All of a sudden, it had been ten months, the longest period of time I’d had since my sentencing where I didn’t hate every minute of the day. My days started with a wet nose pressed into the warm skin of my neck. A quick dash outside to the exercise area, and then I fed Sharkey his breakfast, put him back in his crate, and went to get my own. By now, LaShonda, Pilar, and I sat together in the dining room, wanting nothing more than to talk about our dogs, to see how the other dogs were doing versus our own. Of course, we all believed we had the best of the best, but the truth is, we were all doing remarkably well in the training of our dogs. Our dogs were doing remarkably well, considering none of us had ever trained a dog before. We were well past the basics and were into our specialty training now. The dogs had passed from gawky puppyhood to the punk stage to being almost fully grown. They were ready to take on their assignments.
The other inmates gave us our space and, except for the very first time we’d sat together to eat, made no comment about it. There we were, white, black, Hispanic, hetero and gay, laughing, sharing training tips, making up our own little clique. We had the dogs and their training, and that gave us common ground. That gave us the roots of friendship. We called ourselves the “Sisterhood of the Dogs.”
One Wednesday, I was called down to the warden’s office, where Hinckley announced that Edith Moore, the director of the program, was in the visitors’ room and I should go meet with her. My heart flipped over. I knew that this could only be about Shark’s going to his new partner. I walked out of his office, Sharkey at my side.
Pilar and Scooter were coming down the hall.
“Edith is here. She wants to see me.” I was fighting to keep control over my voice, my hands, my heart.
Pilar patted my shoulder. “Sé valiente. Todo está bien.”
I didn’t think it could ever be all right.
Edith Moore wasn’t an attractive woman, but she always dressed beautifully in skirts and blouses that I knew were from good stores. A cashmere cardigan or velvet bolero jacket made the conventional and completely understated outfit stylish. I wanted to touch the cashmere, see if my fingers remembered the lovely softness of that yarn. I wondered if the velvet would feel like Shark’s coat. Charles had dressed me in cashmere and velvet, leather and suede. It’s funny, the kinds of things you long for when you’re separated from luxury. I missed scented soap. I longed for the feel of something other than denim against my skin. I even missed polar fleece. I guess it wasn’t luxury that I missed; it was softness.
“Miss Collins, thanks for seeing me.” As if choice was an option for someone like me.
“I’m glad to see you. Do you have news for me? About a…” I wasn’t sure what word to use. I was afraid that my emotions would reveal how not fine with this I was.
“A trainee. Yes. I think we have the perfect match for Shark.”
“Good.” I didn’t sit down, and I knew that made the guard a little nervous, but he kept still. “When do I get to meet him?”
“Her. Next week. She’s a wounded warrior. Paraplegic with a compromised left hand, some hearing loss. Burns.”
“I’m so sorry.” I sat down in the chair opposite Edith. I could feel the guard’s relief.
“That’s why you’re here to help. You and Shark. You and she will work together with him for two weeks, every day, three hours a day. Shark won’t be going out again for training weekends. Rosie, it’s your job to teach her the commands.” I nodded.
“And his job is to learn to take them from her,” Edith said.
“He’ll do it. He’s really quick. He loves to perform.”
“And you need to transfer his attachment to you to her.”
Again, I could only nod.
“Okay, then.” Edith got up to leave. “See you next week.”
“Edith. Did you know that my brother was a paraplegic?”
Edith stood in the doorway to the hall that would take her back to the outside world. A guard held it open for her. “Yes, I did. You mentioned it in your first interview. It’s one of the reasons you were chosen to be a trainer.”
When my father got sick, I tried to divide my time between Charles and my family. When Dad was hospitalized, as he often was, I stayed home with Teddy. His jigsaw puzzles had been moved to the dining room and so we worked on the puzzles on the table that now was rarely cleared for family meals.
I would return to the apartment I shared with Charles, weary and sad. Charles would greet me as if I’d been off gallivanting with girlfriends, a little coldly; only later, after I had cajoled him with sex would he think to ask how my father was. And he never asked if there was anything he could do. I chose to think of Charles as my oasis in the desert of my father’s prolonged illness—an illness we all knew he wasn’t going to recover from. I chose not to think Charles had an empathy problem, but, rather, that as an only child he had had no experience with a family like mine. How could he?
My new job with Wright, Melrose & Foster was in the marketing department, where our job was to develop a steady stream of positive outreach to potential clients. Social media, newsletters both online and in print, a glossy brochure with WM&F properties, some actual, some still imagined, complete with the smiling faces of employed people enjoying an architecturally impressive building situated on a block where once only trees—or run-down homes—had stood, as depicted in the “before and after” renderings. The focus was to match properties with clients and then with architects. In effect, WM&F was a matchmaker.
My job was an entry-level one. About as entry as you can get. I filed, tallied clicks, and, yes, fetched coffee—a job for which I demonstrated a remarkable proficiency. A proficiency that might mean I’d never get promoted out of this modern-day steno pool.
