The large woman reached toward me with wonderfully fragrant fingers. She seemed kind, so it wasn’t her that Samantha was afraid of. “Look at this cutie-pie,” she exclaimed.
It seemed that she didn’t know my name was Ripley and was calling me Cutie-Pie by mistake.
“What kind of dog is it?”
“He’s a blue merle border collie,” Samantha replied in a low voice. “I brought puppy pads. He’s housebroken, but sometimes he gets excited and forgets.” Samantha busied herself putting toys on the floor and I hopped down to help her. I sniffed them and could imagine what they would feel like when I ripped into them with my teeth. Then we were back on the couch.
“Now,” the gentle woman urged quietly, pushing her thick, dark hair from her face, “what should we talk about today?”
Samantha didn’t answer. I pressed closer to her.
“How do you feel right now, Samantha?” the woman probed.
“Fine,” Samantha murmured in a low voice.
There was a silence.
“Do you want to talk more about the fire?”
Samantha stiffened. I could feel her heart pounding even harder. I looked around in alarm. Was it this woman who posed such danger? But she seemed so nice!
“I still can’t stop thinking about it,” Samantha finally confessed. “Can’t sleep. Except some nights when Ripley sleeps with me.”
The woman nodded and settled in her soft chair, crossing her ankles.
“The puppy seems to help you cope,” the woman observed after another long silence.
Samantha nodded, her eyes downcast. “Ripley’s the only way I can get through this. He’s a herding dog, so he’s really good at sensing feelings in other animals. He knows when I’m having a panic attack.”
“Well,” the woman replied encouragingly, “we’re going to work on that today. Your mother tells me you’ve been reluctant to leave the house.”
“I go into the backyard,” Samantha corrected, quietly defensive.
“Is it a fenced backyard?”
Samantha nodded.
“A wooden fence? All closed in?”
Samantha nodded again. She was still tense, but it was becoming clear to me that whatever was scaring her wasn’t right here in this room to be chased away or maybe even bitten. So I decided that it would be okay if I went over and chewed on a pillow.
But as I tried to move off Samantha’s lap, she gripped me tightly, and I could feel her fingers still trembling.
My whole understanding of the world changed in that moment.
I’d always believed that to be a dog meant the smells and sights and toys and squirrels I encountered were created for my amusement—my biggest challenge was how to take it all in at once.
But now the girl holding me was frightened. I couldn’t see the danger, but I knew that if I tried to leave and attack the pillow at the other end of the couch, I would be abandoning my person, something a dog should never do. I didn’t understand it all, didn’t know exactly how I could help, but Samantha needed me. I stared at her—intent, loyal, and dedicated. It was all I could think to do.
“How is the new house?” the woman asked.
Samantha swallowed. “Fine, except…”
“Except?”
“Except it has an upstairs, and that’s where my bedroom is,” Samantha replied in a rush. “I don’t like to go there, so I don’t, not unless Mom’s up there with me.”
“I see.”
There was another silence.
“I wonder if there’s a way that the house fire was a good thing,” the woman mused.
Samantha gave her a startled look.
“Well,” the woman explained gravely, “you’ve never been able to talk about, or even think about, the car accident that killed your father.”
Samantha looked away.
“But now you’re telling me the fire is all you can think about. Do you see how that sounds different? Both traumatic, but you’re processing them differently. I wonder if we could find a way to handle your thoughts about the fire, maybe learn a technique that might help you with … with the other.”
The nice woman was speaking but my eyes were on Samantha.
“What I want you to do with me today, Samantha,” the woman advised gently, “is lead me through what happened the day of that house fire.”
Samantha stared in alarm.
The woman raised a cautionary palm. “No, please listen. You say you can’t stop thinking about it. That’s very typical for someone who’s been through a trauma. So let’s tackle it head-on, right here in this room. Describe it for me, as if it’s happening now.”
I felt Samantha’s grip on me tighten.
“While you’re leading me through it, I’m going to tap you in places like your elbow, the top of your head, and the bottoms of your feet. There won’t be any rhythm, any pattern to the tapping, but it will distract you. And while you’re talking and being distracted, you’re going to realize these awful memories, these thoughts, are not actually happening now—they are separate from this room. And when you’re finished, we’re going to do it again.”
Samantha shook her head, anxiousness clear on her face.
“No,” the woman insisted softly, “we’ll do it again, and this time instead of me distracting you, you’ll do it yourself. You can use what we call EMDR—eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s a technique of moving your eyes and focusing on different objects while you’re having these thoughts. You’ll learn, as with the tapping, that you can focus on other things, not just the memories, and that focusing on different things lets you feel that these thoughts are separate from the real you. Emotions, like fear, come from our thoughts. And we can all control our thoughts. Okay?”
Samantha didn’t answer.
“Okay?” the woman repeated soothingly.
“Okay, Mrs. Middleton,” Samantha replied in a barely audible voice.
