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Sunday Journal

Love tracks time in its own way

By LOLA HASKINS
Published August 28, 2005

Brown goo used to collect on Bob's whiskers, which afterward, if she didn't stop him, he'd wipe clean on the rug. So Mother, who hated dogs, would pre-empt the mess after each feeding, by rubbing a towel like a huge napkin roughly over his mouth. In the mornings, Bob would be scratching at the glass doors, already smeared with the damp of his muzzle, yipping at deer, or the absence of deer, or at whatever was out there instead of deer, as Daddy came downstairs chirping, GOOD Morning, Bobbie! and Walkies! Then Daddy would take Bob's leash from its peg in the hall and together they'd go off into the fog, Daddy beginning to shuffle, though the Parkinson's hadn't yet taken full hold of his hands.

I came as often as I could those days, which was how I happened to be around the afternoon Bob started to cough. And cough. And cough. A ripply hack, as if he'd swallowed fluff and couldn't get it loose. No one said anything but my neck hairs chilled, as if a fire had suddenly been doused. Bob shuddered hard finally, and fell asleep. I woke in the middle of the night and heard him again, near-choking in the empty living room. I went downstairs and petted him, and again he drifted off.

In the morning after breakfast, I suggested the vet. Mother demurred at first but finally shrugged and agreed. So Daddy and I set off down the hill, with Bob at my feet wrapped in an old plaid blanket. When we got there, Daddy encouraged him: Bobbie, jump out! Jump out, Bobbie! And to me, "He doesn't like the vet." But I knew.

"I'll carry him, Daddy," I said. So we went inside, handed our bundle to the girl at the desk who carried him out of sight, holding him like a baby in her arms. When the door closed behind them, we sat down and, instead of talking, Daddy, usually so full of words, picked up an out-of-date Newsweek. In a few minutes, a long-haired young man with a stethoscope came out from the back, called Daddy's name, and when Daddy walked over, eagerness on his face, put his arms around him and said I'm so sorry, Peter. Even from across the room I could see my father, who doesn't like being touched, and especially not by men, stiffen.

On the twisty road back up, Daddy shrugged: Oh well, things die. But when we got home, he disappeared. I stayed where I was, because I knew Bob had been the center of his life, and I didn't want to disturb the privacy of his grief.

I was envisioning how he was hunching on the worn armchair in his study, wet face in his hands. Instead, he came back quickly, brandishing some papers: Bob's pedigree. And he said happily: I thought so! Bob and I were exactly the same age!

When you build a house under Bishop pines, you do it because they are so tall, because the way the wind soughs in their branches is so beautiful, because they seem to have been here a thousand years.

- Lola Haskins is a poet living outside Gainesville.

[Last modified August 25, 2005, 14:58:03]