Over the next several sunrises, we train every day without Alex. We go over and over and over the same commands. Every day is an echo. An echo isn’t a real thing, it’s a reflection of a thing. Each day feels more hollow and thin and colorless than the last.
“Can we get ice cream today, Dad?” Micah asks on this particular echo. The words are a fat pile of diggable dirt, full of promise.
The Colonel’s face doesn’t pull down when this new thing is mentioned. His heart doesn’t pound with terror. He is getting stronger. “Hey, that sounds great, hijo.”
So we take a different turn! Different! Variety tastes like candy red hots. This new sidewalk is lined with clumps of bright purple and blue gum and the grime feels like sandy salt and the whole street smells like bright yellow tennis ball hope.
And the ice cream parlor! It’s chilly inside like tiny pinches of snow, but it smells of gummy bears and sweet cream. A poisonous chocolate undercurrent is there, too, but it’s easy to ignore because the bluebird lady behind the counter sings, “Would you like a scoop for your dog, too?” And the Colonel smiles—smiles for real, like a sunflower—and says, “Yes.”
Yes!
We skip outside and find a spot in the warm white sun. Colonel Victor loops my leash around a metal chair leg and places my ice cream in front of me.
Bliss!
Ice cream is summer rain on asphalt: steamy relief of hot plus cold. Ice cream is forever happiness. I don’t blame the ice cream parlor for my torn ear and my nightmares. Those things taste like garbage, not ice cream.
I lap up the sweet, sticky cream. I’m very aware of the fact that I eat with my face. It’s certainly messy, and messy can be smelly and embarrassing. But sometimes messy is glorious and squishy fun. Ice cream tilts into the bangy, bouncy side of messy.
We’re sitting there, soaking up sunshine like blades of dewy grass, when a girl not much older than Micah jogs by. She’s wearing the same type of ear muzzles that Micah wears. Her heart sounds heavy for how fast it’s pounding, like it’s trying to break free from something.
She stops. Pulls the headphones off her ears. Squeaky sounds shoot out of the ear muzzles like faraway scattering mice.
“Can I pet your dog?” she asks Colonel Victor. “I know he’s a service dog . . .”
She.
“. . . but he reminds me so much of the dog I had until my parents divorced.” Tears well in her eyes.
She. But I forgive her this last one, because divorced sounds like the not-fun kind of messy.
The Colonel is in a squirrelly mood. He likes rules so much he’s almost a muzzle, but today he says, “Sure.”
I wriggle like a tadpole, I’m so happy for new petting hands. The girl’s pink fingernails are like sunsets. After several scratches, her face shadows fade, and her heart, while still heavy, thuds a little lighter.
Then she hugs me. Tight, like rock. Her heart against my heart, singing together. My heart brings hers back into harmony. It’s solid and sure. Hugs are the keys that unlock our souls.
I’d almost forgotten. My first pack had many faults, but they could hug like fur.
She loosens, leans back, looks me in the eye. “Thank you,” she says to my harmonizing heart. “I was having a really bad day.”
My pleasure.
She lifts on her horrible, mousy ear muzzles, stands, and jogs away, trailing rainbows behind her.
The Colonel smiles sunbeams. Stands. “I’m going to get an ice cream for Anna and Analise. Watch Miss Daisy, Micah.”
Micah stares at him like he’s a stranger, then looks at me the same way. He leans down to me. I flinch because I can’t read his face shadows.
“How do you do it?” he whispers to me. “How do you absorb all those bad feelings?”
He fiddles with the strings of his own ear muzzles. “I’ve tried, you know? I’ve tried to be the sponge. But I can’t do it. I can’t.”
His words confuse me like wind. You don’t need to do that. That’s my job in this pack.
Micah’s face softens. But he chews the inside of his cheek. “I guess I don’t need to do that, do I? That’s your job in this family.”