52

We pull up in front of a raised ranch with a two-bay garage. One of the garage doors is open and the bay empty. Now I’m sure that they’ve run off with my dog. I jump out of the Camry almost before Mitch has come to a stop. I run to the front door, jabbing my finger at the bell over and over. I can hear the chime ringing like Big Ben in miniature. Failing to get anyone’s attention, I risk being arrested as an intruder and go into the garage. I bang on the metal door that leads into the house. I try the knob, but, not surprisingly, the door is locked. They may not care about the contents of their garage, but they do lock their doors. I press an ear against it to see if I can hear Mack barking at the sound of my voice.

Mitch catches up with me as I run to the back of the house. “Justine, wait. Calm down.”

“You calm down! I want my dog.” I scramble up the steps to the deck and grab the handle of the slider. Locked. Cupping my hands around my face, I peer into their living room. Dog toys litter the space—stuffies and squeakies. A chew bone and a fleece pad lie on the couch. But no dog. If Mack was in there, he’d be frantic with excitement. I step back from the window.

Mitch calls up to me. “Justine. This is Jennifer. She’s the Parmalees’ neighbor.” Mitch is still at the bottom of the stairs, and with him is a young woman, staring up at me like I have two heads.

“Why don’t you come down and we’ll talk.” Jennifer is wearing pink scrubs and white clogs and her tone is pure charge nurse.

“All right.” I’m not going to let this stranger prevent me from claiming my dog, but I won’t misbehave. “My name is Justine Meade. I saw the Parmalees’ ad for a lost dog in the paper. He’s mine. I just want him back.”

“Buddy’s yours, then?”

“Buddy? No. Mack, short for Maksim. Are you going to ask me to prove ownership?”

“I’m not. They might.” Jennifer sits down on the second step. “He’s been good for them.”

“That’s the second time someone has said that. I heard about their loss. I’m not unsympathetic, but he’s my dog.”

“How’d you hear about Stacy?”

Mitch chimes in. “The coffee shop. We stopped for directions.”

“Small town. Everybody not only knows everyone else’s business but then makes it their business to talk about it.” Jennifer gets up. “Come on over to my house for coffee. I don’t know where they’ve gone, but I have Alice’s cell phone number. I’ll call them.”

For the first time since pulling into the driveway, I begin to feel less anxious. Maybe for the first time since Artie left me in Ohio, I can relax. The Parmalees will come home, I will be reunited with Mack, and the whole ugly episode will be over. I will thank them profusely. Now I wish that I could give them a reward, but I can’t, not really. I’ll send them something from Seattle, a year’s worth of coffee maybe. A Christmas card from Mack and me every year.

Jennifer has her back to me as she fiddles with the coffeemaker. “This is going to be very hard on them, on Alice especially. They’ve been shadow people ever since Stacy died, and Buddy—I’m sorry, Mack—has been a godsend. Even the fact that they’re out for a Sunday drive is a big deal. I guess you must have just missed them.”

“I called this morning. When did they leave?”

Jennifer doesn’t move for a moment. “A hour, maybe two. What time did you call?”

“Mitch? What time was it?”

“Eight, maybe quarter past.”

“I called and they left.” The panic bubbles in my gut. “They’ve taken my dog.”

“They wouldn’t do that. Maybe it’s something else, not a drive.”

“Please, just call them now.”

Jennifer fishes her cell phone out of her purse, thumbs a number, waits. “Voice mail. Alice must have her phone off.”

It is a déjà vu moment. “Try again, please.” Does everyone who has my dog keep their phones off?

Jennifer leaves a message. She speaks so quietly, I don’t really hear what she says.

“They’ve doted on him. Ed brings home a new toy practically every day, and he and the dog go to Lil’s every morning.”

“I know. The waitress told us. She slips him bacon.” I sip at the coffee I don’t want. Mitch is drumming the table, but when I look at him, he stops.

“Alice is taking him to class to learn how to be a therapy dog.” Jennifer spoons a little sugar in her coffee, stirs it gently. “He’s a real nice dog. I just…”

“What?”

“I don’t want to see them regress. Alice is smiling again for the first time in seven years.”

Seven years. My child has been gone seven years, too. “Well, I’ve had him for years, not days. I know how wonderful he is, but they can’t be as attached as I am.”

“No. Of course not.” She taps her spoon against the mug. “Let me call again.”

“Thank you.” I know about loss. I know about not knowing if your child is safe. But, thank God, I don’t know about losing a child to death. I can’t imagine how painful that is. A mother’s worst nightmare—trumping anything I have suffered.

Jennifer makes the phone call, the look on her face enough to tell me Alice hasn’t picked up. She disappears for a minute, coming back holding something. “I’d like you to see this.”

It is a small framed picture, a wallet-size school photograph of a girl with blond hair and blue eyes, braces glinting against the photographer’s flash. She has a big smile on her face, but her eyes are not smiling. It’s as if the photographer said, “Say cheese,” and she did, but there is no happiness behind it. It is more of a grimace.

“Stacy?”

“Yes. Her last school picture. She died seven months later.”

I stare at the face of an innocent young girl. “Why do you think she did it?”

“No one knows. Alice blamed Ed, because he insisted that they take the psychiatrist’s advice and medicate Stacy for her depression. But we don’t know why she was depressed in the first place. They did their best with her, and it wasn’t easy, them being older parents, but they gave her everything. They loved her entirely.”

“So even having love doesn’t guarantee happiness.”

Mitch takes the little picture out of my hand. “Shit happens. Sometimes you survive it; sometimes you don’t.”

He’s a survivor. And so am I.