The next day, I actually roll out of bed and put some clothes on. I ain’t doing it for Beth—though she’s been trying to coax me into getting out of the house for days. Nope. I’m doing it because I know Mrs. McGraw will be here any minute, and I’m gonna need an excuse to get away, or else she’ll want to talk to me for an hour.
“Come on, Lila,” I say, grabbing the leash Beth had hung on the hook by the door. I haven’t used it on Lila yet. Beth says she’s only slightly leash trained, and I’ve mostly been letting her out into the backyard to pee. But if I gotta leave the house now, so does she.
She don’t come to me right away. She just lifts her head from where she’s lying on the living room floor, stares at me for a minute, then looks away.
“Nice try.” I march over to her and hook the leash to her collar. “Now come on.” I give the leash a tug. She don’t move. I sigh. “Do you wanna be stuck here with Mrs. McGraw when she comes over? If I ain’t here for her to pester, she’s gonna focus on you.”
Logically, I know Lila can’t understand what I’m saying, but it sure seems like she does. Because that gets her to her feet.
“Good girl.”
Sure enough, when we’re halfway to the door, there’s a knock, and Mrs. McGraw’s voice calls through the door, “Hadley! It’s Mrs. McGraw! I brought you some leftover casserole.”
I pull open the door with a grimace. I don’t understand why grown-ups always bring casserole to other people’s houses when, really, I don’t think anyone actually likes it. Luckily, it’s barely ten in the morning and I’ve had breakfast, so I got an excuse not to eat the stuff.
“Hi, Mrs. McGraw,” I say. She’s already stepping past me and the dog and making her way to the kitchen. “Lila and I are going for a walk. We can’t stick around to chat right now.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Mrs. McGraw says. “I’ll just put this in the fridge then. Maybe Beth can heat it up for y’all for dinner.” I hear the refrigerator door open and shut, and then Mrs. McGraw is walking back into the living room. She wipes her hands on the thighs of her oversized denim overalls before adjusting her steel-gray bun. “I’ll come with you on that walk.”
“Um … no. That’s okay.” I’m trying real hard not to snap at her. But the idea of her coming with us, hovering over us, talking at us … I wanna get out of the house to avoid talking, not to do more of it. “Lila and I are just gonna go on our own.”
“Well, I don’t know, Hadley,” Mrs. McGraw says, and now she’s using that gentle, concerned voice I hate. “I ain’t so sure that’s safe. Beth told me about your sight and all. I’d feel better if I went with you.”
“I don’t care how you feel.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, but I can’t really say I feel bad, either. “I’m not five, and I can see fine. I’m just walking the dog around the stupid block. I don’t need you or want you coming with us.”
I ain’t real good at seeing facial expressions most of the time, but even I can see the shock on Mrs. McGraw’s face. Her jaw drops open and she lets out a little gasp. “Well, my word,” she says. “Hadley, that is an awful ugly way to talk to somebody. I have half a mind to tell your sister.”
“Go ahead,” I mutter. “Let’s go, Lila.”
I tug the dog out the door with me, and she follows, leaving Mrs. McGraw in Beth’s living room. Beth’s gonna be real mad at me when she gets home. But I don’t care. What’s she gonna do? Ground me? Make me go to my room? Those are rewards, not punishments.
My old house was out in the country. We never really had neighbors. Not any within a mile or two, at least. We were surrounded by cornfields on all sides, and you had to drive to get just about anywhere. Beth’s neighborhood is different, though. She lives in what I figure must be a “suburb.” I’ve heard that word used on TV, and while the houses here seem smaller than the ones on the shows I’ve watched, the rest seems pretty similar. The yards ain’t too small, but they ain’t big either. And lots of them are surrounded by wooden or metal fences.
“Keep up,” I tell Lila as I try and move her down the driveway and to the sidewalk. But Beth was right, she’s not real good on the leash.
When I wanna go left, she tugs right. Half the time she walks so slow I feel like we’re crawling along, and the other half she goes so fast I think she’s gonna pull my arm off. Then there’s all the stopping to sniff the ground. Sometimes she stops so suddenly that I end up being jerked backward because of her. I guess that’s one of the things I’m supposed to be training her on, though, huh?
There ain’t a lot of people out here—it’s midday in the summer, and it’s blazing hot. Anyone who ain’t at work is probably sticking close to their air-conditioning. Good. I like it better that way, with it being just me and Lila. Empty sidewalks, no one smiling at me or trying to chat. And I figure Lila feels the same.
