Stay

by Bobbie Pyron

  But Ree told him not to make a sound.

  He swallows that yip.

  Which makes him sneeze.

  He feels Ree tense.

  He hears her heart stutter.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Must be all the chemicals in here.”

  He hears another human’s voice say something sharp,

  like a bark.

  He feels a growl rumble in Ree’s chest.

  “Family,” she says.

  Then they are moving again, deep into that sharp

  smell.

  Ree bends her head and whispers, “That was close.”

  She stops, pushes something with her hand.

  She steps forward into a world of scents

  that make Baby reel:

  sharp, stinging smell of antiseptic

  salty smell of sweat

  welcome smell of food

  dark, disturbing scent of sick

  but underneath it all,

  despite it all,

  the smell Baby loves most in the world:

  Jewel.

  Baby squeals and wiggles and squirms

  and claws his way out of Ree’s coat

  and before Ree can say a thing,

  before Jewel can open her eyes,

  Baby leaps from the darkness inside

  Ree’s coat

  to the bright light

  outside

  and into

  Jewel’s arms.

  Baby doesn’t care about the tubes

  and wires

  and the smells on her body

  that are not his Jewel.

  Her arms are around him.

  Her hand is stroking him.

  Her voice,

  the voice that has been his compass for seven years,

  says over and over like a heartbeat, “Baby. Baby.”

  Everything is as it should be. Jewel and Baby

  a pack of two.

  Later,

  after Ree takes Baby from Jewel and

  tucks him back in her coat,

  after Baby realizes that he is leaving Jewel,

  not staying,

  and his heart breaks,

  Baby curls up deep inside the duffel bag

  and shivers.

  Baby can still smell Jewel’s hands

  on his fur.

  He can still hear her voice saying over and over

  “Baby, my Baby,”

  like a heartbeat.

  The wind rushes through the leafless trees

  tossing branches in a wild way.

  Snow is coming.

  Baby can smell it,

  can feel it.

  He whimpers.

  He rises from the nest of Jewel’s things.

  They are just things.

  They are not Jewel.

  They are not home.

  She is his home.

  He knows this now.

  Without a backward glance,

  Baby strikes out

  away from the park,

  away from Jewel’s things,

  away from Ree and Ajax

  Linda and Duke

  Jerry and Lucky.

  Judy, Trooper, and Doc.

  Away from the girl,

  the girl who holds a corner of his heart.

  But a corner is not a whole.

  He pauses on the sidewalk and lifts his nose.

  He sorts through rivers and threads of scent

  until he finds the one he’s looking for.

  Without hesitation,

  Baby goes in search of Jewel.

  26

  Gone

  I can tell the minute I wake up, something’s different. It feels so still outside, even though we’re inside, like the world is wrapped up tight. At the same time, I can feel something happening.

  I slip from the covers and tiptoe over to the big window. I push the thick curtain aside and gasp. The world is completely white! The buildings are white. The sidewalk and streets are white. You can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. The benches beside the bus shelters are just lumps of white. The air and sky are white with snow coming straight down.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?”

  Daddy stands beside me, practically pressing his nose against the glass. His eyes are big with wonder.

  “Had you ever seen snow before we moved here, Daddy?”

  He shakes his head and touches one finger to the glass like maybe he can catch a flake on his fingertip. “Just wish it didn’t have to be so dang cold for it to snow.” I know just what he means.

  “Maybe we’ll get used to it,” I whisper.

  He looks down at me and smiles. “How about you and me get dressed and go down for a little breakfast.”

  I shiver with the thought of having Daddy all to myself. “Okay,” I whisper.

  On the elevator ride down, I tell Daddy all about the girls in Troop 423 and how some of them had been worse off than us before they came here. “Carmen and her mom used to ride the subway all night and stayed in the library during the day. Alexa, her mom, dad, and baby sister lived in their car, Daddy,” I say, “for three whole months before they could get in to Hope House.”

  I shake my head, thinking about having to live in a car with Dylan. “We sure are lucky, aren’t we, Daddy, that we didn’t have to live in a car.”

  Daddy gives me a quick hug. “Sure are, baby.”

  When me and Daddy get to the breakfast room, we see Mrs. Arista. She and her teenage son live on the second floor. She’s busy setting out the breakfast things. Everybody at Hope House has little and big chores to do. Our family will be setting up breakfast next Monday and Tuesday.

  “Winter’s here,” Mrs. Arista says. She points to the TV up on the wall. “And lucky you, no school today!”

  I look up at Daddy and grin. “I never thought about school being closed because of the snow. Maybe it’s not so bad after all.”

