Lost & Found (12 page)

Rocky’s thoughts reached for the woman she had never met, who had stayed long enough on the island to leave a wounded, and loved dog, and then die in Orono. Rocky sat up and flicked on the light. This woman, Liz, had been young, twenty-eight, but right at the age where you can see the first plateau of adulthood, where a young woman might leave behind the tentativeness of being afraid to appear too serious, too sober. She had just purchased a house, how did everything go wrong? The first hint of daylight was still hours away. She got up and pulled on a sweater and her jeans. There was something wrong; this dog had not been mistreated, he did not display overly passive or aggressive behavior; he had not been afraid in his life with Liz. She looked at Lloyd who had risen stiffly and sniffed her pant leg. “I know what it’s like to lose someone,” she said to him.

Property. That was the question. If the dog had been discarded, abused, or shot, couldn’t he then come under the protection of the dog warden, or the ASPCA? Rocky watched the black dog dance enthusiastically around his food bowl like an overly large tap dancer with a limp.

“Hang on Lloyd…Cooper. I mean Cooper. Cooper, Cooper.” She popped the top off the new garbage can and scooped three cups of dry food into his bowl. She put the bowl down and the dog looked up in what appeared to be gratitude, a slight tilt to his head, eyes softened, a three-wagged thanks.

The sky ignited with a blood red sun peeking over the horizon. She watched for what she knew would be brief moments of red before the sun settled into its daily dress of yellow. The shortest day of the year, December 21, had just passed, and by mid-afternoon, the sun would begin to depart. She had welcomed this time of year with Bob, the turning inward, staying indoors, abandoning all hope of yard work in the dark evenings. She loved driving up to their house when it was just dark, and seeing the golden glow of lights in the house welcoming her, meaning that Bob was home. If she
was very lucky and it was his turn to get dinner, the house would be filled with smells of food and the promise of comfort.

Food. Right, she needed to eat. She made coffee and while it dripped, she shook cereal into a bowl, doused it with milk, and set it on the table. She ate and thought about the right thing to do with the dog. First she’d call Isaiah and tell him to hold off on calling the woman’s family in Providence. There was no rush, no need to upset them at this time. Everyone needed to slow down and think. She put her bowl of almost finished cereal on the floor and Cooper licked the remainder.

“Need to go out? You go first, I’ll be right there.” She opened the door for the dog, who headed for the first tree and let loose with steaming relief. She picked up the phone and punched in Isaiah’s number.

“Morning, Charlotte. Is this too early to call? Is the director of public works still drinking his decaf?”

“Rocky, he was just getting ready to call you. Before he gets on, I wanted to ask you about the holidays. Will you be staying on the island over Christmas?”

Rocky had tried hard not to think of Christmas, but it loomed with unbearable weight. She was determined to stay on the island, barricade the door, and wait until it passed. “I’ll be here. You two off to see the family?”

“Our son in North Carolina wants to have the big family gathering at his place. Would you stop in and feed our cat? Isaiah is too shy to ask you.”

“Give me the lowdown on the cat, when and what to feed her. She’s an indoor/outdoor model, right? Let me know if there’s anything else I can do while you’re gone,” said Rocky.

“You’re a lifesaver. Here’s the man about town.”

Rocky was startled by the term lifesaver. A deep, sickening jolt ran through her legs as if her bones were dislodging. She wanted to tell Charlotte that she was no lifesaver.

“Morning, Rocky,” he said.

“Isaiah, hold off on calling the woman in Providence about the dog.”

“I already called the mother last night. They can’t believe that you found the dog. And you know, she said the dog’s name is Cooper,” said Isaiah.

“I know about his name. You already called them last night? I need more time to check into a few things. I can’t just turn him over to anyone after what he’s been through. I think I found the vet in Orono who has taken care of him since he was a puppy. And I’m having trouble calling him Cooper. I’m thinking maybe we should give him a hyphenated name, like Cooper-Lloyd. But I want to take him up there just to make sure we’re all talking about the same dog.”

Even as she spoke, Rocky felt she was forcing a cheerfulness that made her sound like an idiot.

