The Dog That Whispered (19 page)

“No one wants to fall down.”

She scowled at the fruit bowl and picked up an orange. She examined it for a moment, then put it back down. She picked up a banana and put that back down as well.

“Too green.”

She thought about making a cup of coffee.

“Too late in the day. I'll be up all night.”

She padded back into the living room and stared at the TV.

“Stupid show,” she said. “No one is that stupid. Real courtroom drama, my foot. They're all unemployed actors.”

She shuffled back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She did not expect to find anything that she wanted, really, and did not.

She shut the door and stood in the middle of the room and folded her arms across her chest.

She thought about taking the almost crumpled pack of cigarettes from where she had hidden it—in the pocket of her winter coat—and sneaking outside and hiding around the block, away from the dozens of prying eyes that occupied the front lobby.

If passersby only knew some of the comments the seniors bestowed on the unsuspecting.

But that's too far to walk right now. And it's too hot. Cigarettes don't taste good when it's hot
.

Gretna stood and stared out to her living room window, without really seeing. Then she stopped and shook her head slowly, as if admitting defeat.

“So you really want to hear me pray about this again?”

She looked up at the ceiling. She imagined that God would want to make eye contact with people who bothered him like this.

“I talked to you before. You didn't answer. Remember? I could have saved myself a lot of time if you had just let me know early on that you were too busy doing something else.”

She scowled upward, just a little.

“Maybe I'm being a little…harsh. Or judgmental, right? That's your job, I guess.”

Then she looked down, a bit nervous.

“Sorry.”

She kept her head low, her eyes averted.

“It's just that…Thurman…you know Thurman, right? Thurman told me things. That I would be a grandmother. And since Wilson is all I have…well, that means Wilson. And he's still…broken. Or wounded. I know he doesn't want to be like that. And I can't help him. I tried, but I can't. It hurts when a mother sees her child in pain and can't do anything about it. You know how that is, don't you? I see it in his eyes, every time we talk. Like he's hiding from something. Or trying to hide something. That he's hiding. That hurts. I know he's not at peace. He hasn't been at peace since he came home. And I can't die in peace, knowing he's broken.”

Her voice wavered, and she did not like showing any form of weakness like this, when it left her with a wavery, quivery voice.

“And the pastor said I should pray again. So I'm giving this praying rigamarole one more shot. For Wilson. And for Thurman.”

She swallowed and closed her eyes.

“And maybe for me as well.”

She drew in a breath, steeling herself for her request of God.

“Please, please…give him peace.”

She waited in silence for a long time.

“I can't think of anything else. I suspect you know all about this. I suspect you know what to do—and how to do it.”

She opened her eyes and offered a smile to the ceiling.

“The way I figure it, if you didn't want to be bothered, why would you have sent Thurman to me? Right? Am I right? Or what?”

She waited another moment.

“So…amen.”

She looked up.

“Okay?”

Hazel had an early breakfast and shuffled out of the hotel, dragging her two suitcases, one containing all newly washed clothes, to the car as the sun broke the horizon. She made a point of leaving early so she would not run into Jennifer or any of her family.

What would I say to them? And if I talk to the son that's sick, I'll probably start crying
.

She tapped at the screen and entered the city of Phoenix on the Quest's GPS unit.

Once I'm close, I'll stop for the night
.

The trip, according to the electronic map, would take her six hours and three minutes.

Longer if I get lost again
.

She spent several minutes looking at the route so she would not be surprised or confused.

I'm sure I'll be confused regardless
.

She said the routes out loud, thinking it would help.

“Take the 105 east to 605 north to 60 east to 10 east—and follow that the rest of the way to Phoenix.”

Should be easy.

Traffic was either really thick or really normal, Hazel thought as she merged onto the freeway.

Hard to say if this is horrible traffic or not
, she thought.
This is California, after all
.

She had previously decided to stay in the right lane, regardless of how slow it was, regardless if she was behind a semi truck or not, regardless if she was following a ten-car parade of ninety-year-old drivers with their blinkers on, so as not to be put in jeopardy again by being five lanes to the left as she whizzed past her intended exit on the right.

Steady and slow and certain
.

She kept a check on both her mirror and GPS unit.

That saying should be embroidered on a pillow
.

An empty school bus raced by her.

If I knew how to embroider, that is
.

She had filled her old thermos, the one she had used while working, with coffee. This way she could have warm coffee the entire trip—and she could stop at a Starbucks to augment her coffee supply.

The one thing that Hazel had realized on this trip, the one thing that struck her more solidly than any other truth—and this was only after a week or so of traveling—was how much she missed dialogue, that simple, day-to-day, humdrum conversation with other people.

Conversations with the waitstaff at the roadside McDonald's did not count; that was simply an order and an acknowledgment. It was not genuine, even if most of Hazel's previous daily conversation consisted of vapid comments on the weather, about the Seahawks' most recent game, or about the rising or falling price of gas.