Despite what I told Mrs. McGraw, I do gotta be a little careful as I walk. I hate to admit it, but my eyes have gotten bad enough that I can’t really see the ground when I’m looking straight ahead anymore. I gotta keep looking down at the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for roots that have warped the concrete or big cracks that might cause me to trip. And even then, I get smacked in the face by a few low-hanging branches a couple times.
When my hair gets caught in one branch, I have to stop and untangle it. Lila stands next to me, looking up at me with eyes I’m gonna assume are full of judgment.
“This ain’t my fault,” I tell her as I yank my hair free. “Who has trees this close to the sidewalk? My being able to see ain’t got nothing to do with it.”
A second later, we round a corner, and I can hear voices and a few barking dogs. Lila and I both stop, and I turn my head to see what looks to be a large, fenced-in lot across the street. I can’t make out much of what’s going on over there, but I suddenly remember Beth telling me there was a dog park about a block from her house.
Big, booming barks and tiny, shrill yips are carried my way by the summer breeze, along with laughter. Kids’ laughter. Probably kids off school, like me, walking their pets. Just like me.
Next to me, Lila is staring at the dog park, too. Only she’s letting out this little growl while she does.
“You don’t wanna go over there, do you?” I ask.
Lila stops growling and looks up at me. She whines.
“Yeah. Me neither,” I tell her.
But we both stay put, just standing on the sidewalk, watching (or, in my case, mostly listening to) the people and animals in the little park.
I hear the creak and slam of the gate before I notice the girl. She’s just stepped out of the dog park and is crossing the street toward Lila and me, a large, fluffy black dog in tow. I can’t make out any details of her face, but I can tell she’s kinda short with wavy, dark brown pigtails. And when she calls out to me, she sounds like she’s probably pretty close to my age.
“Hi!” She’s about halfway across the street now, moving toward us. And her voice is real chipper. All excited and upbeat in a way that makes me take a step back. “Cute dog you got there! Y’all heading to the park?”
I shake my head. She’s getting closer, almost to us now. And Lila’s started to whine, tugging on her leash in the opposite direction. “No … No, we’re just … walking.”
“I ain’t seen you before,” the girl says. She’s on the curb now, right near me. And her dog’s got its tail wagging like crazy. “You just move here or something?”
Now that she’s close, I can see that she’s got a real big smile on, all her white teeth showing. It makes my stomach flip over. She wants to talk to me, to ask questions. She’s gonna ask about why I’m here, about Mama, about why I can’t see good. And I don’t wanna talk about any of that. Not to this strange, smiling girl. Not to Beth or my friends back in Tennessee. Not to anybody.
“Sorry, I gotta go.”
“Oh, all right. See ya later!”
I turn and start to move back around the corner, Lila dragging me along after her at top speed. She seems even more desperate to get away from the happy girl than I am. She pulls harder and harder, moving me faster. Too fast for my eyes to keep track of all the things I know I gotta watch out for. Everything blurs past us. I yank at Lila’s leash, trying to get her to slow down, but she don’t. She’s too far gone now, practically running down the sidewalk, like she’s done forgot I’m even attached to her.
Then my toe catches on a tree root that’s pushing up through the sidewalk. I hadn’t seen it coming, and I’m moving too fast to catch myself. For a split second, I’m airborne, both feet off the ground, before I land—hard—on my chest, sliding a foot or so across the concrete. I feel the skin scrape off my knees just as Lila’s leash jerks out of my hand. Lila keeps running, like she ain’t even noticed what’s just happened, and all I can do is push myself up, into a kneeling position, as I try and catch my breath.
The first thing I think is, I hope that girl didn’t see. But when I look over my shoulder, the sidewalk behind me is empty. The girl must’ve gone the other way.
But now I’m really alone, and I can’t see Lila no more, and suddenly that’s what’s got me panicked. I clamber to my feet, knees aching, and start walking down the sidewalk, calling her name. I gotta watch my feet to keep from falling again, which is hard because I still wanna keep my eyes up as I hunt for the dang dog.
“Lila?” I yell. “Lila, come here, girl!”
But it’s pointless. I know, from everything Beth’s told me, that Lila ain’t gonna come when called. She ain’t trained. That’s supposed to be my job. And I’ve barely worked on it at all. So now there’s an unhappy, untrained dog on the loose, and it’s all my fault.
My heart’s pounding, and my feet stumble as I try to walk faster, hoping to catch up to wherever she’s gone.
“Lila!” I call out again, even more desperate this time.
What if something happens to her? The image of Lila running away from a stranger and right into the street flashes in my mind. My stomach drops. If she gets hurt, it’ll be all my fault.
