Mrs. Middleton thought for a moment. “Samantha. Your mother says you’re just babysitting the dog.”
“Dog sitting,” Samantha corrected.
“Right. So what happens if you think about the fire and Ripley’s not there?”
Samantha looked away, biting her lip.
“You were trapped on the roof and afraid for your life,” Mrs. Middleton summarized. “You felt like you were right back in the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. And then you saw a puppy, and he distracted you from all that.”
Samantha nodded. “I guess.”
“So can you see how these thoughts lose their power when you’re distracted from them? If you focus all your attention on bad memories, all the negative feelings come up. But what if you control your focus? The bad things that happened to you, they’re still bad. But your feelings and thoughts don’t have to be that bad.”
Samantha’s gaze was uncertain.
“I want you to tell me that story again, and this time I want you to keep your eyes open. Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want you to keep your eyes open and I want you to look at different things in the room. I want you to focus on this lamp, and then the back of my chair. Then I want you to look out that window, and then at the trash can, and then at Ripley, and then at me. Keep talking, but your main attention is on what is happening here. Your memories are separate from what’s occurring in the present. Can you do that? Your thoughts are separate from you. You control them, and you control how they make you feel.”
Samantha began talking again. Her eyes were open and occasionally settled on me. The first time they did this, they were completely blank. I didn’t feel like Samantha could see me or smell me, even though I was right there next to her.
When I’d first met Samantha, she’d been terribly frightened. She’d held me and she’d felt better. I remembered that, and I climbed into Samantha’s lap. She reached out and stroked me, still talking.
Her hands slowed. Her heart slowed. Her breathing slowed. She was still frightened, but it wasn’t as bad. I became a little sleepy, and then very sleepy, in Samantha’s lap. I could feel emotions still boiling in her, but they were less threatening now, somehow.
I slept. At some point, Samantha stirred and I opened my eyes with a jerk.
“Now that we’ve done this a few times,” Mrs. Middleton was saying, “you know that those frightening thoughts are completely separate from what’s happening to you in the present, right?”
Samantha nodded.
“What is happening now?” Mrs. Middleton asked softly.
“I’m sitting with Ripley, in your office.”
“Those thoughts that you’ve been having, the memories, how do you feel about them?”
Samantha bit her lip. “They’re scary.”
“Sure they are. They’re scary. But you did other things while you were having those memories, didn’t you? Several times, right?”
Samantha didn’t say anything.
“I want you to start thinking of those thoughts like they’re in a part of your head that’s completely separate from what’s happening now. They’re just a bunch of items, those thoughts. Gather up those items, Samantha, and put them into a bag. Can you picture a strong cloth bag that cinches shut at the top?”
“Yes.”
“Picture that bag. Now picture taking those thoughts and putting them in the bag. They’re just objects to you right now. You’re going to bundle them into the bag and tie the bag shut. Can you imagine that? See it happening in your mind?”
Samantha stared at Mrs. Middleton and then nodded. “Okay, I’m doing that.”
“Good, good. Now, picture a place that’s safe for you. Safe, where you feel happy, and you’ve been a couple of times, and it’s far away from where you live. Do you know a place like that?”
Samantha licked her lips and nodded. “There’s a lake,” she finally suggested. “We went there when I was a little girl. There was a duck.”
“Okay, good. That was when Dad was still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Did the lake have a rowboat?”
Samantha shook her head. “No.”
“Was there a dock?”
“Yes.”
“Imagine going to the end of the dock now, okay, Samantha? You’re in this safe place. Go to the end of the dock with the bag of bad thoughts in your hand.”
“Okay,” Samantha agreed in a small voice.
“Now I want you to take that bag and tie it to the end of the dock, all right? Can you do that? Picture doing that.”
Samantha had her eyes closed. “I did it. I tied it.”
“Now gently lower the bag into the water.”
Samantha made a noise and then nodded.
“Now come back here to be with Ripley and me. Can you come back here, Samantha?”
