The Dog That Whispered (25 page)

Wilson turned back to Hazel.

“I'm sorry. It is me. In the photo. But that's all I can tell you about that picture.”

Hazel nodded, the question still written on her face.

But then…why did she write that? Why would she have kept a picture of a guest she hardly knew? Why would she have saved just one random picture of a random guest?

She clearly wanted to say all those things, ask all those questions, but she did not. She looked at Wilson's face and into his eyes and must have seen something dark and cold and cautionary. She formed a question in her mouth…but did not ask it.

“Okay.”

Wilson stood silent, even as Thurman was whispering and growling.

“Well, okay,” Hazel added, her voice like cotton.

She slipped the picture back into her purse.

“You've been helpful,” she replied, not meaning a word of it, and then feeling guilty at her reaction.

She took one step backward.

“Listen,” she said softly, almost as if she was pleading, but she wasn't—or tried not to sound like she was. “I'm staying in Pittsburgh for a couple of days, at least. I'm over at the Wyndham University Center. I think it's on Lytton Avenue.”

“It is,” Wilson said. “That's almost on campus. I work there. At the university.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Hazel almost forgot to ask what she wanted to ask.

“Well, I know that I'm an unexpected visitor. And the picture was unexpected. But maybe if you remember the groom's name…you could call me. Or leave a message.”

Thurman almost howled, in a singsong, howly way, as if he was insisting that Hazel not leave.

Wilson let out a long breath, as if he had been holding it in for a long period.

“Sure. I will think about it. That day. And if I remember anything else, I will call. At the Wyndham University Center.”

Hazel managed a nod and stepped down from the stoop.

“Thank you, Dr. Steele. I appreciate it.”

“You're welcome,” Wilson replied and pulled the door shut, silencing—almost silencing—Thurman, who was still grumbling, still whining in the background.

Hazel pulled onto the street and looked back at the house one last time. She saw the dog, Thurman, barking silently through the window, his front paws on the back of the sofa, barking directly at her. She saw the dog turn his head to look behind him for a brief moment, then turn back again to continue barking as she drove off.

He won't call. Maybe he was just a guest. Maybe she lost all the other pictures marked “Our Wedding” and this was the only one she saved. Maybe there was a fire or a flood or a burglary.

At the stoplight, the GPS instructed Hazel to turn left.

She did, and as she did so, she began to cry—not a lot, but some, crying over a lost moment of her past, a past that she knew little about and that was now more permanently lost and gone and buried.

That was what she cried for.

And cried during the entire trip to the Wyndham University Center.

W
ILSON PACED
around the house, not looking at anything, not paying attention to the machinations of Thurman, not hearing, not seeing.

He looked at his watch.

Emily had called earlier that day—well before the strange woman appeared with the strange photograph from his long-buried past—had called and asked Wilson if he might like to take a walk that afternoon. The weather was bound to get warmer soon, probably hot and most likely humid, and this specific day promised to be perfect: mild and sunny and well suited for a stroll around the neighborhood with Thurman in tow.

Wilson had not thought of a reason to decline, or thought of it in time, so he had agreed.

The doorbell sounded again and Thurman launched himself toward the front door, obviously hoping it was that woman who had come earlier.

When Wilson opened the door and Thurman saw Emily standing there, he managed a canine double take, but quickly went from confused to delighted.

One of Thurman's most endearing traits—a trait of all dogs, most likely—was the ability to go from grumpy to ecstatic in a heartbeat, with no angry residue polluting the present. Dogs did not, probably could not, hold grudges or seek revenge. Such emotions were not in their DNA; certainly it was not in Thurman's DNA.

Seeing Emily brought him joy, and he would choose no other course of action than to show it, and to welcome her with open arms—or paws, as it were.

“Hello, Thurman,” she called out and knelt down to greet him. “Are you ready for your walk?”

Thurman obviously knew the word “walk,” and he was even more delighted after hearing it, showing his delight by repeating his retriever dance, rear legs swinging back and forth like a semi truck fishtailing as it barreled down a snow-covered mountain road.

She grabbed Thurman and hugged him to her. This delighted him even more and he mumbled and whispered and growled happily in reply.

“I know, Thurman, I know,” Emily said, repeating the words many pet owners tell their pets, as if expecting the animal to understand. But Thurman understood and looked at Emily with a quizzical look, as if to ask what it was that she said she was understanding.

He growled a whispered response and Emily tilted her head as if trying to understand him.