She even began to miss some of her old coworkers, just a little.

There was always something to talk about with them: the latest problematic client, the latest ridiculous edict from human resources, the most recent wardrobe nightmare worn by Suzanne, the odd agent on the third floor. Had Hazel known that she would miss commenting on a purple blouse with a tangerine skirt, she would have thought the idea ludicrous.

“I do miss it,” she said to herself.

She did not berate herself for talking aloud to herself. Her mother had been a self-talker as well, walking about her house chattering on, carrying on very complex conversations with herself, which often contained two or three contentious points of view.

“And here's what I've decided,” Hazel said aloud as she finished the first cup of coffee and managed a double move, bringing the full cup to the nearest cup holder while shifting the empty to the vacated holder. “I've decided to let this trip to Phoenix determine my fate, as it were. Maybe that's a stronger term than I need, but I know what I mean.”

Her intended exit was only two miles away, so Hazel readied herself for the exit and re-merge process.

“If the Army vet knows who that soldier is in the picture…well, that means I will go and try and find him. If he's still alive, that is. If he can't identify him…well, I think I will travel a bit more and then head back to Portland. I'll get a small place in the woods. I'll live on the interest of the money. I'll volunteer at church—maybe offer to work in those apartments they have for the homeless. I guess I'm developing a soft spot for being homeless.”

The large green-and-white exit sign slipped past and Hazel used her blinker for the announced distance of a half-mile until the exit, and smoothly transitioned to Interstate 10. That would be the last change in routes for the entire trip. She would have no other choices until she got to Phoenix.

By the time I get to Phoenix…

She heard that old song bubble up in her thoughts, and she tried to remember what the next line was, but it eluded her at the moment.

“I'll let it steep for a while. It'll come. Eventually. It is Glen Campbell, right?”

A FedEx truck whizzed past her, making the Quest vibrate and shimmy.

“And that's why I could never appear on
Jeopardy!
”

Dr. Killeen adjusted himself in the wheelchair. He pushed himself up as straight as he could, despite the fact that his disease was slowly causing him to crumple in on himself, cell by cell, muscle by muscle, as it were. His arms quivered with the effort.

Wilson looked up.

He must have been an imposing figure in the pulpit…back in the day
.

“Listen, Wilson, I told your mother that I served in Vietnam. Did she tell you that?”

Surprise was evident on Wilson's face.

“No.”

No one spoke until Thurman warbled a growl.

“Where? When?” Wilson asked, his voice almost a whisper.

Pastor Killeen's face now had a serious, somber edge to it.

“I was commissioned into the First Armored. But once I was there, I went all over. Became a sort of traveling chaplain. And I was there the same time you were. We overlapped for two years.”

Wilson, without thinking, drew himself tighter, folding his hands together, as if trying to avoid something, to make himself smaller, to make himself hidden.

“Wilson, whatever it was that happened over there…well, I saw it too. Chaplains participate in a lot of unburdening, you know. What soldiers did. Or what they didn't do. What they watched others do and did nothing to stop it.”

Wilson just nodded, now mute, now powerless.

“I don't need to know what you did or saw or didn't do, Wilson. And I'm not sure I want to—unless you need to give it voice.”

The air in the kitchen seemed to have disappeared. Even Thurman stood up and growled, a mumbling growl, as if asking for clarification, as if not understanding what was being discussed.

“But I do know that Jesus says, in many ways, that if we ask for forgiveness, forgiveness will be given. The act of asking precedes the act of absolution.”

Wilson managed a strangled “No.”

“Even for horrible things, Wilson. Even for those. Jesus offers forgiveness.”

Wilson pulled himself back upright, almost upright. He started to speak, several times. Thurman growled a soft encouragement. Wilson tried again.

“I was a helicopter gunner, most of the time, in a Huey medevac. A machine gunner kills people. Sometimes they weren't much farther away from me than you are.”

He inhaled a gulp of air. His voice grew more reedy and thin with each word.

“But to be forgiven, one needs to believe, right, Pastor?”

Pastor Killeen nodded and replied, “Wilson, I have been asked this before. I have held the hands of soldiers who were about to be dead. They often posed the very same question. I did not lie to them then. And I will not lie to you now. The answer is yes. Believe. Ask. Repent. Be forgiven. It is that simple. It is all you need.”

Wilson shut his eyes and Thurman's growl had an otherworldly tone to it, as if he was trying to summon courage from a hidden canine source, or some understanding that Wilson could not find on his own.

The words were no louder than the petal of a flower, falling on dew-covered grass.

“I don't believe,” Wilson whispered. “And I don't know if I can repent.”

M
ARGAT TRIED
to enter the kitchen silently, but she did not. There was a rattle of pills.

