After a few more moments, Audrey snapped my leash onto my collar, and to my utter astonishment, led me out to a car. Olivia and Mom stood on the porch, hugging each other. “Bye, Bella!” they called.
Lucas put me in a crate inside the woman’s car, arranging my dog blanket so that I had something soft to lie on. He leaned in and put his fingers through the grate. We were doing Tiny Piece of Cheese! Not understanding, but so, so grateful to be a good dog, I gently took the treat. When I finished, he left his fingers there and I licked them, mystified. I could feel his grief. None of this made sense. “This might be good-bye, Bella. If it is, I am so sorry. I want you to know, in my heart, you will always be my dog. I just don’t have any other way to protect you.”
When he shut the door I could see his face through the glass. It was contorted, his cheeks wet, and I whimpered as the car drove away.
I felt like a bad dog again.
Eleven
Audrey was nice. She spoke to me and said Bella good dog. But she was taking me away from Lucas. I could feel him fading, becoming farther and farther away the longer the vehicle swayed and hummed. His scent was strongly infused into my blanket and I nosed it, breathing deeply, drinking him in. It was my Lucas blanket.
Another smell emerged for me as we traveled. Previously, the bouquet made up of the cars and people and smoke and all the other odors that comingled in the atmosphere near our place never seemed distinct to me, it was just the backdrop for the unique scent of our porch and door and bushes and Mom and Lucas and me. But now, as we drove, these background smells gradually coalesced into a separate, wholly disparate presence on the wind, a powerful collection of perfumes that defined itself for me as home. We passed other, similar clusters of smells, but it was easy to detect the strong palette of fragrances that was where I lived. I could even pick out my bearings when the nice lady let me out of the car so I could do Do Your Business—that direction, I thought, pointing my nose, in that direction lies home.
That way lies Lucas. But we did not go that way.
Instead, she took me to a house where I stayed for many days with a woman named Loretta and a man named Jose and a big dog and a little white dog and two cats and a bird. The little white dog was named Rascal and he had never been taught No Barks. The big dog was named Grump and he was old and slow and a light brown color. He never barked and was very sleepy all day. Both dogs were smaller than I was. The cats ignored me and the bird stared at me when I sniffed at her cage.
I was too miserable to eat the first day, and also the second. Then I realized Lucas sent me to this place to wait for him, so I began feeding when the other dogs did. What I needed to do was be the best dog I could so Lucas would come get me.
I was given a bed imbedded with the pungent redolence of many other canines and at least one cat. I pulled my Lucas blanket into the bed with me so that I could have his essence with me while I slept.
Jose mostly sat in his big, soft chair. He liked to eat food out of a bowl and would slip me a piece of salty treat when Loretta wasn’t nearby. I spent a lot of time doing Sit by Jose’s chair. I knew if he gave me treats I was being good, the way I knew I was a good dog when Lucas did Tiny Piece of Cheese.
Loretta was very nice to me and told me I was a good dog. She had a big yard in the back of her house with a fence made of wood. When she let us out in the morning we would do Do Your Business and Rascal would bark at the fence and Grump would lie in the sun. When it rained Grump would barely go out in it before returning to lie on a small rug by the door and Rascal would quickly lift his leg and then stand next to Grump and bark at the door until Loretta opened it.
In the center of the backyard was an area filled with loose wood chips. I liked to do Do Your Business there. There were wooden structures of unknown purpose to me, except one was a swing and I also recognized the ramp with the steps at the high end: it was a slide.
Neither Loretta nor Jose threw the ball up the slide for me to get it as it bounced down the other side, making me miss Lucas all the more. That’s what he would want to do when he came to get me. We would play in the backyard and he would toss the ball up the slide and I would catch it. “Good dog, Bella!” he would say. I could picture his smile and his hands on my fur.
For me, trips to the backyard gave me an opportunity to explore with my nose what I had learned as Audrey drove me to be with Loretta and Jose: that there were concentrations of homes and dogs and cars in the air that could easily be separated from each other, and that one of these was very distinctly the smell of home. When Jose took car rides to “town” we drove straight for one of these clusters of aromas, and that’s how I came to think of those places: towns. The whole entire land was populated with towns, and one of them was my home, my hometown.
All of these things I experienced knowing that I did not live here with Jose and Loretta. I lived with Lucas and Mom, and my purpose was to do Go to Work and see all the people who loved me and provide comfort to those with pains and fears. Every morning I sniffed the outside air as soon as I was let out, hoping to pick up Lucas coming to fetch me the way he had found me at the building full of crates and barking dogs.
“I thought Bella was just staying with us a few days until her owner came to get her,” Jose said one day. I had been asleep, but of course I lifted my head at the sound of my name. I eased to my feet and then did Sit like a good dog who deserved treats. “It’s been two weeks.”
“I know.” Loretta shrugged. “Next weekend they’re coming.”
“Okay.” Jose did not give me any salty treats then, but when Loretta went into the kitchen he snuck me a couple. Jose and I had an understanding. Sometimes, though, Loretta would catch us and say, “Don’t do that!” I would slink away, but it seemed most of her unhappiness was directed at Jose. There were times it was better to be a dog.
In the backyard there was a fence and beyond it, trees and grasses. When the wind blew from one direction I smelled people and dogs and food and cars: a town. When the breeze shifted I detected plants and trees and water—like a park, but with a much more expansive breadth. Sometimes Jose and Loretta would take me for short walks on a path behind their fence and there were no other houses, though we often met people and dogs. They called our walks “hiking the trail.”
“I love living right up against the state forest. Isn’t it fantastic, Bella?” Loretta sometimes asked when we were doing Hike the Trail. I could sense that she was very happy, but she kept me on leash, so whatever was going on it wasn’t that wonderful.