Wilson returned to the front door after finding and putting on his shoes.

“Ready?” Emily asked.

“I am,” Wilson replied.

“I didn't want to pressure you on this walk thing,” Emily explained as they made their way down the front pathway of the house. “But I feel awkward sometimes if I walk by myself. I feel like people are either watching me or judging me somehow. Or think that I'm lost. Or a stalker.”

Wilson looked surprised.

“I feel the same way,” he said. “But now with Thurman, that fear is gone. I think that's why so many insecure people have dogs.”

Thurman growled a reply, and it sounded like he was disagreeing with Wilson.

No. Like dogs. People like
.

Emily's face reflected her puzzlement.

“Does it ever sound to you like Thurman is actually trying to form words?”

Yes. Words. Thurman
.

Wilson pondered the question, not trying to figure out if Thurman was trying to talk—that he knew was true—but pondered on how to tell Emily that the dog wasn't talking and that it simply sounded like words.

“Maybe. Sometimes,” he replied. “But I think we're just projecting.”

“Really? That's too bad.”

They turned the corner onto Negley Avenue.

“I actually asked one of the psychology professors at school about it. His office is a few doors down from mine. He said that lots of people with dogs think that. That their dogs talk. Or understand English. He said they don't, but it was normal for people to think that way. Well, not normal, but not unexpected.”

“Hmmm.”

They walked in silence, Thurman happy to tack from one side of the sidewalk to the other, a furry sailboat in the wind, sniffing passionately, looking up into every tree for elusive squirrels. There was a squirrel, or many squirrels—Wilson could not tell them apart—that appeared to live in his backyard, and whose sole purpose in life was to torment Thurman by scampering away from him, circling tree trunks, making the dog think they had disappeared, and chattering at him, scolding him with great agitation from a high branch, chattering from safety, well out of Thurman's leaping range.

Wilson wondered why Thurman did not come back into the house with a crick in his neck from spending so much time staring up into the leafy upper reaches of trees, trying to force one of the squirrels to fall off the limb solely through the strength of his canine will.

Thurman did not appear to want to do violence to the squirrels—at least that's what Wilson understood him to say. He just wanted to play with them.

Play. Squirrel play. No.

As they walked, Wilson wondered if he should take Emily's hand. They had been out together three times, and for Wilson, that number of “dates” stood as a record achievement. But they had only talked, never expressed anything in the physical realm, and he could not be sure if she wanted anything more out of their relationship than simple friendship and adult conversation.

And as they walked, Wilson kept pushing the image of that photograph from his mind.

She'll never return
, he told himself.
In a few days, she'll be back on her way to Portland. And I will never have to think of…of that time of my life, ever again. Never.

“What are you thinking about, Wilson?” Emily asked after they had gone four blocks without exchanging a single word. “You seem a bit preoccupied. Schoolwork? A paper you're writing?”

He could have answered using either of those explanations, but neither felt right, and neither reply was honest.

And that conflicting emotion surprised Wilson. He was not a person with particularly high moral standards, and had not held himself to high standards in the past. He had used ruses to deflect inquiries away from himself, to prevent people from drawing too close.

But today it did not appear that he would resort to those old, well-established, and deeply entrenched behaviors.

Instead, he simply replied, “I'm not sure what I'm thinking about. Just letting my thoughts wander, I guess.”

That's less of a lie than I would normally tell
.

“Okay. I get that way sometimes,” Emily replied, and she reached over and, without appearing to give the action much thought, took Wilson's hand in hers.

Thurman recognized it immediately.

He began to jump, dance and whisper and growl,
Good. Good. Good
.

They walked that way for nearly a block, without speaking, save the whispery growl of Thurman repeating,
Good. Good. Good
.

The three of them stopped at a red light on Wilkins.

Thurman continued to mutter and growl.

“You sound like a Muppet,” Emily said to Thurman.

Thurman stopped speaking and stared up at Emily, a confused look on his face. He tilted his head, as if hoping for an explanation.

She knelt down and placed her hands on the sides of his head.

“A Muppet, Thurman. They are sort of like puppets. It's a children's show on television.
The Muppet Show
. They are very cute little creatures. Funny and fuzzy and cute.”

Thurman tried to sound out a word.

Emily looked at Thurman, then up at Wilson.

“Is he trying to say, ‘Muppet'?”

As Wilson shrugged, Thurman danced about, trying to repeat the sound of “Muppet.”

