A Dog's Purpose

inching through the weeds toward the ducks. And every night Ethan and Hannah would laugh.

“No, Buddy, you get down,” Ethan would say.

“You can’t blame him for trying,” Hannah often replied.

When the snow fell, Hannah and Ethan would put a blanket over themselves and sit and talk in front of the fire. When it was Happy Thanksgiving or Merry Christmas, the house would be so full of people I often felt in danger of being stepped on, and I could have my pick of beds where the children were delighted to have me sleep with them. My favorite child was Rachel’s boy, Chase, who reminded me a little of Ethan, the way he hugged me and loved me. When Chase stopped trying to walk on all fours like a dog and started running on two legs, he liked to explore the Farm with me while Carly fruitlessly hunted ducks.

I was a good dog. I had fulfilled my purpose. Lessons I had learned from being feral had taught me how to escape and how to hide from people when it was necessary, scavenging for food from trash containers. Being with Ethan had taught me love and had taught me my most important purpose, which was taking care of my boy. Jakob and Maya had taught me Find, Show, and, most important of all, how to save people, and it was all of these things, everything I had learned as a dog, that had led me to find Ethan and Hannah and to bring them both together. I understood it now, why I had lived so many times. I had to learn a lot of important skills and lessons, so that when the time came I could rescue Ethan, not from the pond but from the sinking despair of his own life.

The boy and I still walked around the Farm in the evenings, usually with Hannah, but not always. I craved the alone time with Ethan, when he would talk to me, his gait slow and careful on the uneven path. “What a great time we all had this week; didn’t you have fun, Buddy?” Sometimes he used his cane to smack the ball down the driveway and I would joyously tear after it, chewing it a little before dropping it at his feet for another whack.

“You’re such a great dog, Buddy, I don’t know what I would do without you,” Ethan said on one such evening. He took a deep breath, turning to survey the Farm, waving at a picnic table full of children, who waved back.

“Hi, Granddaddy!” they shouted.

His sheer enjoyment, his love of life, made me bark with delight. He turned back to me, laughing.

“Ready for another one, Buddy?” he asked me, raising his cane to hit the ball again.

Chase wasn’t the last baby to join the family; they just kept coming. Chase was about the age Ethan had been when I first met him when his mother, Rachel, brought home a little girl they variously called the Surprise, the Last One for Sure, and Kearsten. As usual, they held the baby down for me to sniff, and as usual, I tried to be appreciative—I never knew what they expected from me under these circumstances.

“Let’s go play ball, Buddy!” Chase suggested. Now that I could respond to!

One beautiful spring day I was home alone with Ethan, napping drowsily while he read a book in the warm sunlight streaming through the picture window. Hannah had just left in the car, and, at that particular moment, our home was uncharacteristically empty of visiting family members. Suddenly my eyes snapped open. I turned and looked at Ethan, who met my gaze curiously. “What did you hear, Buddy?” he asked me. “Did a car pull up?”

There was something wrong with the boy; I could sense it. With a slight whimper, I got to my feet. Anxiety washed through me. He’d gone back to his book but laughed in surprise when I put my paws on the couch, as if to climb on top of him. “Whoa, Buddy, what are you doing?”

The sense of impending disaster increased. I barked helplessly.

“Are you okay? Do you need to go out?” He gestured toward the dog door, then pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Whew. Little dizzy, there.”

I sat. He blinked, looking off into the distance. “Tell you what, old boy, let’s you and me go back and take a nap.” He got to his feet, swaying unsteadily. Panting nervously, I followed him back to the bedroom. He sat on the bed and groaned. “Oh,” he said.

Something tore inside of his head; I could feel it. He sank back, sucking in a deep breath. I jumped on top of the bed, but he didn’t say anything, just stared at me, glassy-eyed.

There was nothing for me to do. I nuzzled his slack hand, fearfully conscious of the strange forces loose inside him. His breathing was shallow, shuddering.

After an hour, he stirred. Something was still really wrong with him, but I could feel him gathering his resources, struggling to break free of whatever gripped him the way I had once struggled to find the surface of the cold water from the storm drain, when I had the little boy Geoffrey in my teeth.

“Oh,” Ethan panted. “Oh. Hannah.”

More time passed. I whined softly, feeling the fight continue within him. Then his eyes opened. At first they were unfocused, confused, and then they lit upon me, widening.

“Why, hello, Bailey,” he shocked me by saying. “How have you been? I’ve missed you, dog.” His hand groped for my fur. “Good dog, Bailey,” he said.

It wasn’t a mistake. Somehow, he knew. These magnificent creatures, with their complex minds, were capable of so much more than a dog, and the sure conviction coming from him now let me know that he had put it all together. He was looking at me and seeing Bailey.

“How about the day of the go-karts, eh, Bailey? We sure did show them, that day. We sure did.”

I wanted to let him know that yes, I was Bailey, I was his one and only dog, and that I understood that whatever was happening inside him was letting him see me as I truly was. It dawned on me how I might do this, and in a flash I was off the bed and down the hall. I reached up and grabbed the knob to the closet just the way my first mother had taught me, and the old mechanism turned easily in my mouth, the door popping open. I nosed it aside and dove into the pile of musty things at the bottom, tossing aside boots and umbrellas until I had it in my mouth: the flip.

When I jumped back on the bed and dropped the thing in his hand, Ethan started as if I had just awakened him. “Wow! Bailey, you found the flip; where did you get this, boy?”

I licked his face.

“Well now. Let’s just see.”

What he did next was the last thing I wanted. His body trembling with the effort, he hauled himself over to the