45

“You missed your pals this morning.” Lil swipes the countertop with a rag. “They got worried.”

“That’s dumb. Now I have to call in sick if I miss a morning?” Ed goes past his usual stool and slides into a booth. Alice is across the street at the tiny town green with Buddy and a plastic bag. “I can’t spend Saturday with my wife?”

“Hey, I’m just saying they were looking for you.” Lil hefts the Bunn coffeepot. “Can I start you?”

“Thanks.” Ed sees Alice come back across the street and pop Buddy back into the minivan. She rolls the windows down just enough. She sees Ed watching her and waves.

Ed isn’t sure what’s happened, only that he feels pretty good today.

Alice slips into the booth opposite him. “He’ll be fine out there. We won’t be long.”

“He sits out there every morning waiting for me. He likes to keep tabs on all the comings and goings, the little mayor of Moodyville.”

“You won’t be able to do this in the summer, though. You can’t leave a dog in a hot car.”

“I know. Maybe I’ll do something else in the summer.”

Alice studies the plastic menu. Ed has it memorized. They both order grilled cheese—his with tomato, hers without.

When Lil comes with their order, she slips a little bag of bacon onto the table. “For my pal out there.”

“You give him bacon?” Alice hisses as Lil drifts to another table.

“Just a strip.”

Alice adds a little sugar to her cup, stirs it with a back-and-forth motion. “What else would you do in the summer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s time we took one of those vacations we always talked about. Drive to the Cape or up to the mountains.”

“We don’t have to wait till summer to do that. There’s nothing says we can’t go somewhere now.”

Another reminder of his unemployed status. All the time in the world.

Ed aligns his coffee cup in its saucer. “What would we do about Buddy?”

“There’re lots of places that are calling themselves dog-friendly. We can take him.”

“Where do you want to go?”

Alice shrugs, takes a bite of her sandwich, and sits back. The bench seat is so low, she looks like a little kid sitting at the grown-ups table. “Canada? Someplace we can drive to. Montreal?”

“All the more reason to look at a new car. Neither one of our clunkers could handle an eight-hundred-mile drive.”

This is fun, this optimistic conversation. It’s been so long since they’ve talked about anything having to do with planning, or adventure, or life beyond being lost parents, that Ed feels like laughing. It might not even be necessary to go on a vacation; it’s just a step in a new direction to talk about it. It’s a sign to him that Alice is moving out of another stage of her grief. From never leaving her bed to never leaving the house to never leaving Moodyville, Alice is contemplating a journey out of the country. Ed is fairly certain that she will begin to worry about who will take care of things while they’re gone, a train of thought that will eventually derail these happy plans when she considers being absent from the graveside for more than a couple of days. Summer, winter, whatever the season, whatever the weather, Alice Parmalee tends the grave. Chrysanthemums in the fall; impatiens in the summer; greens in the winter. The tulip bulbs poking up in the spring, flanked by daffodils. He’s never seen it, but he knows what Alice plants. Sometimes it’s the only thing she tells him in a day. Or it was, until Buddy came along.

So, it’s quite nice to have her talking about going somewhere else.

Thursday’s town newspaper is still on the stand and Ed goes to get one while Alice takes another cup of decaf from Lil. Pushing the empty plates aside, Ed stretches the paper out in front of them and they check through the car ads side by side. The end-of-season clearances are going on, so each of the dealers is touting big savings and decent monthly payments. Maybe even on Ed’s fixed income they can afford to do this. They’ve put some away; money that was meant for college is still sitting there. It seemed wrong to use it for anything else. Taking it would have been tantamount to stealing it from Stacy in the early days following what happened. But now, with Ed out of work, it sits there like a backup plan.

In this little hometown paper the lost-and-found ads are the first classifieds after the paid ads. Lost earrings and cats, found wallets and boots. Alice doesn’t want to look, but she finds herself drawn to the column. First ad under the column heading: “Found, small collielike dog. Gray and black, one blue eye, one brown. Near Old Path Road. Call…”

It feels like a century ago that she called in that advertisement. Now the object of those few words is a member of the family. She narrows her eyes, hoping that no one will see it. She wishes that it wasn’t the first ad, but was lost among all the other ads for missing sweaters with sentimental attachments and bracelets worthy of rewards. Alice breathes out. If anyone was going to call, they would have by now.

Alice starts to fold up the paper, but Ed pushes it back to the table surface. “We need to look.”

She knows what he means, and the old familiar animosity rises. “No, we don’t.”

Ed ignores her and runs his finger down the lost ads. Alice doesn’t watch. She looks out at the car, where Buddy is waiting so patiently for them. He is out of sight, curled up, no doubt, on the middle seat.

“Nothing. No one around here is missing him. We don’t have to look ever again, but we had to look now. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”

“I could.”

“But now we don’t have to worry about it. Free and clear. We’ve done what we could.”

Ed wraps his arm around her shoulder and Alice lets herself sink in next to him, tucked safely under his arm. “He’s our boy now.”

*   *   *

The scent of bacon clings to the people as they get into the car. Buddy licks his lips, but tries hard not to look like he’s begging. Alice holds out a crumb and he takes it with proper canine etiquette, then finds himself whining for more. Ed usually gives him a whole piece, but Alice wants to parcel it out in bits. After two, she puts the bag away.

Buddy settles into the backseat and begins to enjoy the ride.

The not talking is a good thing. The people in the front seat of the car are gently not talking, but the silence is that of a contented nature. Buddy watches the scenery go by, alert for squirrels, but no longer alert for discord between these people. Not that they have ever raised their voices, or used hard-sounding words, but he knows the difference between tension and relaxation. This is the first time he can recall since his arrival that he hasn’t felt the barrier between the two people who take care of him. Buddy is as sensitive a dog as any, and he is familiar with barriers. Justine has no barriers between herself and Candy, or Saundra. But she has barriers between herself and the males who occasionally take up her time. This barrier always made him keep his guard-dog focus on whatever male came to take Justine out of the house, leaving him behind. Or came back into the house. One or two got enough past the barrier that Mack was left on the outside of the bedroom door—but not often. The barrier smelled like distrust; the kind of fear smell a dog that never attaches gives off. That was why he kept himself between Justine and Artie. Justine’s distrust was emanating from her skin. He could taste it when he pressed his tongue against the back of her hand.

The barrier he has sensed between Ed and Alice is not distrust. The barrier, diminished today, is fear-aggression. They seem to him to be like those dogs who snap and snarl at everyone because they are confused and uncertain and the only safe thing to do is growl. Even though Ed and Alice don’t snap or snarl, or even raise their voices, this underlying current of snappishness is there, and a sensitive dog knows it. They are a little afraid of each other. But not today.

Today, all three of them glide through the scenery, unafraid.