Picture This (19 page)

“You hate this, don't you?” asked the girl as they crested the hill. Cooper's tail hung several notches lower than usual.

“It's just a formality. This is a city, and this is city gear. If you're a dog, you've got to wear a leash. You're still the king of the island, but here in Portland you've got to be stealth. I mean, you've got to act like other dogs.”

They had reached the outer edge of Chester Hill. A woman wearing two sweaters and a knit hat—far too much clothing for a July day—stopped along the sidewalk. Her face, toughened by sun and wind, had a leathery look.

“I used to talk to my dog all the time, just like you. Talk, talk, and talk. If I didn't have that dog to talk to, I would have killed myself thirty times over. She was a spaniel kind of dog with big brown eyes and a sad face. Every time I felt something sad, she'd give me that look, and I'd end up telling her it wasn't that bad. And then I wouldn't feel so bad either.”

Cooper walked in between the woman and Melissa and sniffed her hand. He sat down and gave the woman his best openmouthed smile.

“I had to give my dogs up, not the spaniel, but the one after that. When I was evicted, I couldn't take the dog. Her name was Dropsy. Homeless shelters wouldn't let her in. The worst day of my life was taking her to an animal rescue place.”

The woman knelt down by Cooper and leaned her head against him.

“Here's the dividing line, right here. If you're homeless, and you want to sleep in a shelter, you can't have a dog, period. There's a lot we can't have, but the worst part for me is that I can't have my dog.”

She put her face in Cooper's neck and breathed deeply.

“This here is a good-smelling dog. Are you taking good care of him and making sure he's got water to drink? ”

“Yes, m'am, I take good care of him.”

The woman pushed up and dusted off her knees. She continued on her way. If Melissa had been thinking, she would have taken a photo of Cooper with the woman as she sniffed his fur. Was this what Mr. Clarke had meant, about the camera feeling like an intrusion on something private? How did you get past that sense of invading someone? But as she and Cooper continued their walk, she knew she should have taken the shot. She'd remember the next time.

The next day, Melissa and Cooper walked for several hours in Portland, and the black dog was a magnet for every person who had grown up with a dog but more recently had been stripped of their dog. She heard the same story from people: they had had a dog once, but now they couldn't. Only the people who found alternatives to the shelters had dogs. These were the people who slept outside, tucked in the crevices of highway underpasses, rolled in sleeping bags under kind bushes, boldly in the parks on the benches, or on boats if they were able to do so without getting caught. Their dogs looked like they were bred for the hard life; short-haired, tight muscles, forty-five pounds or so of loyal canine trotting smartly beside their human. Street-smart, they were expert in crossing busy streets and not flinching around strangers, but they were not overly friendly either. They lived on the edge of possibilities with their person, and they knew it.

Melissa asked permission before she shot, and without exception, the owners were proud of their dogs. They had the devotion of a good dog, a smart and agile creature who didn't judge them by their material acquisitions or their lack of housing. If Melissa squinted, the men looked to her like nomadic warriors, carrying their sacks of essentials with their warrior dog at their side.
Believe what you see.

At home she downloaded her shots from the day. In one shot, a dog stood watch while a man collected food from a restaurant Dumpster. In another, a dog's eyes had darted to the side, one ear erect, as he listened to some scratch of a sound while a man sat on the sidewalk, his back against the brick wall, with a good breeze from the ocean reaching Chester Hill. Melissa had spent all day with Cooper, and that was just how she wanted it.

On Sunday her friend Chris had suggested that they take Cooper to the assisted living center in Portland where her grandmother lived. Chris thought the dog might cheer everyone up. Her grandmother lived in the special Alzheimer's unit, and both girls agreed that if anyone needed cheering up, it was this group.

Cooper had charmed the pants off the staff, and he walked right into Chris's grandmother's room, sat next to her chair, and pushed his big black head into her alabaster hand.

“Smoky,” she said, her eyes clearing. “Where have you been? You haven't been chasing the neighbor's chickens again, have you? Oh, you rascal.”

Melissa pulled out her camera, knelt down, and began to shoot.
Click.
Chris's grandmother didn't notice the camera. Cooper gave his soft, dark gaze to the old woman and pressed his body close to her polyester-clad legs. Then he sank to the floor and lay at her feet. Chris slid her grandmother's shoes off and gently placed her feet on Cooper's broad back.

“Smoky, you're as warm as a furnace.” She leaned her head against the plastic upholstered padded chair and smiled.

