“Good boy, Shadow,” my master says. His voice is quiet and low and not a happy voice, but not a mad voice, and Good Boy is what he always calls me when I’m doing something right, so my tail thwack thwacks again.
And then I hear a slight thump from upstairs and Little Female cries out, and even as my ears rise, my master is up on his feet and running to the stairs. I trot behind him and stop at the first step. I’m not allowed up, I know I’m not. I’m a Good Boy, and a Good Boy doesn’t do Bad Boy things on purpose. But I want to be up there with my humans and make sure they’re okay.
I lift my paw and lower it on the first step. I feel my body start to shake with the knowing that I’m doing something that is a “no” thing. Then I hear another cry from upstairs, from Little Female, and the loud words from my master, not angry but upset, and the crying-sobbing sound of my mistress, and I keep going, up up up the stairs until I’m at the top.
Little Male is sitting on the top step. He isn’t smiling.
NINETEEN
JONAH
I like my house. And I love my family—Mommy and Daddy and even Eden, who lots of times said kind of mean things to me, but then she’d do nice things, too, like find my blue crayon when I couldn’t and give me her last french fry from her plate and make up funny songs to make me laugh when I was sad or had a cold or something.
But now my house is full of sad. Mommy doesn’t look like Mommy anymore and Daddy looks like Daddy, but like he’s not all the way here, like he’s a picture instead of a person and someone left the picture out in the sun all day and it’s kind of fadey. Only Eden looks like Eden, but her thoughts are all kind of jumbled together and mad and sad and crazy, all at the same time. She thinks about how Mommy and Daddy don’t listen to her anymore, that no one listens to her anymore, and I want to tell her that I’m listening, but I don’t know how.
There might be a way to tell her, kind of like showing Mommy the green light in her dream. I have to think about it some more.
I still remember everything from before the bad day, but it’s getting a little bit smaller in my brain. But I like remembering before, because nobody was sad.
Mommy used to read me books before bed. Sometimes she’d pick ’em and sometimes I would, and she’d climb into my bed with me and I’d scooch up next to her and put my head on her chest and she’d wrap her arm around me. I could feel her heartbeat and also I could kind of feel the air going in and out of her, and she felt warm and cozy and most times I’d kind of fall asleep while she was reading, but that was okay because I always knew the end of the story anyway.
She’d make me macaroni and cheese out of the blue box because that’s the one I liked, even though she said it wasn’t as healthy as the kind in the orange-and-white box. And she let me put ketchup on it, too, which always made Eden make an ucky face. I remember how Mommy would sing songs when she was sweeping, not songs I knew, like “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round,” but songs with funny words like “Lay down, Sally” like she was talking to a dog or something, and sometimes Daddy would come in and start singing with her and he’d take the broom and set it against the wall and they’d dance together until she’d start to giggle and swat him away and tell him she needed to finish the floor.
Daddy would take me to T-ball and he always wore the same color cap as our team shirts, which he called something else that starts with a J, but I can’t think of it now. And he’d cheer for me real loud and clap real hard and tell me I was doing great even if I didn’t make it to first base, or if a ball went right through my feet. And some days, when he wasn’t working, Daddy would take me in the backyard and practice throwing and catching with me, and after a while, after I caught lots of his throws and threw back to him as hard as I could, he’d get this big smile on his face and say, “That’s my boy,” which was funny ’cause of course I’m his boy, but the way he said it made me think it was kind of more special.
One time we went to the beach, the whole family, even Shadow, where the waves were so big, and I was scared, but Mommy and Daddy held both of my hands, one of them on one side of me and the other one on the other side of me, and they’d kind of lift me in the air when the wave was high. Eden was bigger and she wasn’t afraid, and she got to play by herself in the water as long as she didn’t go too far out. But sometimes she’d come over to us and take Mommy or Daddy’s hand, and then it would be all four of us holding hands in a row, and we’d laugh and giggle as the water sprayed us in our faces. And Shadow would romp around us, and he’d make happy barks and bite at the foam. And I liked that, being all of us together. And when we got tired and hungry Mommy always had sammiches for us, baloney for me and Eden and turkey and something that looked like grass for her and Daddy, and dog bones for Shadow. And we’d sit on the big blanket with the stars and the moon on it and eat, not talking but just being happy.
And I remember when I was playing on the jungle gym at school at recess and Joey P. started grabbing my foot, not being mean, just playing, and I fell down and my forehead hit the ground and split open and there was blood everywhere. Daddy was at a contention or something and Mommy was somewhere else, I’m not sure where, and Auntie Ruth had to come to the hospital. And she sat with me the whole time, holding my hand and talking to me all nice and calm and telling me I was a brave boy and she loved me and everything was going to be just fine, and this doctor had to stitch up my forehead and Auntie Ruth didn’t go away and didn’t let go of my hand, not one time.
I remember all of those things, and everything else, too. Maybe ’cause I’m still here. Maybe when I go away forever, I won’t remember anything anymore, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Maybe it will be better ’cause you can’t miss something you can’t remember, and if you don’t miss it, you won’t be sad.
I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, but I’m starting to not like being here. At first it was nice ’cause I got to see everyone even though they couldn’t see me, and that made me feel all good and safe, ’cause I can still remember all the good stuff from before. But now, with the sad all big around me, I just kind of want to go. But I can’t. I thought about being way up in the sky, just like when I think about being nowhere and when I think about being with Mommy or with Shadow or whoever, and then I’m there. I wished for the sky, but I didn’t go to the sky. I didn’t even go to the ceiling. I just stayed where I was, but now I can’t remember exactly where I was when I wished it.