“Things are happening quicker than I expected,” said Isaiah. “The parents, Jan and Ed Townsend, wanted to come today to get the dog. I hedged and said that we needed to finish up some paperwork at Sam’s office. I talked them into coming tomorrow. And I figured you’d want one more day with the dog.”

“Tomorrow? They’re coming tomorrow?”

This is where normal citizens become renegades, tie bandannas around their head and go on the lam with big dogs. She pictured making a run for it with Cooper-Lloyd, quietly getting in the truck and heading for Canada.

“They’re coming over on the first ferry. I know this is hard for you, but let’s not forget what they’re going through. This dog is their last connection to their daughter. You understand that, don’t you, about trying to stay connected to someone who has died? I’ll bring them by your place.”

“You’re bringing them to my place? I think we’re making a mistake. Just because Cooper was Liz’s dog, that doesn’t mean this is the best solution. Why can’t we try to do what’s best for the dog?”

“Or do you mean what’s best for you? Let me ask you, Rocky. Does it help to have someone tell you the best way to remember a daughter who has died, or a husband? This is not our call. I’m sorry. I know you’ve gotten attached to the dog,” he said and his voice softened. “We’ll come by after the first ferry.”

Rocky put the phone down and turned to look out the open door. She saw Cooper leisurely delivering little spurts of urine. Her chest tightened as she pictured strangers coming to get him. She pictured a possible life for him with people who didn’t care about him. They lived right in Providence, in the city, and he would become a city dog. She grabbed her jacket and joined the dog. “Come on, big guy. This is going to be a short walk.” They headed down the trail to the beach. When they returned twenty minutes later, Rocky loaded water and food for the dog into the truck, along with an exuberant Cooper and drove to Tess’s house.

Tess lived a full five minutes away by car. Nothing was far away on the island, except maybe the newer houses on the interior of the island, where developers had cleared trees and built new houses in remarkably mosquito-ridden areas. Rocky and Cooper jumped out of the truck. Rocky knocked
on the kitchen door, and seeing Tess inside she pushed open the door.

“We’ve got trouble. How long does it take to drive to Orono? Elizabeth Townsend’s people are coming up from Providence because they think Lloyd, I mean Cooper, is Liz’s dog. They’re coming to get him. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

Tess had not been awake long. She had told Rocky that she slept with the seasons and this time of year called for greater slumber, more time in the retreat of soft pillows and comforters filled with a long night of body heat. Tess’s hair was still in a state of eruption and the skin on her face held wrinkles from the night. It looked like she had slept in the gray stretch-pants she was wearing. Rocky smelled cooked cereal.

Tess ran her hands through her hair. “His name is Cooper? Green and blue letters, robust form. Probably fit him better when he was a puppy. And why are we going to Orono?”

“I found a vet who thinks Liz was one of her clients. She says she’d remember Liz’s dog,” said Rocky.

“And do you want to find out about the dog or about Liz? Because you’re starting to sound obsessed.”

“I told you, this is about the dog. How long does it take to drive to Orono?” Rocky asked again.

“It takes about two and a half hours, three depending on your bladder. When are you going?”

“Now,” said Rocky. “We need to go now. I want you to come with me. They’re coming for the dog tomorrow morning and I don’t want to let him go without checking out his identity. He could just be another abandoned dog. He doesn’t have to belong to this woman who killed herself.” Rocky thought she saw sympathy flicker across the older woman’s face and the sight of it made Rocky step back.

“What? Don’t you want to go? I just thought you…”

“I like this dog too. But you’re on a life-and-death mission. I can smell it all over you. If you’re going to ask me to join your rescue mission, you should tell me what else is happening. There’s too much that you’re leaving out,” said Tess.

Rocky felt naked, like in dreams where she looked down and realized that she had no pants on and she was about to deliver a lecture. And life was happening too fast; she had planned on slowing life down, holding on to every shred of Bob, and now someone had just put a lead foot on the accelerator. Or maybe nothing that she had planned made any sense. She hadn’t considered that possibility before.

Talking to Isaiah about Bob had not been as frightening as she had imagined. Something had loosened in her, as if her swimmer’s muscles were warming up. Of course she could talk with Tess. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

“Let’s talk while we drive,” said Rocky.