I was so excited on my first day. I had moved into Charles’s South End condo over the weekend and the flush of this new step in our lives had me singing a cracked-voice version of Beyoncé’s “Put a Ring on It.” I wasn’t being ironic; I was being silly. Charles frowned, and reminded me of a very important rule. No one at work was to know that we were a couple. “It wouldn’t look right. It would look like…”
“Nepotism?” I laughed.
He didn’t answer.
“Where am I supposed to say I live?”
“At a nice address. We might be neighbors.”
“Hellooo, neighbor.” I sashayed up to him, did a little Marilyn Monroe shimmy.
“Hello yourself. New to this neighborhood?” Whatever else he would turn out to be, Charles was a pretty good lover.
It was getting late, and Charles, a clock watcher, grabbed the keys to his Camaro, which he had garaged half a block away. I slipped on my nice new Kate Spade heels, my lovely trench coat, and grabbed my bag. “I’m ready.”
“Rose, you take the T. Or a cab.” He shoved a few twenties into my hand. “We can’t get out of the same car.”
“I thought we were neighbors. Wouldn’t you offer me a ride?”
“Don’t be late to work on your first day, Rose.”
I pulled off the heels and put on my Nikes to make the run to the T stop. I was probably going to be late my first day at Wright, Melrose & Foster.
And then one day, he called me into his office, something that he’d never done before. As far as anyone knew, we were strangers. My job did not take me into his circle.
He was beaming. That’s the only word for it, like someone had turned on an inner light I’d never seen in him before. “Rosie. Pack your bags; we’re moving to New York.”
“I can’t move now.” I said it and immediately regretted it. The look on Charles’s face spoke volumes, as they say. Clearly, he was surprised at my refusal. I didn’t know if it was the fact that I so quickly stuck a pin in his excitement, or that he had truly not given my situation any thought at all.
“I’m only going to ask you once, Rose. This is your moment to decide if what we have is what you want.”
“I do. It’s just that this is such a bad time for me to leave.”
“It’s been a ‘bad time’ for you for the last six months. Are you telling me that you’re going to put your life on hold, our life on hold, for however long your father survives?”
“No, of course not.” But, of course, that was exactly what I had been doing. Over the past few weeks, Charles had convinced me that I didn’t need to go see my father every evening when he wasn’t in the hospital, but at home. When Dad was hospitalized, Charles was a bit more understanding, particularly as the hospital was closer and I could sneak over there on my lunch hour. And visiting hours had an end. I was often home just as Charles got home. He seemed to work later and later, and I assumed it was because I was otherwise occupied with my dying father. As it turned out, what Charles was doing was setting his company’s new venture into motion. A New York City branch, of which he would be the top dog. This wasn’t simply moving up in the company; it was the equivalent of becoming a founder. This wasn’t a choice; this was destiny, according to Charles. He was taking his grandfather’s success and building on it. Plus, he was going home to New York, where his mother had already offered us—him—her rarely used apartment overlooking Central Park.
At this point, Dad was back at home, where a hospital bed had been set up; the dining room table, incomplete puzzle still on it, was pushed to the back wall. A curtain on a tension rod hung in the doorway, affording him some privacy. The television—my family had only the one—had been moved into the dining room, as well, so he was rarely alone, especially during playoff season. My mother could cook and keep an eye on him. My job was to be the entertainment. Sometimes that was telling him stories about my day at work. Sometimes it was just flipping the channels until we found something that he could doze off to. I found it hard to leave after those visits, and despite the alternative arrangement of my childhood home, it still felt like I belonged there. It was comfortable, even with the weight of my father’s disease changing the tenor of our family conversations from gruff to mild.
It took me a week before I announced that I would be moving with Charles to New York. It took that long for me to formulate my story. In my family, it was always family first. Charles wasn’t family. Charles wasn’t even close. My parents had received another letter, this one with a slightly higher offer in it. I had promised to look into the matter, but I never did. I wasn’t in any position to go about questioning the decisions of senior management. I knew, even if my parents didn’t, that I was still a flunky at Wright, Melrose & Foster.
What my parents also didn’t know was that Charles had dangled the most tempting of fruits before me as an incentive toward making the decision he wanted me to make—we would announce our engagement to the world, which included WM&F. I was to be made public. So, in one way, this big move to New York was what made possible my being outed as Charles’s girlfriend. Otherwise, I would continue to be the shadow girlfriend. I was withholding that bit of information because it just seemed wrong to find happiness while my parents’ lives were being torn apart.
I left Edith in the visiting room and went back to my cell, where I lay on my bed and broke the rules by letting my dog climb up with me. I knew in my heart that whoever she was, this Meghan Custer, she would probably let Sharkey climb into her bed, too. Who wouldn’t? He was dependably comforting. I whispered into his ear, breathing in his doggy scent. “Are you ready to complete your mission? Are you ready to leave me?”