HAZEL SLID the paperwork, after carefully signing her initials multiple times by the little yellow sticky-note flags indicating where they should go, back across the table to Mrs. Charlene Mason, a real estate agent she had met while working at the insurance agency.
“Mr. Shupp has been acting apoplectic since you walked out, Hazel,” Charlene said. Charlene, a middle-aged woman who could be best described as flouncy—in dress as well as mannerisms—waved the paperwork with a flourish. “He said you’ll have to take him to court to get your vacation pay now, since you abandoned your position with not even a proper fare-thee-well.”
Hazel did not want to smile, but she did, and broadly.
“Apoplectic? Really?”
“I was at your office because of a claim on one of the agency’s rental units. The receptionist…what’s-her-name…the tiny blond woman with the squeaky voice…”
“Margie.”
“Yes, that’s it. Margie whispered to me that Mr. Shupp had been storming about the office for days now and muttering to himself.”
“Really?”
Charlene leaned close.
“Didn’t anyone ever quit before?”
Hazel tilted her head in thought.
“I guess. Maybe. They retired. They got fired. But not many people quit. Only one or two that I remember.”
Charlene nodded, adjusting her necklace.
“So you just walked out? No farewell party? No two weeks’ notice?”
Actually, Hazel had given this whole leaving-at-that-very-moment some thought for much of that morning—the morning before she had taken action and walked out.
“I hate goodbye parties. Should you be sad that they’re leaving? Or happy, because you never liked them to begin with?”
“True,” Charlene replied, and slipped the sale documents into her briefcase.
“And,” Hazel continued, “two weeks’ notice is only ‘customary.’ There’s no legal standing for it. And while he does owe me for vacation time…I am not going to bother with going after it. And during those last two weeks, what do people do with you while you’re still at work? It’s like you’re dead—but not just yet. A lot of sad, fake smiles. And then someone steals your stapler and tape dispenser.”
Charlene laughed. She knew that a good real estate agent does not probe too deeply, but could hardly help herself. There were a lot of whispers at the insurance agency—from early-onset dementia to a winning lottery ticket—as the cause of Hazel’s unusual departure.
Charlene leaned closer and with an extended finger beckoned Hazel to lean closer as well.
“Was it the lottery?” she whispered as if a fellow conspirator.
Hazel had prepared an answer.
“Something like that,” she whispered back, with just a trace of an enigmatic smile. “Something like that.”
Charlene appeared to be only partially satisfied with the answer, but she also realized that it was all she would get.
“Well, then,” she concluded as she stood. “Your condo should sell quickly. Good location. Good condition.”
Hazel stood as well.
“And a good price.”
Hazel had priced it below market value. It was the only anchor that was holding her to Portland. Once it was sold, she would be free.
“There is that,” Charlene said. “I bet no more than a couple of weeks on the market. If that.”
“Let’s hope,” Hazel replied, feeling more relaxed than she felt she had a right to be, but she was not about to let that delicious feeling evaporate too quickly.
The two women shook hands and Hazel walked out with a little smile, leaving Charlene, who forced her own smile, with a few unanswered questions as well.
The next four mornings, after Thurman greeted Wilson, after Thurman made his circuit around the backyard, after he came back into the kitchen, after he sat down and growled Hungry and just prior to setting into his breakfast kibbles, he would look at Wilson with some intensity and growl, Emily.
Wilson would respond by scowling perfunctorily and waving the dog’s whispered growl off, as if batting away an errant but persistent moth.
Halfway through breakfast, Thurman had been given to stopping for just a moment, turning toward Wilson, and again growling, Emily.
Wilson usually met the second Emily with just a grimace.
And Thurman would respond to Wilson’s grimace with a whispered Pretty.
“How do you know if Emily is pretty? I never thought of that before.”
Thurman appeared to seize up for a moment, then grinned. Good.
“So good is like being pretty?”
Thurman’s grin expanded, and he nodded. Good. Pretty. Good.
When Thurman said Pretty, it stopped Wilson for a moment. Then he would shake his head in some manner of disbelief and return to the morning copy of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
This morning proved to be no different than the preceding four.
Thurman stared at Wilson and growled, Emily.
Wilson appeared pained.
“I know, Thurman. My mother called again yesterday. She said the same thing. That I should call Emily. That we have so much in common. As if trauma and social disorders are some manner of bonding agent. I have to call her, she said, like she was expecting it. Maybe demanding it. Maybe my mother told Emily that I would call, and now I have to act to fulfill her end of the bargain—which I was not part of.”
It took Thurman a moment to digest the information, unexpected as it was. Then he stood and cha-cha’ed over toward Wilson, growling, Good, good.
Wilson did not appear to be nearly as happy as Thurman.