They decided to take Tess’s car instead of the truck because Tess refused to ride for three hours with Cooper wedged under her feet, and neither one of them wanted him to ride in the back of the truck. And Rocky was worried about the truck on a long trip. Aside from the fact that it didn’t have an inspection sticker, it had started with great reluctance for the last two days.

Rocky drove the first leg. They pulled up to the dock in the ten-year-old Saab in time for the 9:30 ferry to Portland. They pointed the car inland for an hour, then north. Cooper stretched out on the back seat, and aside from an unfortunate moment of bad dog gas, he appeared completely at home with the car trip.

“Please don’t look at me while I’m telling you this. I don’t
want us driving off the road,” said Rocky. This part of her throat was still rusty and it took longer than she imagined to tell Tess about Bob, about the day she was downstairs ordering socks and he was upstairs shaving and his heart seized up solid, and how she tried to force him back to life. Then she told her about the life they had, how finding each other had seemed like the perfect turn of the universe. She kept talking through Augusta and past Waterville.

“You’re a psychologist? Please tell me you don’t work with little children,” said Tess after a much-needed bathroom stop at a McDonald’s.

“No. Why do you ask?”

“When you told me that you were a preschool teacher, I thought, pity those poor children. Some people just don’t have the knack to be with children, and I dare say you’re one. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know that.”

Rocky thought about being offended, but it was true. She had never been tempted to work with children. Once they hit college age, she could help them navigate around phobias and nightmares, she could understand where they could be stretched, and how they could learn to tolerate the precipitous drop of despair long enough to find the way out again. During the past year, she had even learned to understand and help students who threw up their food. But Tess was right, little children confused her. Her mother said it was because she didn’t have children of her own.

Tess took her turn at the wheel. “Can I ask you something?” said Tess. They were back in the car and the signs on Route 95 said that Bangor was forty miles away.

Rocky sighed and adjusted her seat so that it tilted back slightly without infringing on the dog’s space. “Go ahead. I
think I’ve told you everything. Well, not everything. But you have the main highlights.”

“What was the point in telling me you were something that you weren’t? I thought we were getting on pretty well as friends. I never thought to tell you a lie about me; I never thought to hide myself.” Tess rubbed her lower abdomen as if she had a big bellyache. “You are going to have to let me be angry and hurt for a while. I feel tricked and I don’t deserve it.”

“That isn’t very Zen of you,” said Rocky, but she knew Tess was right. “I didn’t mean that in a snotty, sarcastic way, although it might be hard to tell. Could we talk about something else now? I am willing to accept my new status as a defective friend, the inferior model, but will you give me another shot at this? I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

“You are on probation. Your penance is to be a little nicer to your neighbor girl. She likes you, although I can’t imagine why,” said Tess as she checked her rearview mirror before pulling out to pass a logging truck. “I hate to drive behind them. I’m convinced those logs will burst off the truck.”

Rocky explained her strategy for going to the vet clinic in Orono. “I want to make sure this is really Cooper. They’ve got to have some way to ID him. What do they use anyway? They don’t have fingerprints, and he doesn’t have a chip in him. But if this vet took care of him since he was a puppy, she’s got to be able to identify him. And then they might be able to tell us about Liz.”

Dr. Harris’s clinic was on the north side of Orono, between the town and the college. No cute names here, just Orono Animal Clinic. A sign at the front said,
All dogs must be leashed.

“Okay Mr. Cooper-Lloyd, time to leash up,” said Rocky.
She had a nylon lead for him, but she had discovered that he generally didn’t need it, and in fact, she detected the slightest sense of embarrassment when she had clicked on a leash. Even now, he turned his head slightly away as she reached into the backseat to leash him.

Cooper looked at the building, got out and took a jumbo-sized leak on a little faux fence. It was colder in Orono and they already had the remains of several snowstorms piled up on either side of the walk. Cooper stopped to push his snout into the snow. He then headed straight for the clinic door.

“He knows where he is,” said Tess.

When Tess opened the front door, they were faced head on by a receptionist’s desk. The young woman at the desk stared at the dog, then at Rocky and Tess, then back at the dog again. She placed both hands on the desk and pushed herself up to standing. Her ponytail rested on one shoulder.

“Cooper, is that you?”