L
ater, Melissa related the story to Rocky and Tess. “It was like he knew how sick she was and he had something to give her. We were there forever, close to an hour.”

“I think Cooper would be a natural as a therapy dog,” said Tess. “There's a woman in Portland who has classes for dogs. She teaches them to be therapy dogs for hospitals, rehab centers, even at libraries for kids who have reading difficulties.”

The three of them were at Rocky's cottage, and for the first time in weeks Natalie was gone and it was just them again. Melissa stretched out on the weathered deck, and the tiny muscles around her ribs softened. Cooper thumped her with his paw.

“He's either ready for another photo shoot or he wants me to throw his stick,” said Melissa. She rolled her head to one side and looked at Rocky. “I could take him to dog therapy school. But, I mean, he is your dog. You'd have to get him enrolled. What do you think?”

Rocky looked up from her building supply catalog. “Does anyone here see the irony in this? I've just quit my job as a therapist, and you two think my dog should become a therapist! But I'll look into it.”

Chapter 33

Cooper

A
s each day ended, the new girl returned to their home and Rocky welcomed her. As he did with all of his people, he studied her behaviors, their predictable sequencing: which hand reached for the white food door, the time of day her bathing took place, what signaled her leaving the house. Nothing alarmed him about the girl's actions. It was her scent that troubled him. A mist hovered over the girl, a cancerous glow draped in a man's scent.

The scent flooded Cooper, lighting up his brain like a sky jammed with stars. The girl had mated; the scent was only thinly covered. It was possible to sort out the intentions of humans, but they were a changeable lot, often confused by their own longings. He sorted out the intentions of the man from his actual deeds. This was what made living with humans so fragile and so rich.

With other mammals, it was simple to sort out the prey from the predators, even when one mammal played both roles, as they mostly did—prey to some, predators to others. Some creatures, like deer, were purely prey with almost no predator in their nature. They had a clear destiny. Rabbits were the same unless one counted the bloody mating battles between males.

The scent of a predator was unmistakable. Foxes, coyotes, fisher cats, the elusive wild cat—their destiny demanded that, in order to live, they had to kill and kill fast, strike hard, snap a neck, slit an abdomen open. They were built for battle with fangs and claws to rip flesh. The girl's scent, mingled with the man's, pumped out the sureness of a predator.

The layers of scent within a predator were complex. Cooper smelled fear on Natalie. Her pure expression of fear was carried by the sweat and hormones that she left everywhere in the house. Mixed in with her fear was another, the man's fear, but his came from the drive of the predator. What predators fear is that they will miss their kill and go hungry. What the girl feared was unclear, but a fearful creature was a dangerous one, no matter what the source.

Cooper understood predators. His body was built to bring down food if he had to, with his speed and fangs, the bulk and power of his muscles, the rip of his claws. His own power lay coiled, ready beneath his soft mouth, tamed for the most part by the thousands of years his kind had slept near humans. Joining with humans so long ago carried with it the comfort of safe havens when dogs were fortunate enough to find them. But every dog carried the thread of genetic material that could be instantly tapped if the home was in danger. There was a responsibility for everything, and he willingly paid the price to protect his pack. The scent hovering around Natalie made Cooper stand up. He would have to listen more intently, sniff more carefully. Something was coming closer.

Chapter 34

R
ocky had reluctantly agreed to call the woman who trained therapy dogs to visit hospital patients, those under hospice care, and even little kids in library reading programs. Tess had urged her to include Melissa.

“This would be something that Melissa could do that would help others and keep her connected to you and Cooper. I know you wouldn't notice right now, but she is feeling tossed aside by you, just when the two of you had become friends. She looks up to you. Cooper is perfect for the job. Once they meet him, they'll say that he's already 90 percent on his way to being a therapy dog. They'll let him skip five levels. He'll be like the genius kids who go to Yale when they're thirteen. You could be his best case study. Tell them that he almost has you up and running as a fully functioning human.”

Rocky had considered a pithy comeback, but everything that Tess had said about Cooper was true. She wasn't at all sure what she would have done if she hadn't found him. Rocky had called on Monday morning and agreed to meet Caroline, the dog therapy trainer, at the parking lot of the Casco Bay ferry in Portland.

“I have two main questions before we go any further,” said Caroline. She was tall, in her fifties, and wore a T-shirt with ducks on it.

Rocky was prepared for Cooper to wow Caroline, and he did not disappoint. He sat peacefully by Rocky's side and sniffed Caroline's hand with a level of decorum befitting British royalty.