Samantha kept her eyes closed. “No,” she whispered.
Mrs. Middleton regarded Samantha curiously. I sniffed at the hand stroking me. There was no fear scent on her skin now. “Why can’t you open your eyes, Samantha?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I’m remembering my dad. He’s sitting with me on the dock.”
“Okay.”
“My dad kept me safe.”
There was a long silence. I yawned.
“Do you think part of keeping you safe means your dad watching over the bag of bad thoughts to make sure they can’t come back to hurt you?” Mrs. Middleton probed.
Samantha nodded.
“Okay, then,” Mrs. Middleton agreed.
Samantha opened her eyes and looked down at me, then up at Mrs. Middleton.
“Perhaps your father needs to leave the dock sometimes,” Mrs. Middleton speculated. “If he does, and those bad thoughts, or any bad thoughts, come back to you, it only means you have to take matters into your own hands. We’ll keep working on this, Samantha. It will take time and practice. But now you know how to look around and stay fully present whenever bad memories arise. Deliberately look at trees, at the window, at other people. Really look at them.”
“And Ripley,” Samantha added.
“Especially Ripley,” Mrs. Middleton agreed with a smile.
I figured they were saying I had done the best job any dog could possibly do. My girl Samantha had been scared and anxious, rigid with it, and I’d cuddled with her and focused on her and given her some peace.
Samantha moved in the way I’d learned meant people were getting ready to leave. Ben wiggled the same way when he was drinking coffee with Mom in the kitchen and he needed to depart without feeding me more bacon.
“One more thing,” Mrs. Middleton added.
Samantha halted, looking up seriously.
“What you told me today about being in the back of the police car for all that time. By yourself, when they took your father away.”
Samantha swallowed.
“Do you think about that very often?”
Samantha nodded, lowering her head. I gazed loyally up at her. “All the time,” Samantha admitted in a murmur.
“Do you think you could try the same thing with those thoughts? Tie them in the bag, at the lake?”
Samantha licked her lips. “I’ll try.”
I licked her lips too. That made her laugh, the pain inside her almost gone.
She was even more relaxed at home, though she seemed less happy when Ben turned up unexpectedly in the middle of the afternoon. “I thought Ripley was going to stay with me all day,” she complained in a quiet voice.
“Oh,” Ben replied uncomfortably. He looked at Mom. “I mean, I suppose…”
“No,” Mom replied firmly. “Of course your dog should go with you today, Ben.” She turned to Samantha. “Ben’s training Ripley to be a fire station dog. We’re just doing basic dog training as part of dog sitting. Right?”
“I guess,” Samantha muttered.
“Yah, well, I’m not sure Ripley’s really ready,” Ben admitted awkwardly. “He’s not a tiny puppy anymore, but he’s still pretty distractible. He needs to learn the basics first.”
“Okay,” Samantha replied sourly.
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Ben picked me up and thrust me forward so I could lick Samantha’s nose. “Say good-bye, Ripley,” he told me in a light voice.
Samantha turned and marched down the hallway. I watched her in confusion, blinking when she shut our door with a firm bang.
Mom turned to Ben. “I’m sorry. She’s had a rough day. It was the first time she’s left the house, and I think her psychotherapy session drained her.”
“I mean, I could leave Ripley here with you, if you’d rather.”
Mom shook her head, then sighed. “I’m trying to do the right thing with her, and part of that is getting her to understand how the world works. It’s not always safe, not always predictable, and you can’t always have what you want. I’m worried that for too long I’ve tried to protect her from everything.”
Ben smiled at her. “You’re a good mother, Lizzy.”
I was not sure why, but it was a Ben house day. He took me into his backyard and showed me a new toy. “See this? It’s a rope, Ripley. A rope!”
The thing he shoved in my face was long and soft and a little heavy. I chewed it immediately.