Wilson saw her out of the corner of his eye and flinched, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion.

“Clarence,” she said softly. “It is time for pills.”

Pastor Killeen made a face.

“They design them for horses, Wilson. Do I look like a horse?”

Wilson let his face soften. The air returned into the room. He could breathe again.

“No.”

“All right, Margat. Pills it is.”

Wilson stood and Thurman rose in response.

“We need to go. Thanks for the coffee.”

Pastor Killeen waved it off.

“I will not push you, Wilson. Whether it's a conversion forced at the end of a gun or information a prisoner provides while being held, untethered, in the open bay of a helicopter at two thousand feet—neither of them are worth the paper they're printed on.”

Wilson nodded as if he knew exactly what Pastor Killeen meant.

“Thanks.”

“Go home with Thurman. And think about this. Think about feeling at peace…at long last. You may not have another opportunity.”

“I know.”

Thurman growled out emphatically,
I say same
.

“So think about it. And come back. We'll have coffee again. And Margat will make chocolate chip cookies. No Peruvian delicacy, but I like them.”

Thurman barked.

“He says we'll be back,” Wilson said.

“Good.”

And as Thurman and Wilson walked out of the kitchen, Wilson watched as Pastor Killeen grew smaller, almost deflating, as he meekly took the two large pills proffered by his caregiver, and reached out for a glass of water at the same time, his eyes losing the fire that had lit them with passion, with ferocity, only moments before.

Thurman barked at the front door and Pastor Killeen called out a final farewell.

Neither Thurman nor Wilson spoke as they started on their way home. Wilson did not know what to say, did not have anything to say, and Thurman must have thought that he needed time to think through things.

They walked three blocks in silence, but in step with each other.

Thurman growled softly, as if speaking to himself.

Think. Take time
.

Wilson heard his muttering.

“I don't want to, Thurman.”

Thurman looked up, veering slightly off the sidewalk and onto the grassy parkway.

Don't care. Not want. Need
.

Wilson glared at him, scowled, and looked straight ahead as they walked toward the afternoon sun. The day was warm and Wilson felt a bead of sweat at his temples. He did not like to feel sweat on his face. That glistening had always been a trigger of memory, a trigger since…back then, when the heat of the jungle enveloped like a hot blanket, like multiple arms grabbing and constricting, the sweat coming from the heat and the terror and the fact that Wilson held the power of life and death in his hands.

“I've been fine until now, Thurman.”

Not fine
.

“I have been. I managed. I survived. No need to think of those things. They are in the past and forgotten. So why now?”

They stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change. It was obvious that Thurman did not know why traffic stopped on occasion, but it did, and he remained patient and still, and followed Wilson's lead in all matters of cars and trucks and waiting.

Wilson looked both ways, and over his left shoulder, and stepped off the curb.

Thurman followed, never more than an arm's length away from him when walking on the hot concrete.

Once on the other side, Thurman growled.

Now
.

Wilson did not appear happy or understanding. He looked angry.

“I don't buy it, Thurman. Not now. Not ever.”

Have to
.

“I do not have to. I'm fine. Everything is fine. The way it was and the way it is is fine. I have gotten by for forty-some years this way.”

They were within a block of home. Thurman sniffed, recognizing more familiar scents. He stopped and sat down and growled and stared up at Wilson. Wilson was forced to turn around to face the dog.

Accept. Peace
.

Wilson put his hands on his hips, like a petulant child being told that he has to go inside.

“I can't accept that, Thurman. You don't know what I did. No one knows what I did. And no one will know what I did. Not now. Not ever.”

Thurman's ears folded back and he growled, his growl more emphatic than ever.

God knows
.

Wilson waited, as if waiting for some cogent thought, some logical rebuttal to Thurman's posit. But nothing came. He was left silent.

Accept. Live as human. What God wants. Peace
.

“I am a human, Thurman,” Wilson replied, looking around, making sure no one was near, that no one was observing him talking to a dog that growled, that no one was making a judgment on his sanity and his grip on reality. “And I am pretty sure that God was not in Vietnam…and I am not so sure he is here now either.”

The street was empty of pedestrians.

Thurman remained adamant and re-growled.

Accept. Find peace
.

“That is not a sequitur. Peace follows faith? It doesn't add up, Thurman. It doesn't.”

You accept. Or…

Wilson had never heard Thurman use the word “or” before.

“Or what, Thurman? Or what?”

Thurman's eyes clouded, just for a heartbeat, a veil of sadness covering them. He spoke, plaintive and sad and barely above a whispered growl.

I leave
.

Wilson stared at the dog, who stared back.

“You'll leave?”

Thurman did not speak, but looked over his shoulder and stood up.

At that second, Wilson knew that if Thurman were to begin to run, he would never catch him and Thurman would be gone forever. A dog as smart as Thurman would have no trouble finding a place to stay and people to take care of him, and Wilson would be alone again.