I decided the woman’s name was Mrs. Middleton. That was a rather long name, but people get to pick the names of dogs and everything else.
“Let’s begin,” Mrs. Middleton murmured. “Remember, describe everything as if you’re experiencing it now.”
Samantha nodded. “Okay, I was … I’m upstairs. Mom’s going to be gone. She’s coming back in forty-five minutes. So I set my watch timer for forty-five minutes, and then I put on the headphones and start watching some videos.” Samantha took a deep breath. “So she’s gone, and I try not to look, but then I can’t help it. I look at my timer and it’s only been five minutes, and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe how long this is taking.’”
Mrs. Middleton had come over to stand by me while my girl spoke, and now the woman touched Samantha on the arm, then on the forehead, and then on the foot. I watched all this curiously, wondering if I should wag. It seemed friendly, but Samantha was still very upset.
“You’re doing great,” Mrs. Middleton encouraged her. “Now what’s happening?”
Samantha nodded. “So I try to just focus on videos, and after a while I notice I can smell something, something like smoke. Now I’m taking off my headphones and I can hear the smoke alarm going off. I go to my bedroom door and open it. I’m thinking I should get my phone, but I can’t find it, and now I’m scared. The smoke keeps coming up the stairs, and it’s black, black smoke. I’m alone in the house, and there’s … there’s a fire. I can feel the heat.” Samantha’s voice cracked and I put my head in her lap and she petted me.
Mrs. Middleton touched Samantha on the shoulder. “Can you feel me tapping you?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Go on, Samantha.”
“I can’t go down to the first floor; there’s too much smoke. I can hear the flames. They’re crackling. I’m scared! I go to the window and open it, and there’s just a ledge there, and you have to climb onto this ledge to get to the main part of the roof. I look down and I can’t do it and now I’m screaming, I’m screaming for my mom, but it’s going to be another fifteen minutes and I don’t have fifteen minutes! I don’t see anybody who can help me and I’m going to die! I step out of the window and I’m afraid to look, so my eyes are closed, and I just feel my way along the ledge and I almost fall when I get to the main part of the roof. I still can’t look down. I climb to the top of the roof and I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do but it’s too far to jump down. I’m so scared. I look around and there isn’t anybody, and I’m screaming, ‘Help! Fire!’ Then across the street, an old man is coming out of his house and looking at me, and I yell at him that there’s a fire. He shouts back that he saw the smoke and he’s called the fire department. He asks me if there are any other children in the house and I say no.”
Mrs. Middleton was intently watching Samantha, still petting her. I was focused too, remaining perfectly still, pressed up against my girl.
“The neighbor yells for me to stay where I am and I can’t move. I just hold on to the shingles. I’m lying there with my eyes closed.”
Samantha was panting. Her eyes were still shut. “And some other man yells at me and asks if I’m hurt. I find out later it’s Ben, but I’m afraid he’s going to get me and put me in a police car by myself and leave me there!”
Samantha’s voice broke and I squirmed closer to her and she hugged me gratefully. She was crying.
“Okay, good,” Mrs. Middleton soothed. She paused, then continued. “Is that what happened with your father? They took him away and put you in the back of a police car and left you there all by yourself?”
“Yes!” Samantha snapped. Tears poured from her face. I whimpered in concern.
“I didn’t know that,” Mrs. Middleton murmured. “How do you feel right now?”
“I’m going to throw up.”
“Let’s take a moment, then. Inhale. Think of something else. Think of Ripley.”
Samantha bent over and put her lips to my face. I licked the salt from her cheeks.
We sat like that for a bit. “I’m glad you told me, Samantha,” Mrs. Middleton said. “Does your mother know about them leaving you alone? Does anyone?”
Samantha shook her head.
“That must have been awful. You were very frightened.”
“Yes,” Samantha got out.
“And then, with the fire, it felt like something like that was happening all over again.”
“Yes.”
“But in this case, Ben didn’t take you away and leave you by yourself, did he?”
“No.”
“All right. I’m going to start tapping again, Samantha. While you remember the fire, pay attention to the fact that my fingers are touching your elbows and your forehead. Will you do that for me?”
Samantha nodded.
“When you’re ready. What’s Ben doing?”
“He’s coming to talk to me. He holds me so I don’t fall. He tells me we’re going to wait. That I’ll be fine. He doesn’t leave me.”
“Good. Keep going.”
“Now I’m hearing sirens, and I open my eyes and a fire truck pulls up. And people are jumping off the truck and pointing at me. I close my eyes again and when I open them, two firefighters are right there. They want to carry me, but I’m too afraid. I can’t let go of the roof. But then Ben piggybacks me down the ladder and I feel hands reaching up for me and I don’t open my eyes until I feel them setting me on the ground.”
“So you’re on the ground. Now what’s happening?”
Samantha opened her eyes. “And now everything is all right.”
“It is?” Mrs. Middleton repeated, surprised. “Because you’re on the ground?”
“No.” Samantha smiled at me. “Because there’s a puppy.”