“She is a lot younger than me, Thurman. I told my mother the same thing. Ten years is a lot of years.”
Thurman appeared puzzled.
“I know you don’t get time, Thurman. Years and hours aren’t part of a dog’s understanding. Dogs don’t get time. I know that.”
Thurman appeared to be a little hurt by that assessment, making his face tighten up and his eyes narrow.
“It’s true, Thurman. You don’t care about years and oldness and age gaps. But I do. She is from an entirely different decade than me. More than a decade. That’s a big difference in personal experiences.”
Thurman sat back down, making sure he was in the wide square of sunlight that filled a portion of the kitchen. Thurman loved the sunlight. It often warmed his black fur to a toasty, well-done temperature. Wilson wondered how he stood it.
And today, while he was sitting in that warm sunlight pool, Thurman’s face slowly uncoiled, slowly relaxed, as if new ideas and concepts were gradually being understood, like a young man coming to faith, his eyes finally open to the glory all around him. That’s what Thurman looked like. At the end, he was all smiles and acknowledgments and relief and happiness.
Think, he growled. Think. Emily.
Wilson twisted his face in response to this comment.
“What do you mean, Thurman? ‘Think’? All I do is think.”
Thurman stood and walked out of the sunlight.
He closed his eyes as if trying to remember some arcane fact, some almost buried truth.
Not think, he finally whisper-growled. Stop think.
Wilson leaned back in the chair, the metal legs making that scratchy metallic sound on the tile.
A very long moment passed, Thurman staring hard at Wilson, Wilson staring back, a little less hard, their eyes trying to communicate the uncommunicable.
Wilson took a deep breath.
“Maybe you’re right, Thurman,” he said, his voice on the edge of relief, on the edge of acceptance of a sort.
Thurman wiggled, smiling and grinning and trying hard not to bounce and dance, his nails making small clickery noises on the floor, a hesitant yet happy sound.
“Maybe I should stop thinking and just do it. Maybe the years have changed me.”
With that, Thurman did bounce up, and his front paws landed on Wilson’s thighs, the dog’s mouth open, tongue lolling out, trying to make contact with Wilson’s face.
Stop. Think, Thurman growled, then added in a quiet whisper-growl, Not think, do.
Wilson put his hand on Thurman’s head and looked into his eyes.
“Maybe, Thurman. Maybe I will.”
He looked at Thurman with a critical eye.
“And maybe you can stop sounding like Yoda. I never did like that movie, you know.”
Thurman responded by jumping back down and doing his happy dance, where his backside would slowly turn in a circle.
Not think. Do, he whisper-growled, looking happier than Wilson thought a dog had the right to appear.
Hazel’s small condo overlooking the parking lot was littered with boxes—a veritable jungle of boxes, box tape, wide-tipped markers, and a sense of urgency.
She had been correct: a low price brought out plenty of lookers, and two quick offers within the first week. The first was for asking price. The second was for a thousand dollars more than the asking price.
Hazel toyed with the idea of accepting the first offer, “Because they were first.” Charlene quickly disavowed her of that notion, and the condo sold, and a closing date in two weeks had been requested.
That date did not provide her much time, but she wanted it over and done with, and this would accomplish that.
In truth, Hazel owned much less than her mother had. Her condo was much smaller than her mother’s house; the only true storage area was a closet-sized cage in the basement that contained mostly Christmas decorations and an artificial Christmas tree that never stood quite perpendicular.
As the packing progressed, Hazel only packed up three larger cardboard boxes marked prominently with the words HAZEL JAMISON/KEEP written in bold block letters on the top.
Those few boxes, containing items with some sentimental value, were being sent to an indoor storage facility—licensed, bonded, fire-rated, and insured.
“This is just stuff that I would have stored at my mother’s house,” Hazel explained to Charlene, who had brought over a sheaf of paperwork to be signed and initialed. “Nothing of real value. A few sentimental things. A couple of yearbooks. A few things I had when I was a child. Things that belong in a parent’s attic or basement. Which are two locations I don’t have.”
Charlene actually gave Hazel a hug after hearing this.
“I know it’s hard, Hazel. It’s hard doing this alone.”
Hazel accepted the hug but did not want to tell the Realtor that it wasn’t really all that hard. She had been alone most of her adult life. She had been doing things alone for over two and half decades. This did not feel all that different.
True, my mother is gone…but we didn’t spend all that much time together, did we? After I moved out, I mean. It was her choice, after all. She liked being alone.
Box after box had been filled with things that Hazel really didn’t like all that much, or had seldom used, and now that they were soon to be on their way to her church’s resale shop, they would soon fill someone else’s home.
The church that Hazel had attended, on and off, promised to send a few sturdy men to take all the filled boxes away, once Hazel gave the call.
She was close to giving the call.