“Don't leave, Thurman,” Wilson said, his raspy voice on the verge of tears, actual tears. “Please don't leave me.”

Wilson realized, in that pellucid moment, that he did not want to be alone. He did not want to ever again enter a dark, silent house, filled with memories and ghosts and wisps of life and death, hovering, just beyond his grasp, the ephemeral remains of the lives that he had been responsible for taking. He could not face that terror now. Not alone. Thurman could not leave him. Thurman could not abandon him to the demons that followed him, in the dark, at the corner of his vision, at the edge of his thoughts.

“Please, Thurman. You can't.”

Wilson was pleading. He had never felt risk like this before, heartstopping risk, not even when bullets shattered the doorframe around his gun position in the helicopter, not even when the copilot exploded along with a grenade, drenching everyone inside with his remains, not even when the darkness of a thousand nights fell.

“Please, Thurman. Please.”

Thurman's hard face lasted for a single moment, then softened. While a dog does not cry, nor understand the permutations of sadness, Thurman's eyes welled up and he blinked several times to clear them.

He growled.

Think
.

“Okay, Thurman. I promise. I will think about it. I will. I promise.”

God hears
, Thurman growled, his growl both hard and sympathetic, both hard and caring.

“I know. I know.”

And with that, Thurman offered an affirmative growl and started to walk, with Wilson a half-step behind, walking to their house, walking, thinking that perhaps peace lay just beyond where they were, just beyond their grasp, not yet in sight, still elusive and hidden.

The words came to her two hundred miles from Phoenix.

By the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising
.

That line came to her after not thinking about it for several hours. The rest of the song, however, remained opaque. Hazel knew she could find the lyrics on the Internet, but also knew the song was about a man leaving a woman and did not mirror her situation in the least.

“If I look up the words, it will stay stuck in my head for days. Better this way—to not know and not be bothered. Not knowing isn't a bad thing, really.”

She had stopped for lunch at the Flying J Travel Plaza in Ehrenberg, Arizona, and had a small Wendy's hamburger and a small Frosty. She wasn't really hungry, but the offerings on Interstate 10 had not been exactly plentiful, nor did they show much promise until one got to the outskirts of Phoenix.

“Preventative eating, that's what it is,” she'd said to herself as she pulled into the vast travel stop. “Just in case I were to get hungry later…and now I won't.”

Being on a four-lane road, with trucks and very fast cars zooming past, unnerved her. She had never considered herself an intuitive, natural driver, generally driving with shoulders hunched and hands protectively clutching the wheel.

A thought came to mind midway through the hamburger.

Then why did I think driving around for the rest of my life was a good idea?

She managed to push the thought away by telling herself that she wouldn't drive forever, that she would find a place she liked, that she would locate a perfect spot to live, and then never have to drive again.

“And all I have to do now is get to Phoenix. I've never been to Phoenix.”

She had her contact's address…

He's old and no one told him that giving out your phone number as well as your actual address to strangers is dangerous
.

…and he lived in a trailer park north of Phoenix.

As she had promised, she planned on calling him once reaching Phoenix. She spotted a suites hotel off the freeway after passing a sign indicating that Phoenix was only fifteen miles distant.

“I'll spend the night there. I'll call him, have dinner, and visit him in the morning. A good plan, if I say so myself.”

The hotel was nearly an exact copy of the one she had left in California earlier that day.

She found the sameness both comforting and frightening.

“It's exactly the same,” she said to herself as she wheeled her one bag toward the elevator. “I think that the artwork on the walls is even the same.”

This time she was on the fifth floor and the bedroom window looked out over a parking lot and what appeared to be a flat desert beyond, lying to the south. It was only spring, and she could already see waves of heat undulating off the asphalt lot.

She sat on the end of the bed and picked up the TV remote, then put it back down.

“Too much chatter.”

She walked into the living room and sat on the couch, and found herself holding the remote in that room as well.

She sighed, resigned to her fate, and switched the TV on, pressing buttons repeatedly. The hotel welcome screen came on and she scrolled through the channels until she came upon the cable weather channel. She waited until the local forecast came up, all the while stretching her legs and her back.

I should figure out how to use the cruise control on the Quest. But doesn't that seem odd—having a cruise control on one's quest? Seems anti-literary, if you ask me. If that's a word.

The local forecast came on and Hazel took note that the high temperature predicted for the following afternoon would be ninety-nine degrees.

There were no excessive heat warnings posted, as there would have been in Portland if it ever got to ninety-nine degrees.

If it hit ninety-nine degrees the governor would have called out the National Guard, probably. Each of them would be armed with a giant fan
.

She smiled at the thought.

“Well, I guess I can scratch Phoenix off my list of places I could settle down in. If it's ninety-nine degrees now, what happens in August?”