“I’m going to teach you to bring me the rope!” Ben told me. “If we’re in a burning house and I find someone, I might need to lower them out the window with a rope. Or if it’s smoky, we sometimes tie ropes as guiding lines to help us find our way back out. And we use them to lower supplies to trapped people while we help them escape. Understand?”
I saw a flitting bug and ran after it, and then, when it landed on some flowers, I bit at the plants, shredding them. “Ripley, come!” Ben called.
I heard my name and happily turned to look at Ben, but just then I was astounded to see a squirrel hopping at the base of a tree, so I tore off after it. I almost caught it! I knew that the next time it dared to come into the yard to challenge me, I’d capture it!
I watched as the squirrel climbed into the higher branches, knocking down a dead leaf, which floated down into my joyously open mouth.
“Oofda, Ripley,” Ben moaned. “Please pay attention.”
I ran back to Ben and licked his ankles and grabbed at the leg of his pants to play a little Tug. I loved Ben. And I loved that soon he’d take me back to Samantha, where I belonged.
I slept in what Ben called the dog bed that night, and I chewed it only a little. I missed Samantha. What if she was frightened again and needed me to be close?
Maybe Ben understood how I felt, because he took me to see her the next day. This was the pattern that was becoming my life: some time with Ben, but for the most part I lived with Samantha and Mom.
I was excited after lunch to smell a person and hear a knocking on the front door. Samantha leaped to her feet and stood, her body tense.
I felt the same tension in my own body. We were waiting to find out what would happen.
“I’ll see who it is,” Mom declared. “Samantha—why don’t you come too?”
Samantha shook her head.
“It’s the front door. Come with me, Samantha. Please,” Mom insisted.
I trailed Mom and Samantha to the door. My girl seemed very nervous. When Mom opened the door, I wagged, because a woman stood there holding a deliciously fragrant dish in her hands. She was about the same size as Mrs. Middleton but with very pale skin and hair.
“Hey, neighbor! I’m Astrid Larson from down the street, don’tcha know. I broughtcha a hot dish to welcome you to the neighborhood!”
She was a happy lady who smelled wonderful, and I learned from Mom and Samantha that she was named Mrs. Larson. Mom and Mrs. Larson sat and ate cheese while Samantha and I ran cones in the backyard. We returned after the lady left.
“Mrs. Larson was nice. She sure stayed a long time,” Samantha observed tentatively.
Mom grinned wryly. “It’s called a Minnesota good-bye. People say they’re leaving and half an hour later they’re still here, still saying good-bye.”
The pattern of my life continued—days with Ben, days with Mom and Samantha. Every so often we visited Mrs. Middleton. She seemed nice, but she lacked dog toys. Whatever she talked to Samantha about made Samantha sad, so I cuddled close with my girl when we were there.
Other than going to Mrs. Middleton’s warm, soft room, Samantha and I rarely left the house and the backyard.
One evening Ben came to pick me up to take me to his house. Mom clicked my leash into my collar, but before she handed it to Ben, she said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
The three of us left through the front door and stood in the yard. I thought we were going to go for a walk—that’s what leashes usually mean. But Mom forgot that and just stood there, holding my leash. I pulled against it impatiently, trying to remind her that we were supposed to be moving.
“Everything okay, Lizzy?”
“It’s just that Ripley’s a lot more difficult to train than I thought he would be,” Mom confessed.
Hearing my name led me to believe I might be given a treat, so I looked up expectantly.
“You mean because you tell him to sit and he chases a bird and then rolls in the grass and then bites the picnic table?” Ben guessed.
Mom laughed.
At that moment, I caught sight of the same squirrel I’d seen before! Or maybe it was a different squirrel … All I knew was that it was playing in the yard across the street as if there wasn’t a dangerous dog right there in front of its eyes.
I lunged hard and felt the leash snap out of Mom’s grasp. I scampered into the street.
“Ripley!” Mom screamed, in a voice I’d never before heard.
I looked up at the car that was bearing down on me.