The dog sits in front of her, panting and hun-hunning, his amber eyes locked on hers. He is fairly vibrating with excitement. It’s hard not to catch some of that primal enjoyment, to laugh out loud at the expression on his face. Who would have thought that a dog’s face could have so much character? Meghan is even getting so she can read his thoughts. Right now, his only thought is for her to toss the ball. He’s performed the task she’s given him, to flip on the light switch that sits just above her head, and so he’s entitled to his reward, a tossed tennis ball. He’ll retrieve it, drop it into her lap, and then hope for another task. Her pitching arm is getting stronger. The ball flies out of her office and she can hear it bounce down the hallway. Shark scampers after it and she hopes that he won’t plow down any unsuspecting visitor. The rest of the staff at Don Flint’s law office are used to the disruption.
Two years ago, Meghan couldn’t have imagined herself being a functional adult ever again, and here she is, in New York City, with a job, an apartment, an improved relationship with her parents, who still want her to come home but have accepted that while she’s never going to be the daughter who left for Iraq, she’s on her way toward normalizing her life, and that means not living in their Florida home. The law offices of Don Flint and Associates rarely calls upon the skill set she learned as a captain in the army—for instance, the effective use of night-vision goggles—but her leadership skills have come in handy. Her official title is special projects manager, and her job is to oversee the nonlegal elements of complicated situations. She is unafraid of pressing down hard to get facts, arranging for meetings between players who might not want to meet, and proud to have earned the sobriquet “Sarge” from the rest of the office staff. “Actually, it’s Captain,” she’ll say when someone playfully mocks her sometimes intense style. The fact that the others are willing to tease her makes Meghan’s reach toward a normal life that much closer.
And she owes it all to Shark. No, not just to Shark but also, of course, to Rosie.
The day that their training ended and she left the prison dayroom with Shark by her side, Meghan was silent, holding back the bolus of emotion that she had never expected to feel. Maybe it was the fact that she and Rosie weren’t allowed that all too human expression of affection, a departing hug, that she felt like her business with Rosie was unfinished. Maybe it was that she felt like she was, in some way, abandoning Rosie; worse, taking the inmate’s only joy away from her: Shark. Meghan wasn’t blind to the way Rosie loved that dog. Another woman might even have been jealous and sure to establish her own rights to the dog’s heart. But that wasn’t how she felt. “Edith, what are the rules about coming back here and visiting?”
Edith, just ahead of Meghan, turned and shook her head. “It’s never come up before.”
“I want to.”
“It may not be wise.”
“Why?”
“Shark needs to be devoted to you. That’s the contract. Rosie has done her job and she’ll have another dog soon.”
“Edith, I’m not talking about Shark. I’m talking about Rosie. I’m talking about me.”
Meghan tilts a photograph on her desk so that the late-afternoon light doesn’t obscure the image. Most of the other staff around here have pictures of their kids or their fiancés on their credenzas. She has a photograph of Shark, a beautiful head study that almost looks contrived, like one of those pictures of beautiful people they put in frames as an enticement to purchase that particular frame. The real deal is flopped down beside her, the tennis ball firmly clutched in his predator teeth; his eyes are blissed out, his tail thumps, and he clearly is hoping that she’ll find something else for him to do. She gives him the command to shut the light off.
Shark takes Meghan’s motorized wheelchair as a reason to go for long walks. He is no longer satisfied with a spin around the block, avoiding the steeper inclines. Now he trots along, leading her farther and farther afield from their apartment. There is an enclosed dog park a block or so away, and if they don’t find themselves there, he sulks. Meghan has one of those ball-tossing devices, and it’s a good way to retain her upper-body strength, flinging a tennis ball as far as she can. The long summer twilights have been a blessing, as she’s spending so much time in the office.
Her cell phone rings with the ringtone she’s assigned Rosie, the theme from Born Free. Meghan isn’t above a little irony.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Great. Just packing up for the trip to Gloucester.”
“How are you getting there?”
“The Trust’s lawyer, Pete Bannerman, helped me get my license renewed, and, can you believe it, I’ve got a car!”
They chat, almost like ordinary friends, about the newish Forester that Pete has secured for her, about Meghan’s new motorized wheels. Meghan finds that she can’t picture Rosie anywhere but in the prison dayroom, and she has to keep reminding herself that her friend is not standing at a rank of pay phones, but ensconced on a hotel bed, or standing at a wide window overlooking a parking lot instead of a prison yard. “You okay to do this?”
“I am. I won’t lie; I’m pretty nervous, but it’s okay.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I keep thinking that if I get pulled over, I won’t know how to explain myself.”
“First of all, you won’t. Second of all, don’t go down that path.”
Rosie blurts, “I wish you were coming with me. At least for a bit.”
Meghan has no answer for this except to reiterate that Rosie will be fine. “You’re a strong woman; you’ve endured so much. You can do this.” Shark drops the moist tennis ball into Meghan’s lap. She fingers his ears. “I should go.”
“Just tell me how Sharkey is doing.”
“So perfect. Everyone at the office loves him. He’s getting so spoiled.”
“No treats.”
“No treats. I’m a stickler about that.”
“It’s good to hear your voice,” Rosie says.
“Yours, too. Be well.”
“I’ll send pictures of the place so you can see what I’m up against.”
“I’d like that.”
Meghan signs off, sets the phone down in her lap. The first time Rosie called her was the day she was released. The shock of her sudden change of fortune had been obvious. She’d struggled with telling the story, trying to cope with a narrative that made no sense. Going from no hope of parole to exonerated, from lockdown to a hotel room with room service all in the same day. She wept. “Oh Meghan, I don’t know how to feel.”
Meghan had counseled a long hot shower and to use all of the hotel-supplied toiletries. That got Rosie laughing.
Shark is back and again drops the yellow ball in Meghan’s lap. She fixes it into the flinger, heaves it with all her might. The dog is a ballistic missile after a target. Boom!
“Too bad he doesn’t like fetch.” An African-American man with a curly-haired mixed breed is standing beside her.
“He actually prefers tug-of-war, but this is his second favorite.”
The man, fortyish, balding, unclips the leash from his dog and sends her on the same trajectory as Shark has gone. The two dogs meet, greet, and run back to their owners. Meghan notices that his dog wears a harness similar to Shark’s, the badge of service dog prominent on both dogs’ backs.
As the dogs burn off energy, their owners, like parents on a playground, fill in all kinds of details about the dogs, but nothing about themselves. Still, as Meghan motors home, she feels like she’s getting to know her neighborhood better, one dog owner at a time.