Hey, I told Whitey you’d go over and fix his barn roof when you were done here!”

“You didn’t!”

“Okay, I didn’t. But I sure had you goin’ there for a minute, didn’t I?” he responds.

I just laugh and finish tearing out the rotted wood.

As I climb down and land, he puts his hand on my shoulder, still sort of laughing at his own joke. “You know, I don’t mean anything by givin’ you such a bad time. If I thought you feared the roof like you feared the circuit finals, I wouldn’t’ve put you up there.”

It is the first time he’s ever brought the finals up since it happened. I look at the ground and quietly say, “I wasn’t afraid of the circuit finals, Grandpa. I was late and didn’t want to drive the only road that would get me there on time.” I don’t look up. I just walk toward the barn.

He follows me to where we stand by the pile of dusty old boards wedged against a wall.

“That one will do, and maybe that one, too,” I say. Then I dig through the pile.

“Look out for nails,” Grandpa says. “Mara got one in her hand when she was building her sauna. Had to get a tetanus shot.”

“Hm.” I pick up the boards and carry them under my arm to the ladder. Grandpa follows. “Grandpa, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the circuit finals.”

“Well, that was a long time ago,” he says.

I stop at the ladder, and Grandpa rests his hand on my shoulder for a second before I climb.

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” he says.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you were scared when I didn’t show,” I say. I begin to replace the rotted wood.

“I drove that road to make sure you weren’t in the same spot again.”

I wince and stop working. I close my eyes and shake my head regretfully. “I’d give anything to do that day over.”

“You never did tell me why you were late,” Grandpa says.

“Oh, you know, I was getting in trouble with Tim the night before.”

“Oh, yeah? What was her name, and what barn did you wake up in?” He laughs.

“I’ll never tell. And yours,” I joke back. “Nah, I think Tim drove me home after I passed out. He dumped me in there so I wouldn’t get into trouble with you.”

“I never did like that kid,” he says.

I sat in the grandstand with Whitey, Owen, and Hank, drinking beer from a plastic cup and watching Clint Waffle make his eight seconds on a Brahma called Hurricane Jack. Good ride. Dan was up next, and my stomach knotted with all the hopes I had for him. The announcer called his name, and I said a silent prayer for his safety as I scanned the chutes for him. My heart sank when the silence lingered and the announcer finally said, “Looks like Daniel McRae isn’t going to make it today, folks,” and called the next contestant. I excused myself to call home, and when no one answered, my imagination got the best of me. I flashed back to runnin’ down that steep slope the kids slid off, past the bumper, past the tailpipe, down the trail of broken glass, answering Daniel’s screams, and hopin’ that Daniel’s bein’ alive meant the others were, too. The image of how I found the three of them haunts me. Even after all these years I can’t begin to describe it or comprehend it.

I returned home through Echo, the way I knew Daniel would come, scannin’ the sides of the roads for his truck or any signs of a recent accident. I made it home without findin’ a single fresh skid mark. I asked Edith, who was home now, if she knew anything, which she didn’t, and then my eyes began to water as I realized he may have taken the road that winds directly to Pendleton, the road the accident happened on.

I hadn’t been on that road since the day after the accident. Just drivin’ it made me want to upchuck. I took it slow, despite my panic. I stopped at some of the places where the cliffs were so steep that I couldn’t see what lay below the road, as I had done some twenty-five years ago. When I stopped at the place where I found the kids, I upchucked right over the edge.