“Son, I have no idea,” he said, in a voice sharp enough to close off that area of questioning. “But I will tell you this. You did a damn good thing to call it in. She’d gone over into a coma, and if you hadn’t found her, I can’t say I’d like her chances much. You probably saved her life. Or . . . well, what I mean is, if she survives, it’s because of you. So tell me something. How exactly did you happen to be out there in the middle of nowhere to notice?”
“Oh,” I said. “I was going there to see those dogs. I really like those dogs.”
“Folks won’t get you a dog of your own?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, if you like ’em so much, you might want to go by and see they got food and water.”
“I already did.”
A long silence on the line. Then I asked the obvious question. Even though I already knew he didn’t have my answer.
“Is she gonna be okay?”
“Son, I may be many things, but one thing I’m not is a doctor. You’ll have to call over to the County General Hospital for information like that.”
“I forgot her name already.”
“Zoe Dinsmore is who she is.”
It was a strange sentence, and he said it in a strange way. As though being Zoe Dinsmore were truly noteworthy in some way, and the way did not sound good. There was subtext. But I could not imagine how to dive into it. There seemed to be no entry point.
I thanked him and hung up the phone. Then I got the number for County General, and called, and got exactly nowhere. They wouldn’t tell me a thing about her condition because I wasn’t family to Zoe Dinsmore.
I wondered if anybody was.
I had to run back out there at sunset, lock up the uneaten dog food in the shed, then go back to my life not knowing.
I had to go to bed that night not knowing.
I thought it would be a wonderful thing to have saved somebody’s life. Something I could feel good about. Something even most grown-ups couldn’t say.
But I didn’t know if I had saved a life or not. For that, the person you tried to save has to survive.
Chapter Three
Any Family
I was out at the cabin again at dawn, putting down kibble that I knew the dogs wouldn’t eat.
They were lying on the porch, heads down but eyes open, as if they had no choice but to feel every terrible thing. I guess they didn’t have a choice. They were dogs.
I was a human boy with a variety of methods to avoid the emotions I didn’t care to feel. Yet those options seemed to fail me in that moment.
I found myself lying on the porch beside them, sharing their sense of despair. I wondered what would happen to them if the lady never came back.
I would have taken them home with me in a heartbeat if my parents would’ve allowed it, but I knew they never would. Maybe they could keep living out here in their doghouse, and I could come out and feed them and care for them and run with them. But I couldn’t shake the sense that I would come out one day and find that someone had swept them away. Animal control, or some member of the lady’s family. Which made me wonder again if the lady had any family.
I picked up my head and looked the female dog in the eye. She tilted her head slightly without lifting her chin off the porch boards, her signal that she didn’t understand what I wanted.
I pushed to my feet against the boards and took off running. Just four or five long strides. Then I stopped and looked back over my shoulder at her. She allowed me to catch her eye, then carefully averted her gaze.
I walked back and sat on the edge of the porch and stroked her silky ears.
“Worth a try, I guess,” I said.
I patted the boy dog on the head and he sighed.
I wanted to tell them something encouraging. That she’d come home. That they’d be okay. But I couldn’t bring myself to lie to them. So I had nothing.
My mom was in the kitchen when I got home. Doing up a few dishes. Probably the ones from the breakfast she undoubtedly would have made for my father before sending him off to work. I was surprised that any dishes had survived that much time around my parents. Or, anyway, that was the dark joke I told myself in my head.
“Where’ve you been?” she asked me, sounding only half-interested.
She was wearing a faded flower-print apron. Her hair had been pinned up but was now trailing down in a number of places.
“I like to go out and run in the morning.”
“Since when?”
“Couple weeks now.”
“Why haven’t I noticed?”
Good question, I thought. Why haven’t you?
“Probably because I went right off to school afterward.”
“Oh. Right. Have you had breakfast?”
“I could eat,” I said, to avoid telling her that I had scarfed down a ton of cereal but I still wanted more food.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make you some eggs.”
She was pushing scrambled eggs around in a too-big cast-iron skillet when the phone rang. She turned the gas flame to low and jumped to answer it.
“No, he’s at work,” I heard her say into the phone. Then she fixed me with a strange and disturbing look. I can only call it withering. “Oh, Lucas,” she said. “Yes, Lucas is here.” She covered the mouthpiece of the phone receiver with her palm. “Why is the sheriff’s office calling for you, Lucas? What have you done?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Then why is some deputy sheriff calling? Your father will have a fit if you’ve brought some kind of trouble down on this house.”
Right, I thought. Heaven forbid this house should see any trouble. We’re all really content as it is,