“Be sure to keep a list,” the director of the resale shop had cautioned her. “So you can claim all of this on your taxes.”
Hazel did not tell her that she was keeping no list at all. A truckload of used merchandise was not going to substantially impact her tax expense this year.
Her personal banker was already at work attempting to shield as much money as legally possible.
“As long as it is legal,” Hazel had instructed Mr. Hild at Umpqua Bank.
He had nodded knowingly.
“We will keep everything legal,” Mr. Hild assured her. “But we do not want you to pay any more than what you legitimately owe. There are very legal maneuvers that we can take advantage of. Nothing gray or esoteric or exotic. Just run-of-the-mill tax strategies.”
She assumed that the knowing nod and his explanation were indications that all such maneuvers would stay well within the tax code.
Hazel did not like worry and did not want to add a tax liability to her short worry list.
The day after setting up all her new bank accounts and deposits, she spent an unpleasant day shopping for a van or “some sort of used delivery truck.” She had never been a car person, so even knowing what to ask for was a problem.
She discovered that delivery vans are at best a no-frills means of transportation—a box with an engine. A vehicle that drove hard and loud was not what she had envisioned as a comfortable cross-country driving machine.
After realizing that a delivery van was not suitable, she had been steered to conversion vans, either offering multiple seating arrangements with some form of audiovisual entertainment system, or a camper van, with refrigerators and stoves and bathrooms and that cost more than the amount she had kept back from the sale of her stock—sometimes almost twice as much.
She could not imagine spending that much on a car—even a big car. Even a new car.
Instead, she settled for a used Nissan Quest. “A quest for the truth, get it?” she had told herself.
There wasn’t really space for a bed, but if she folded down the backseats she could lie down.
And there wasn’t really a place for a stove inside the vehicle for making coffee. That bothered her at first, but she then decided it was okay. “When am I going to be so far off the beaten path that I can’t find a Starbucks…or a Texaco station selling coffee?”
Her mother may have been a hippie at heart, willing to sleep on the ground and eschew showers and morning coffee, but Hazel was not her mother—not at all.
“I’ll stay at hotels. Maybe not expensive hotels, but I don’t think I’ll ever have to sleep in the car overnight.”
She walked through her condo—it didn’t take more than a few dozen steps—taking a mental inventory of what still needed to be boxed, and what would be sent along unboxed, like the couch and bedframe and large lamps. She was close to being done.
She returned to the kitchen, made a cup of instant coffee; her fancier pod coffeemaker had already been scrubbed clean and packed up, ready for donating. She sat at her computer. The computer would go as well, but not until she figured out how to get her email on the new electronic tablet she had purchased.
She typed in her password and checked her email account.
Most were several ads from stores where she shopped.
But one was not.
The email listed as sender a name she did not recognize, but the name was followed by the words “Tropic Thunder Veterans 25th Division.”
She felt her heart thump in response, and she waited a long moment before opening the email—worried, excited, and anxious all at the same time.
“I hear you. I have heard you. You haven’t said much else to me for the past two weeks.”
Wilson stood in the front alcove of the house, in the more official telephone-answering spot, ignoring his reflection in the mirror, and ignoring Thurman, who sauntered about the entryway with cheerful energy, looking up at Wilson every few steps and whispering-growling some matter of encouragement. Wilson wondered how the dog could tell it was his mother on the other end of the line. When the call was a telemarketing call, from a window-cleaning business, for example, Thurman hardly opened his eyes or raised his head.
Maybe he has good hearing and can actually hear her voice.
Wilson stared at the dog, then offered a world-weary scowl. It was obvious that Thurman viewed it as a good-natured, well-intended scowl, because he grinned and growled, Bunkum.
Or maybe the mutt is psychic.
Wilson listened to his mother go on, without really listening.
Or maybe he’s tapped into the power of the underworld. A demon dog.
One of Wilson’s students had read several pages of his Stephen King–wannabe novel, which Wilson had disliked thoroughly, but it did get him thinking in odd directions that afternoon.
“Okay, Mother, I said I would call. And I will. But remember, you were the one who promised her I would call. I didn’t.”
There was a gap of several moments of silence. Wilson’s mother apparently was deciding if she could risk showing offense at the comment, and thus risk having Wilson change his mind, or if she should show some small amount of umbrage over her son’s caustic response.
“I can hear you thinking, Mother.”
There was a snort on the other end of the line.
“I will call her. I said I would. And I will. Today. This afternoon. Okay?”
With that, Thurman bounced up, put his front paws on Wilson’s chest, and growled out, Good boy, all the while grinning like a toddler in a toy store.
Gretna responded loudly, “That’s a good boy.”
Again, Wilson was sure she was talking to both of them, but probably more to Thurman than to her own son.