I sniff, but I still can’t smell him. His touch is different, too—his fingers are not fingers, but more like a gentle breeze ruffling through the fur on my neck. It feels good but different than it did before. Still, it is a kind of touch, and I don’t get much touching anymore.
My master doesn’t look at me with angry eyes, but he doesn’t get on the floor and rub my body and scratch my backside and thump thump thump me with his hand and say, “Good boy.” He doesn’t pull on my rope with me pulling it the other way, me pretending to let him win and give over the rope, because a human could never get a rope from me if I didn’t want him to. But at least he doesn’t look at me with angry eyes.
My mistress doesn’t play with me, either. She doesn’t see me anymore. I don’t think she really sees anyone.
Little Female sometimes pats my head, but then water starts to leak from her eyes and she shoves me away like I did something bad, even though I don’t know what I did.
But Little Male still loves me and thinks I’m a Good Boy. He’s telling me that now, and his voice is not a voice, but like the sound of the train whistle from so far away that none of the humans can hear it, but I can. Little Male giggles and says, “I love you, Shadow.”
I hear my mistress climbing the stairs. If I was allowed up there I would go, too, just to lie beside her bed, even though I don’t have a bed in her room. I would lie down next to her just so she would know I’m there, even though I don’t think she would. But I’m not allowed to climb the stairs, and Dark Female is out there in the couch room and I don’t want to see her and her angry eyes. So I stay here in the food-smelling room, with Little Male and his whisper giggles and breeze touch, and hope my humans don’t forget to feed me, because I know Little Male can’t feed me even if he wanted to because his fingers are made of wind.
THIRTEEN
JONAH
Shadow is sad, just like everybody, only he doesn’t cry with his eyes. But I can tell. He’s happy when I sit next to him. He knows I’m there, but he doesn’t start screaming like Mommy, or barking, or anything. He kind of tries to lick me, but I can’t feel his tongue like I used to, that big pink tongue that isn’t wet or drooly but kind of feels rough and tickly at the same time. But I know it means that he likes me there petting him, even if he can’t exactly feel my fingers.
I wish I had real fingers so I could draw pictures. Maybe in heaven, if I ever go there, God will give me a great big pad of paper and some big fat markers. Mommy only let me use crayons, ’cause the one time she gave me markers I accidentally drew a big sun on the wall of my room that Eden said looked like someone barfed up yellow on the wall. Mommy told Eden not to say that, but then she was all mad ’cause the sun wouldn’t come off and she told me I could only use crayons from now on ’cause crayons you could wash off the wall.
But I bet God would let me use markers, ’cause I bet you could wash heaven markers off the wall.
I can hear Auntie Ruth in the living room. She’s talking to herself, but not like Mommy talks to herself. She sounds cross. She’s trying to be quiet, but I can hear her ’cause I can hear everything when I want to and nothing when I want to and that’s like a superpower, I guess.
Then she stops talking to herself and comes into the kitchen holding broken pieces of a cup in her hands, but all careful, like she’s afraid they’re gonna cut her. She dumps them in the trash, then smacks her hands together, not like clapping, but like trying to get the itsy-teensy pieces of cup off them. Shadow lifts his head, ’cause sometimes people clap when they want a dog to come, but Auntie Ruth gives Shadow a really mad look and he puts his head down.
“Stupid damn dog,” Auntie Ruth says. “They should have put you down.”
I don’t know what she means. Put you down. But I know the d-word is a curse, ’cause Daddy said it one time and Mommy made him put a dollar in the curse jar. And I know that if Auntie Ruth used a curse, then the rest of what she said is probably very bad, because Auntie Ruth never, ever uses curse words—at least that’s what Mommy always said. Whatever it means, I know Shadow is upset. He’s shaking just a little bit, so I try to cover my whole body on top of his and give him a hug. I know he can’t exactly feel it the way he could before, but I think he kind of feels something ’cause his body stops trembling.
I hear Mommy upstairs in her bed, but I wait till Auntie Ruth leaves the room before I go to her so that Shadow won’t be alone with Auntie Ruth saying bad things to him. As soon as Auntie Ruth goes back to the living room, I wish myself upstairs. I kind of fold myself into the wall so I don’t surprise her like I did before, but she’s asleep. I can tell she’s sleeping because her mouth is open and she’s snoring a little bit, so I move closer because I know she won’t see me if she’s asleep. She’s holding Marco, and that makes me happy, but also sad ’cause I can’t hold him myself.
When I’m right next to Mommy, I put my hand on her forehead, like she used to do with me when I had a cough or a tummy ache or a sore throat, or when I was just saying I had one ’cause I wanted to stay in bed. I can’t feel her skin under my fingers, but for just a tiny bit, I can hear her sleeping thoughts.
She’s in a tunnel, a really long one, with water covering her feet, and there’s really bright light coming from both sides of the tunnel and she doesn’t know which way to go and she’s really, really upset, but then I think maybe she feels me because her sleeping thoughts whisper and they sound like they’re talking to me. Which way should I go? And I don’t know which way she should go, but I kind of know that it doesn’t matter which way, it only matters that she goes, so I kind of try to put myself in the tunnel with her, but I can’t, and she’s still asking the question, so I think of my favorite color, green, and with all my might I think of making the light on one side of the tunnel green. And then it is green, so bright, like the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz or something, and Mommy sees the green light and starts walking that way and I can tell she feels not happy, not really, but better than when she was just standing there.
And then I feel like maybe she’s going to wake up and I don’t want to make her scream, so I take my hand that isn’t really a hand away from her forehead. She makes a funny sound, like a kitty cat or something, and she moves her head, then rolls over, but then she starts snoring again, so I know she’s still sleeping.
I don’t know how I got into Mommy’s dream. I have to think about that. I have to think about why I’m still here and not in heaven. What I’m supposed to do before I can go.
I watch her for a few more minutes, but I don’t touch her forehead again.
FOURTEEN