After we stood around doing nothing for about half an hour, Maya led me down off the stage and the children lined up and then came up in small groups to pet me. Some of them hugged with unabashed affection, and some of them held back, a little afraid. I wagged my tail in reassurance, and one girl put a timid hand out, which I licked. She snatched her hand back, squealing, no longer frightened.
Though Maya and I no longer did work, we very often did school. Sometimes the children were little, and sometimes they weren’t children at all but people as old as Grandma and Grandpa. Sometimes Maya and I went to places full of chemical smells and people who were in pain or feeling sad and sick as they lay in bed, and we would linger with these people until some of their sadness lifted.
I could always tell when we were doing school, because Maya would take extra time getting dressed in the morning. The days we didn’t do school, she dressed hurriedly and sometimes ran out the door, with Al chuckling. Then Al would leave, too, and I’d be stuck at home with the stupid cats.
Though I no longer wore nose cream, Tinkerbell persisted in hanging near me and cuddling up against me when I’d take a nap. I was glad that Al wasn’t there to see it. Al had a lot of affection for me, but for the cats, not so much. Tinkerbell hid from Al, while Stella only approached him when Al had food, and Emmet would occasionally strut over to Al and loftily rub against him as if putting cat fur on his pants was doing him some kind of favor.
We’d been doing school for several years when Maya broke the pattern. We were in a place called class, which was smaller than some of the rooms in which I’d been and which was filled with children who all seemed about the same age. These particular children were very little and sat on the floor on blankets. I was a little envious—most of my time at home was spent napping and I didn’t seem to have the energy that I’d once had, so I decided that if the children wanted me to lie on a blanket with them, I’d be willing to do so.
Maya called forward one of the children, who approached shyly. Her name was Alyssa, and she gave me a hug. When I licked her face, the children laughed—but Maya and I had never done this before, had a single child come forward, and I wasn’t sure what it was about.
The woman who sat at the big desk, the teacher, said, “Alyssa has never actually met Ellie before, but if it weren’t for Ellie, Alyssa would never have been born.”
Soon all the children were touching me, which was much more typical of how school went. Sometimes the children were a little rough and at this school a boy pulled sharply on my ears, but I just let him do it.
At the end of school, the children raced out the door, but the little girl Alyssa stayed behind, as did the teacher. Maya seemed excited about something, so I waited expectantly, and then a man and a woman came into the classroom and Alyssa ran to them.
The man was Jakob.
I bounded over to him. He stooped down, scratching my ears. “How are you, Ellie! Look how gray you’re getting.”
The woman picked up Alyssa. “Daddy used to work with Ellie; did you know that?”
“Yes,” said Alyssa.
Maya hugged Jakob and the woman, who set Alyssa back down so she could pet me some more.
I sat and regarded Jakob. He was so different than when I last saw him—the coldness in him seemed to have gone away. This little girl Alyssa, I realized, was his child, and the woman was the girl’s mother. Jakob had a family now, and he was happy.
That’s what was different. In all the time I’d known him, Jakob had never once been happy.
“I’m glad you’re doing this community outreach program,” Jakob told Maya. “A dog like Ellie needs to work.”
I registered my name and the word “work,” but there was no sense in the room that we had an urgent need to Find. Jakob just always talked about work; that was his way.
It was very pleasant to be there with Jakob and feel the love pour out of him when he looked at his family. I eased down onto the floor, so happy I thought I might nap.
“We’ve got to get you home,” the woman said to Alyssa.
“Can Ellie come?” Alyssa asked. Everyone laughed.
“Ellie,” Jakob said. I sat up. He bent down again, holding my face in his hands. “You are a good dog, Ellie. A good dog.”
The feel of his rough hands on my fur took me back to when I was a puppy, first learning my work. I wagged my tail, full of love for this man. Yet there was no question that I was happy with Maya, so when we all left each other in the hallway I un-questioningly followed her, my nails clicking.
“Good dog, Ellie,” Maya murmured. “Wasn’t it fun to see Jakob?”
“Bye, Ellie!” little Alyssa called, her tiny voice echoing in the quiet hall. Maya stopped and turned, so I did, too, and my last sight of Jakob was of him picking up his daughter, grinning at me.
That year Emmet and Stella both died. Maya cried and was very sad and Al was a little sad, too. The house seemed empty without them, and Tinkerbell needed constant assurance from me now that she was the only cat— several times a day I’d awaken from a nap to find her pressed up against me or, even more disconcerting, standing and staring at me. I didn’t understand her attachment to me and knew it was not my purpose in life to be the substitute mother for a feline, but I didn’t mind it much and even let her lick me sometimes because it seemed to make her happy.
The best days were when it rained, which it did infrequently—the smells seemed to leap off the ground, the way they did when I was a puppy. I could usually sense when the thickening clouds meant moisture, and remembered how much more often it rained back on the Farm.
I found myself thinking of the Farm much more often, now, the Farm and Ethan. Though my life with Fast and Sister, and the Yard with Coco, had faded to a distant memory, it seemed that sometimes I awoke with a start and lifted my head, thinking I’d just heard Ethan’s car door slam and that he would soon walk in, calling my name.
One day when rain seemed imminent Maya and I were doing school, in a class with children who sat in chairs instead of on blankets. There was a sudden crack of lightning, and all the children jumped and laughed and then turned to look as a huge storm made the sky black and pounded the building with a roar of rain. I inhaled, wishing