“First question. Is your dog predictable?”

Rocky swallowed. Jesus. Predictable? “Yes, most of the time he's predictable. He's very good at predicting me. Psychic almost. Although unusual circumstances can prompt unusual responses. Or new circumstances require an equal response, just like in physics. It's a law of physics.” Rocky was stalling, waiting for the purpose of the question to be clarified.

Caroline's mouth straightened. “What would you call unusual, on either side of your physics formula?”

“There was a stalker on the island a few months back. So, for example, when Cooper was in my car and he recognized the stalker before any of us could, he, well, he showed agitation,” said Rocky, hoping that she had aptly described Cooper exploding like a bomb in her car, sputtering and barking.

“I see.”

Rocky sensed a change in Caroline's personal tides.

“What's the other question?”

“Has he ever shown aggression?” asked Caroline, looking at Rocky without giving her an inch of room to manufacture a coded answer.

“What exactly do you mean by aggression?” said Rocky.

“This isn't a hard question, and you must admit, it's an important one. We have to screen out dogs that have suddenly shown an aggressive side to their character. Has Cooper ever gone for someone? Has he ever lunged at someone? Bitten anyone?”

Rocky ran the episode of the stalker's apprehension quickly through her head. Had Cooper bitten anyone? No. But he gave chase to the stalker with a ferocity that had shocked her, and she had no doubt that Cooper would have gladly sunk his fangs into the man's leg. He might have done just that if the guy hadn't knocked Cooper to the ground with a tranquilizer dart.

“No, I'm sure of it. He's never bitten anyone,” said Rocky. Why did this feel like such a fat lie? “I'm his second owner. The first owner died, but I can give you the name of the vet who has taken care of him since he was a puppy. She's over in Orono.”

“Let me put the question to you in another way. If Cooper thought anyone was threatening you, what would he do? Would you have voice control of him? This is important.”

T
he day Rocky found Cooper, she had changed. Not all at once, one doesn't in matters of love, and both of them had approached the new relationship with differing levels of caution. The day she found him, feverish and filled with infection from his wound, she knew he would not have lasted much longer. But how much longer would she have lasted if he had not come into her life in his full-throttle style?

Somewhere along the line the deal was finalized: this dog was signed up to be with her for the rest of his life. He slept by her bed, near the doorway, his black fur catching occasional glints from the moon. His breath carried hints of kibble, chewed sticks, and God only knew what else. His breath carried absolution for her impenetrable sadness. His tongue was without gile or irony, incapable of twisting itself into sarcasm.

The day she found him, she had been in a dank cave of regret and hideous self-blame. The love of her life had died, and she could not resuscitate him, bring him back to the land of the living. She had had no intention of committing to a ninety-pound canine; she simply wanted to get him on the ferry to the mainland and let a vet save him. Love arrives like that sometimes, on a blue tarp in the back of a battered pickup truck, oozing infection, giving in to the warm hand of a lost woman.

He had loved her like there was no tomorrow. In fact, the dog had insisted that there was no tomorrow; there was only now. Every minute of the day was ripe for eating, drinking, eye gazing, scratching, being petted, being the pettee, running, pushing into as much body contact as possible, retreiving, coming home, listening for her steps. The first time she was overcome with laughter at his Cirque de Soleil tennis ball catches, the dog rewarded her with a gentle lick.

Rocky had at first bristled at the wet-dog smell that filled the rental cottage. Eight months after she found him, however, he had come to smell of ocean, sand, muscle, sheer joy, contentment, his huge black Lab smile, his fangs that glistened with happy dog saliva; it all mixed to fill the house with the breath of love.

She blessed the day she found him. She could have missed him. She could have missed this life with him.

Caroline waited for an answer.

“If push came to shove, he would protect me. He knows the difference between a real threat and a three-year-old with a plastic shovel. Dogs like this don't come around often, and I'm lucky for every day that he's with me. I've got a young friend who wants to train him to work with Alzheimer's patients. Please give him a chance,” said Rocky.

Caroline knelt down in front of the dog for one last evaluative look. He tilted his head slightly to the right, lifted one eyebrow, and opened his chest toward her in his best openhearted pose, and Rocky swore she saw it, just for an instant, that thing Cooper did—his direct energy burst of good juju. For a second, the dog was the ancient wise one and Caroline the young acolyte kneeling before him. He accepted the woman completely, for all her past grudges and mistakes, for her future jealousies and sorrows.

Caroline stood up, brushing off her pants. “We'll give him a try, a probationary try.”