I keep walking, circling the block once and then twice, calling and calling for her. I even stop and ask a few people on the street if they’ve seen a pit bull with a leash dragging behind her, but no one has. Enough time has passed that she could be anywhere in this neighborhood by now. This neighborhood I ain’t familiar with at all.
And when I’m trying to look for her, I can’t keep my eyes on the ground. So I keep tripping over uneven bits of sidewalk or running into people’s trash bins that haven’t been pushed out far enough. Which only makes me even more frustrated and upset.
When my phone buzzes in my pocket, I have a foolish moment of thinking maybe someone is messaging me about Lila. Even though that don’t make a lick of sense. Lila’s collar has the phone number and address of Right Choice Rescue. If anybody found her, they wouldn’t be contacting me.
Still, I feel a pang of disappointment when I realize it’s just a notification. My friends have posted another picture and tagged me in the caption. It’s a photo of Joey and Maya, their faces pressed together so they can both fit into the selfie. They’re grinning from ear to ear. Joey’s red hair is long and falling over his face, and Maya’s big, dark brown eyes are magnified by her thick black-rimmed glasses. They look so goofy and happy.
MayaFairLady: We’re leaving Gatlinburg this morning. Had a great time with @babykangaroo42. Wish you’d been here with us, @Hadleybean13. Miss you! XOXO.
I shove my phone back in my pocket, irrationally angry that they’d tag me in that right now, when I’m in the middle of trying to find Lila. I know that’s silly. Ain’t as if they know what’s going on. But still. I wish they’d just stop tagging me altogether. All it does is remind me that I’m not there. That my face ain’t squished between theirs in that selfie. That even if they miss me, they’re still having a good time without me, while I’m miserable.
I take another walk around the block before giving up. I’m not gonna find her. I’m gonna have to explain to Mrs. McGraw why I’m coming back with scraped knees and no dog. And she’ll call Beth …
Beth’s gonna be so mad at me.
That thought makes me more upset than I imagined it would.
My feet drag and I choke back tears as I make my way back to Beth’s house. My stomach hurts and there’s this heaviness in my chest. I’m going over and over in my head what I’m gonna say to Mrs. McGraw and then to Beth. But then I reach the front steps and still, none of it sounds right.
Just as I’m walking up to the door, I hear a quiet little bark. It’s like the dog version of someone saying psst. I freeze on the top step and look around, but I still don’t see nothing. Then I hear it again, coming from right beneath me.
I stumble down the steps and crouch, looking under the little porch. It takes me a minute to spot her—it’s kinda dark in there—but sure enough, I see Lila lying in the dirt, staring back at me. I hold out my hand and she gets up, walking toward me with her head down, like she knows she’s done wrong.
“I ain’t mad,” I tell her. My voice cracks on the words as I grab hold of her leash. I wrap it around my wrist, an extra bit of security just in case. “Not at you, anyway. Come here.”
I take a seat on the steps, and Lila flops down at my feet. I can feel tears starting to slip down my face. I was only barely holding them back before, and the sense of relief after that stress makes the dam break. Still, I can’t shake the sensation of a heavy weight on my chest.
“You scared me, you know,” I tell her. “If you hadn’t come back here …”
Lila looks up at me, then lowers her head again, covering her face with one paw.
“It ain’t all your fault. You shouldn’t have run like that, but … if I hadn’t fell …”
If I’d had a cane …
I hate the thought, mostly because I know it’s true. Mama’s brought up the idea of me learning to use a cane a few times over the past year or so. And now that I’m here, Beth keeps bringing up the idea of orientation and mobility lessons. I’ve been saying no to the idea for so long, telling myself I’m all right, that I can see well enough to get by without any help. But if I’d had a cane today, I might have noticed that tree root. I might’ve been able to stop and hold on to Lila’s leash.
I reach down and scratch Lila behind the ears. I don’t say nothing else for a while, but I think she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
Things are gonna have to change.
The front door swings open behind me, and Mrs. McGraw’s gravelly voice exclaims, “There you are! I was getting worried. Had half a mind to come looking for you.”
“We weren’t gone that long,” I mutter, keeping my head down so she can’t see that I’ve been crying.
“Maybe not,” Mrs. McGraw replies, “but after the way you left … Well, never mind that now. Come on in. You can have some casserole for lunch.”
“Fine.” Slowly, I stand up and turn toward the door.
“Oh, Hadley!” Mrs. McGraw gasps. “Are those scraped knees? Did you fall? Bless your heart. Come on inside so we can get those cleaned up.”
I make eye contact with Lila. She looks about as tired as I feel. After a second, we both head inside. Even if things do gotta change, everything that happened today can stay our secret.