Chapter Sixty-eight

Lately he feels a stiffness in his hindquarters that he’s never had before, not even in those few days after he’d been wounded and strangers had handled him until Keller came back from his own wounds. It’s just a little harder to get up, and the basket is so much more comfortable than the floor, even if the square of light warms it up. Better yet is the couch, and he’s been deliberately disobedient every chance he gets, having been encouraged into misbehavior by the couple of times Francesca and Keller have invited him up to sit between them as they listen to the noises coming from the box in the living room.

Nothing else is diminished. His hearing is just as acute, his eyesight what it has always been. And his nose, superior instrument that it is, still carries the stories to him on the air—the air in the house and the air outside. In the house, the air is thick with the story of his people. How they use their voices but say nothing. How they emit the olfactory aura of discontent. He sighs and yawns and settles his head or paws on each of them in turn. But they don’t take as much comfort from him as they did. Keller disappears. Rick dismisses him. Francesca orders him out of the kitchen. Even those painful times when Rick clutches at his nape, sucking the stillness and comfort out of him, have changed. Less frequent, less successful. Almost as if Rick has chosen to suffer his fear and distress alone. Like a mother hiding her nest from other dogs, even perhaps her mate. A hidden den is easier to defend.

A walk to the beach with Keller usually gets the kinks out. Pax hears the breezeway door open and he looks to Rick to see if he can go greet Keller. Rick’s eyes are down, as they often are, and his fingers are playing within that little pouch he has attached to his chair. The bag holds those tiny white pills that the dog can smell even through the thick duck cloth. They clatter together as Rick fingers them, audible enough to the dog, if not to anyone else.