A few days later, though, there was a knock on the door and, when Ethan answered, the apartment filled with boys. I recognized some of their smells as the boys who played football in the big yards, and most of them called me by name. I glanced over to see how Felix was taking my special status, but he was pretending it didn’t make him jealous.
The boys laughed and shouted and stood around for about an hour, and I felt Ethan’s heart lifting. His happiness made me happy, so I went and got a ball and carried it around in my mouth in the living room. One of the boys grabbed it and rolled it down the hallway, and we played for several minutes.
A few days after all the boys came to visit, Ethan got up early and left with Mom.
School.
The boy was walking with the help of a polished stick called a cane when we moved out of the apartment. The cane was very special: the boy never threw it, and I instinctively understood that I wasn’t supposed to chew on it, not even a little.
I didn’t know where we were going when we all loaded into the car, but I was excited just the same. Car rides were always exciting, no matter where we went.
I grew pretty excited when the familiar smells of the creek and the street came through the window, and I bounded in through the front door of the house as soon as they let me out of the car. Though I could still smell smoke, the air was also filled with the scent of new wood and carpet, and the windows in the living room were larger. Felix seemed very suspicious of his surroundings, but I was out the dog door and racing around in the relative freedom of the backyard within seconds of arriving. When I barked with joy, Duchess answered from down the street. Home!
We’d barely settled in when we took the big car ride to the Farm. Life was finally back on track, though the boy was much less inclined to run than to walk, leaning on the cane.
One of the first places we went was to Hannah’s house. I knew the route pretty well and galloped way ahead, so I saw her first. “Bailey! Hi, Bailey!” she called. I ran up for some of her in-depth cuddling and scratching, and then the boy came up the driveway, panting a little. The girl went down the steps and stood there in the sun, waiting for him.
“Hi,” the boy said. He seemed a little uncertain.
“Hi,” the girl said.
I yawned and scratched at an itch on my jaw.
“Well, are you going to kiss me or what?” the girl asked. Ethan went to give her a long hug.
He dropped his cane.
Some things were different that summer. Ethan began waking up long before sunrise and driving Grandpa’s truck up and down the county roads, shoving papers into people’s boxes. They were the same papers that the boy had once placed all over the carpet in the house, but somehow I didn’t think it would be appreciated very much if I urinated on them, even though there had been a time, when I was a puppy, when wetting down the papers would have gained me high praise.
Hannah and the boy spent many hours together, sitting quietly by themselves, sometimes not talking, just wrestling. Sometimes she even went on the early morning car rides, though normally it was just the boy and me, Bailey the front-seat dog.
“Got to earn some money, Bailey,” he sometimes said. I would wag at my name. “No football scholarship now, that’s for sure. I’ll never be able to participate in sports again.”
At the sadness in him I always pushed my nose under his hand.
“My whole life’s dream. All gone now, because of Todd.”
Ethan had brought the flip with him to the Farm, for some reason, and sometimes he would cut it up and resew it, generally making it even more embarrassing than it had been before. But my favorite time was when we’d swim together in the pond. It seemed the only time that the boy’s leg didn’t give him pain. We even played the sinking game, as we had been doing for years; now, though he was much heavier, harder to drag out of the water than ever before. When I dove after him I felt so happy, I never wanted it to end.
I knew it would, though. I felt the nights growing longer, and that meant we’d soon be going home.
I was lying under the table one evening while Mom and Grandma talked. Ethan had gone on a car ride with Hannah and had not taken me, so I assumed they had to do something that wasn’t very fun.
“I want to talk to you about something,” Grandma told Mom.
“Mother,” Mom said.
“No, just listen. That boy has completely changed since coming here. He’s happy, he’s healthy, he’s got a girl . . . why take him back to the city? He can finish high school right here.”
“You make it sound like we live in the ghetto,” Mom complained with a laugh.
“You’re not answering me because . . . well, we both know why. I know your husband will be against it. But Gary is traveling almost one hundred percent, now, and you said your hours at the school are killing you. The boy needs a family around him while he rebuilds.”
“Yes, Gary’s traveling, but he still wants to see Ethan when he’s home. And I can’t just quit my job.”
“I’m not telling you to. You know you are welcome to come up any time you want, and why can’t Gary fly into our little airport here on a given weekend? Or, and please know that I only want the best for you, wouldn’t it be good for the two of you to be alone right now? If you and Gary are going to fix the problems between you, you need to do it somewhere other than in front of Ethan.”
I pricked up my ears a little at the boy’s name. Was he home? I cocked my head but didn’t hear his car.
When the nights turned cool and the baby ducks were all as big as their mother, Mom packed the car. I paced nervously, afraid I’d be left behind, and when the moment was right I jumped neatly into the backseat. For some reason, everyone laughed. I sat in the car and watched as Mom hugged Grandma and Grandpa and then, curiously,