“I can see why your mother thought he was talking to her,” Emily said.

Muppet. Muppet. Muppet
. It was obvious that Thurman liked the sound of his new word.

“The light's changed,” Wilson said. Emily stood and the three of them crossed the street while Thurman growled and whispered,
Muppet, Muppet, Muppet
.

The air felt good—not cool, not hot, as if the weather was invisible, wrapping itself around everyone in a comfortable embrace, everyone who was outside. Such perfect days were rare for Pittsburgh. Chilly, humid, hot, windy, cold, really hot, really cold, frigid, jungle humid, Arctic cold, frosty, sticky—those conditions were normal in the city, and when a perfect day arrived, it took many people by surprise and led them quickly to feeling a sense of total well-being, almost happiness.

Wilson was not immune to such nudges and realities. It did feel good to be outside, walking with another person, walking with Thurman, enjoying the scents and the sounds and the fact that he was still alive.

Yet despite this perfect day and all its unspoken expectations of contentedness, he felt something inside, a feeling that he had seldom if ever felt before, a feeling in his heart as if a thick wrapping was being removed, as if a box was being opened and the sun and the warmth and the freshness of the air was reaching the heart for the first time in years and years and years.

It was pain, but not really pain. It was new, but not really new. It was revelatory, but…it was not revelatory. Wilson had not let his heart move anywhere, or expand, or feel for so long that he had forgotten it was there.

Thurman's arrival had marked the beginning of the change in Wilson, by simply being there and participating in his daily existence. Thurman's acceptance of Wilson at face value had at first been unsettling and had sometimes brought Wilson to the edge of panic. But now he could not imagine life without Thurman, without those eyes of expectancy every morning, sitting by his empty food dish, without his unbridled and unexpected joy over just about everything he encountered, from a tennis ball in the backyard to a rawhide bone that he hid under his blanket in the family room.

Midway down the block, Thurman seemed to grow serious, growling and muttering to himself. Then he sat down. Both Emily and Wilson had to stop and they both turned around.

“Come on, Thurman. You're not tired. You're a big dog. You can make it,” Emily said in the well-practiced voice of a mother offering encouragement to a recalcitrant toddler.

Thurman shook his head and growled.

Emily looked over at Wilson.

“Is he trying to say something?”

Thurman growled it again.

“He is, isn't he?”

Wilson closed his eyes, for just a moment, feeling the sun on his eyelids, seeing the gold behind them.

“He is,” he replied.

Thurman growled it again.

“I'm pretty sure he's trying to say the word ‘honest,'” Wilson said.

Emily looked at Wilson with a surprised smile.

“It does sound like that, doesn't it?”

Thurman said it again.

“It does sound like ‘honest,'” Emily repeated. “That's amazing.”

Wilson did not want to say what he was about to, but felt he had to.

“Thurman wants us to be honest with each other.”

Emily's face showed an incredulous expression that quickly changed to that of belief.

“He does?”

Thurman said it again.

Honest
.

“I'm sure,” Wilson replied. “I think I'm sure.”

Thurman growled out
Yes
.

“As sure as I can be of a talking dog,” Wilson added.

He and Emily looked into each other's eyes.

“And now…who do you think is the most outlandish here? Me, you, my mother…or Thurman? Or are we all deluded?”

Emily did not reply—because she had no answer to the question.

Hazel found the Wyndham University Center all-suites hotel without any problems, though the steep streets and twisting roads of Pittsburgh were a new experience for her—and for her Quest.

Couldn't they have found a nice flat piece of land to build a city on?

She turned into the hotel's parking lot.

And land was cheap back then. Why couldn't they have built wider streets?

She got out her smaller, this-I-bring-into-the-hotel-with-me suitcase, plus the larger case, filled with clothing that needed to be washed again.

I'll be here for a couple of days. I'll have time
.

Check-in went smoothly and Hazel was given a room on the third floor, with a bedroom that looked out over a very large skyscraper sort of building in the middle of a large block filled with lawns and trees and walkways and benches.

That must be something from the university. It looks old
.

She stared up toward the top.

It looks like something out of Europe
.

She walked back to the bed and started unpacking her laundry first.

Except I've never been to Europe either, so I'm making an educated guess
.

She stacked the clothes into two piles—lights and darks.

And so far, I like Pittsburgh. Hardly a hipster in sight. It does not seem like a granola sort of place. More blue-collar, but not bad blue-collar. I'll make a list of the places I want to see here before I…leave? Stay?