55

I am shaken by this story of loss. Shaken mostly because when I examine it beside my own grievances, the Parmalees’ loss dwarfs them. I can’t get back any of the time I have lost with Tony, but I can do something they will never be able to do: I can call him. I’ve made it a policy not to bother him, not to impose my maternal neediness on his independence. My calls have purpose. When he calls me, it is usually with equal purpose—a status update, a holiday greeting. We could be former coworkers, not mother and son. I have meticulously nurtured the wound dealt when he left, until it has become a scar. And I sit in the Parmalees’ neighbor’s house and hold the last school photograph of their lost child and I am filled with regret. No, something more. I feel ashamed.

Mitch sits quietly, watching me. Jennifer has excused herself to finish getting ready for work. The photograph of Stacy is on the table. Abruptly, I pull my phone out of my back pocket and go out onto Jennifer’s deck, carefully closing the sliding door behind me.

I just want to hear the sound of his voice.

The phone rings almost four times. Long enough that he can recognize the number and let it go to voice mail. But he doesn’t. “Hey, Mom.”

“Tony.”

Clearly there is something in my voice that warns him. “You okay? What’s up?”

He didn’t leave me; he left a lousy situation. I have treated him like he chose Anthony over me. He chose a better life, which is all I had ever promised him. An unfulfilled promise.

“I’m fine, but all of this business, you know, with my dad and losing Mack has made me think.”

“About what?” Do I imagine that he sounds wary? In our family, grudges are a contact sport.

I am ready to throw in the towel and let my son know, before fate, or God, or luck, decrees that I have run out of time, that I love him. I want to tell my son, a grown man now, that life is too short not to tend to the relationship you care most about. So I just say it. “I love you.”

There is a pause, a furry silence between the cell phones.

“And I love you, too, Mom.”

*   *   *

We can’t impose any longer on the neighbor—she has to report for a shift at the hospital—so I suggest to Mitch that we go find something to do. What I mean is, give Jennifer a head start and then sit in front of the Parmalees’ house until they get home. Mitch isn’t at all for that. It’s a little early for foliage, but we drive around looking at the trees anyway. Then we decide that lunch is a good idea, although I’m too excited and frustrated to do more than move the french fries around on my plate at the lovely little riverside restaurant we find in the next town. I keep my eye on my watch as painfully slow minutes tick away.

“Maybe they’re back.” I just want to be on Old Path Road. I can’t take the chance of not being there when they get home, can’t let them think that I’m not coming back for my dog. They’ll claim that I deserted him.

“Are you going to eat those?” Mitch nods toward my fries and I am struck with the most perfect déjà vu of my life. Artie’s words to me almost exactly.

“Are you going to leave me in the rest room if I take too long?”

Mitch laughs and then pulls a serious face. “No. Never.”

I want to say, It’s what everyone else does to me. But I don’t.

I think Mitch knows he’s hit a nerve, because he reaches across the table and strokes a lock of my hair back behind my ear. A tiny gesture of affection and possession, like a mother might do, or a lover.

We climb back into the car and try to find our way back to the Parmalees’ house, where I am determined to sit until they reappear with my dog.

*   *   *

“I think you missed it.” I twist in my seat and jab my finger at the cockeyed street sign disappearing behind us. We’ve missed the turn to get back to Old Path Road.

“I think we must have come on Cemetery Road from the wrong direction. I was looking for it on my right.” Mitch slows to turn around, using the cemetery driveway. There is a car up ahead of us, in the middle of the road. Mitch throws the car in reverse to back out.

There are exquisite moments in life. When you first see the face of your baby. When a random act means that you meet someone special. When a car stalls and you have a moment to look out the window and see your lost dog.

There he is. Unmistakable. Maksim. My Mack. My dog. He is stretching himself fore and aft, just like he always does after a short nap. Mitch doesn’t see what I’m seeing, and I grab his hand, pulling it off the key. “Wait. There he is!” I’m out of the car and running toward Mack.

*   *   *

Buddy stretches out his left hind leg, a little canine balletic flourish at the end of his stretching routine. Ed and Alice are quiet but not sad, and he knows that they’ll be getting back into the car in a moment to head home, where he can have a drink of water and another snooze. A car pulls in, but he doesn’t know it, and this isn’t his property, so Buddy keeps quiet. It is so quiet that the shout startles everyone.

“Mack!”

A voice that he knows. A word that he knows: Mack! He always knew Justine would find him here in this down-stay spot. Mack is a blur of silver and black and he rockets toward the sound of his name, launching himself into Justine’s arms like a furry ballistic missile.