It wasn’t my first time here. You could say I had become quite the regular.
If you had told my husband that I would be a regular at a place like this, he would
have laughed in your face. And then he would have probably taken your face
between his two callused palms, rapped his crooked fingers against your cheek,
and called you a ‘dummkopf,’ because it was one of the few German words he
knew, and he had a penchant for knowing things other people couldn’t care less
about.
I looked up at the faded red awning above the door, its fire engine hue
bleached by the sun to the color of a dusty brick, scalloped edges frayed into
filaments and, as I ran my hand through my equally wispy hair, I decided that it
wasn’t neglect, but an acceptance of a gradual weathering. The place had
gumption. I suppose that’s exactly why I started coming here after Henry died.
Or perhaps, I was just lonely.
When I walked in, Tanya, the manager, was chatting amiably with Caleb,
a vet that could be found at the counter every Friday, without fail, from open to
close.
“Hiya Emily,” Caleb shouted from across the room, leaning on his stool to
see around Tanya’s curvy frame. “How ya holding up?”
“Oh. I’m well. Thank you. And yourself?”
He laughed – it was the rumble of a tree falling onto soft dirt – and tapped
his temple with two long fingers, “Ship shape ma’am.”
Tanya adjusted her violet glasses – square frames that magnified her
brown eyes and gave her an eternally surprised expression – and gestured
towards the backdoor with a dimpled smile, “It’s open.”
Murmuring a quick ‘thank you,” I shuffled across the checkerboard tiles to
the back of the room and, quiet as a shadow, slipped through the door.
Nervously, I twisted my wedding ring around my finger. Henry always teased that
if I fiddled with it too often, the ring would forget what it feels like to stay in one
place and jump right off my finger in search of a more steadfast owner.
‘And I won’t buy you another diamond,’ he’d say. ‘You’ll get one of those
color-shifting ones instead, the ones from the gumball machines.’
And I’d tell him, ‘Darling, I don’t think they have gumball machines
anymore.’
And he’d just scoff, his age-speckled skin quivering from the sudden
exhalation, and take my face gently between his large hands. ‘Dummkopf,’ he’d
say, and he’d kiss me softly on the lips. Then, once his chapped lips parted ways
from mine, his deep laugh would fill the air and cling to my skin like condensation
on a glass of lemonade.
Nodding to myself, I started to walk down the hallway. They all stared at
me, waiting expectantly for my consideration, for my approval. I recognized
some, others I did not, but in front of each, I paused and gave an equal allocation
of time to ponder over the possibility within their faces.
Some were stoic with high-held chins and pensive looks. Others, pitiful;
they sat in their own filth and whimpered in broken vowels. But, when I came to
the end of the hallway, I saw one with an expression I have never had to
characterize before: imminently joyful. His eyes were the color of freshly brewed
coffee at the moment the cream breaks the glossy surface and the two liquids
begin to coalesce into sensuous ribbons. His hair was long and silky, the color of
molten caramel, except for his snout, which was black as soot and impressed
upon him the look of one who had stuck his nose where it ought not be.
I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the chain-link, my arthritic
knuckles popping as I tightened my grip and began to lower myself down to the
floor. As my knees creaked in protest, he nudged his nose against the fence and
let out a soft impatient moan. ‘Easy now,’ I whispered to him, as if it was our little
secret that I was about to sit on the cold concrete floor that had no doubt been
present for every nervous puddle and ill-digested meal of the cage’s previous
residents.
With my bum firmly situated on the ground, my face was precisely level
with his. I looked at him and him at me. There was a profound knowing in the
darkness of his pupils. And I wondered, more than I had ever cared to wonder
before, what he was thinking. How did his colorblind eyes perceive me with my
wrinkled face and my groaning joints?
He sniffed, the little commas of his nostrils flaring slightly with each
shallow inhalation. Was he smelling the coffee I had spilled onto my trousers this
morning, already dried to the same shade of “distressed tan” the young
saleswoman had promised was in style? Or the daub of Henry’s cologne that I
placed on my wrist, the hints of charred cedar and freshly-mown grass as familiar
to me as my own name.
His head cocked to one side, an ear flopping haphazardly over one of his
café au lait eyes. ‘What?’ I pleaded with him. I could feel the muscles between
my shoulder blades contracting and a slight pressure began to build in my chest
where the underwire of my bra rested against my ribs. The soles of my feet felt
clammy inside my loafers; I longed to peel them off. ‘What do you want?’ But he
continued to stare, his eyes unblinking, brows bunched into inquisitive coils.
With a tired sigh, I leaned my forehead against the cage and let my tired
eyes flutter closed.
Warmth against my cheek. His tongue lapped at my face, fanning my
nostrils with the smell of his milky breath.
Like a hiccup, a giggle burst forth. Then another. It was like carbonation,
impossible to keep contained once the seal had been broken. But then it
transformed, and an uninhibited sound erupted from my chest. It was not the
polite chuckle one offers in response to a witty comment made over tea nor the
kind hum given to a child when they are trying to be silly, but a deep laugh from a
hidden away place. It stole my breath, so unexpected it was, that soon I felt
lightheaded, but still I continued to laugh. It had been a long while since I had
laughed like that. And as for the tears, they were inevitable.
“Mrs. Erikson! Are you alright?” Tanya stood aghast in the doorway, her
purple glasses slightly askew.
“This dog, Tanya.” Breathlessly I addressed her, wiping the tears from
under my glasses, “I need this dog.”
I stood underneath the faded red awning, a leather leash wrapped around
my hand, and I looked down at my dog, “Come on, darling. Let’s go home.”
And when he looked up at me, he seemed to say, ‘Dummkopf.’
And I agreed. I was the luckiest kind of fool.
