He offered to drive the next leg but Christine waved him off. “Sleep,” she said. And he did. The entire rest of the trip. He woke when they were pulling into the driveway. His brother was waiting on the front step, in the company of his two dogs.
Peter Fiskare was eighteen, soon to graduate from Rochester School for the Deaf, which he had attended since kindergarten. He was blond, like Erik, but with his father’s dark blue eyes and a much harder expression. He projected a steely reserve bordering on indifference. He seemed aloof but nothing could have been further from reality. Living in a world of silence, Pete’s eyes were honed to capture and process visual cues. His whole body was attuned to the deeper vibrations of human experience. He kept most of his thoughts and emotions veiled, yet he missed nothing. Erik was one of the few who knew the depth of Pete’s heart and the complex feelings living there.
Coming down the walk, Pete’s face was wide open, stripped down to raw relief and residual fear. He ran the last few steps and jumped, flinging arms and legs around his brother and toppling them both onto the grass where they rolled, pummeled, punched and hugged.
“You trying to be Rambo or something, you fuckwit?” Pete said. Speaking aloud was yet another indication of his emotional state. He had stopped voluntarily talking after his father left, preferring to communicate solely in sign language. Only the most dire of situations—positive or negative—made him use his voice.
Erik flopped on his back in the grass, then looked up at the golden retriever sitting close by. She gazed down, a little disdainfully. The tip of her tail lifted in greeting as she accepted a pat on the head. Such was the demeanor of Drew, Pete’s guide dog. Or as Pete put it, his business associate.
Drew was a hardnosed professional. She was trained to one job: alert Pete to noise. Everything and everyone else were mere distractions to be tolerated. She accepted praise and dignified affection but any attempt to get her to romp or play was coolly ignored. Being a companion and buddy was the exclusive domain of Lena, a lovable but dopey border collie who had twice washed out of service dog training.
“Phenomenal instincts,” Pete always insisted. “Zero attention span.”
But it was Lena now who put her muzzle against Erik’s knee and stared up at him. Her liquid brown eyes, usually rolling and hyper, were serene. Filled with a bald, penetrating compassion. Erik squinted at her, confused.
“This is Lena, right?” he asked Pete, who nodded, looking just as perplexed.
Erik got up on his knees to study the dog. Her gaze was proud, as if she had finally found her purpose.
I am here, little one, it said. And I understand.
Feeling terribly little, Erik stared back. Lena put her paws on his knees then, standing up to lick his face. He put his arms around the silken coat, burrowed his head into Lena’s warm flank and exhaled.
“What’s going on here?” Christine said, coming up the walk.
“I think I’ve been dumped,” Pete said.
Lena shadowed Erik’s every move. Pete hadn’t been exaggerating about those instincts. The merest frisson of anxiety and her ears went up. Erik’s chest tightened and she was there. If a lump came to his throat, she came to his side.
She did her best work at night. Erik’s body was gripped by a surreal fatigue. But disturbing dreams were keeping sleep from being restorative. Horrific night terrors where he was back in the theater, crouched in the aisle trying to pull James back from the edge. Only this time James laughed in his face and shot him. Erik felt the impact of the bullet like a fist to the chest. No pain. Just a spectacular flow of blood through his hands and sickening sense of helplessness as James went back down the aisle and hopped up on the stage to finish what he had started.