  “Looks like we’ll have a white Thanksgiving too,” Mrs. Arista says, setting out the fruit bowl.

  I frown. “Thanksgiving isn’t for a while. It’ll be gone by then, won’t it?”

  Mrs. Arista rubs the steam from the window and shakes her head. “Maybe not, chica. It’s supposed to be cold for a long time.”

  Daddy gets his coffee and doughnut, I get juice and cereal. We sit down in the corner.

  I feel sick to my stomach. I push the cereal bowl away. All the happiness of no school today drains away.

  “What’s wrong?” Daddy asks.

  “I’m worried about the people in the park,” I say.

  He frowns. “What people in the park?”

  “People without a home.”

  Daddy shrugs. “I imagine they’ve gone to the emergency shelter.”

  I shake my head, feeling even sicker. “They can’t. They have pets. They’re not allowed in unless they give up their dogs. Or cats.”

  Daddy studies me. “How do you know about these people?”

  I tell him all about Ree and Ajax, Linda and Duke, Jerry and Lucky, but mostly about Baby and Jewel.

  Daddy takes a sip of his coffee. “I don’t like you being around these kinds of folks, Piper. You don’t know what all problems they have.”

  I can just see Ree narrowing her eyes, hear her say, “These kinds of folks? Just what do you mean by that?”

  “Daddy,” I say, “they’ve just hit a rough patch, like us. The difference is they can’t come into the shelter because of their animals.”

  “And,” I push on, “Baby’s all on his own. I mean, the others are looking after him too, but . . .” My voice trails off into a watery sniff. A tear plops onto the table. I quickly wipe it away with my sweatshirt sleeve.

  Daddy nods. “That is a problem, especially in this storm.”

  “Daddy,” I say, putting on my best pleading voice, “can we please, please go check on Baby? He’s just a dog and he’s all alone.”

  Daddy gets up and fills two Styrofoam cups with coffee. I watch his broad bac
k as he snaps lids onto the cups. I hope I didn’t lay it on too thick.

  “Let’s take these up to your mama and let her know school’s canceled, then we’ll go to the park.”

  On the elevator ride back up to our room, I rerun the movie I played in my head last night when I couldn’t get to sleep. I imagined Daddy or Mama meeting Baby and falling in love with him just like I have. I imagined them saying, “Oh, Piper, he’s so sweet! You’re right, he needs to come live with us, at least until Jewel gets out of the hospital.” Or maybe she wouldn’t come back to the park. Not that she’d die or anything really bad. But somehow, maybe Baby would become my dog, forever.

  Daddy takes my hand in his as we cross to the park. The snow comes almost to the top of my boots. I can feel how cold his hand is even through my gloves. Daddy refuses to wear gloves. He says he needs to feel things in order to understand them.

  I stop when we get to the edge of the park. Nothing looks familiar. The picnic benches and swings are all white. The big grassy areas where Gabby and I picked up leaves are white. My heart aches just a bit. I still miss Gabby.

  “I don’t see how anyone could live here,” Daddy says.

  I shake my head. I know the nooks and crannies where they sleep, but I don’t see how they could be there now, in all this snow. Especially Baby.

  I tug on Daddy’s hand and point over to the bathrooms. “That’s where Baby lives,” I say.

  As we walk through the snow, my heart pounds. What if Baby froze to death? What if he got buried in the snow? After all, he’s such a little dog. How could I have not checked on him yesterday? He must think I’ve forgotten all about him.

  I run the last few feet, calling out his name. “Baby! Baby!”

  I skid to a stop. Snow is piled up against the concrete walls leading into the bathroom. The sidewalk is covered in thick snow. No paw prints. No footprints.

  No Baby.

  I feel sick all the way through.

  Baby is gone. And so is the duffel bag.

  27

  Lost

  Baby huddles in the sheltered doorway

  of the library

  watching thick curtains of snow

  fall.

  He followed the scent trail from the bus stop

  where he and Ree had boarded the bus.

  His nose had caught just enough scent on the bus ride

  to create a map

  from here to there.

  Baby trusts his nose.

  He’s always trusted his nose

  to find what he needs.

  All dogs do.

  Then the snow came,

  at first just flecks in the streetlights,

  then harder and thicker.

  The snow covered the sidewalks and the streets

  and the smells that guided him.

  Baby is lost without that compass of scent.

  He shivers, not from the cold and wet but

  from not knowing what to do.

  He leaves the shelter of the library,

  steps back onto the sidewalk, and looks back

  the way he came.

  Baby whimpers with questions.

  Should he go back to the park,

  to the bag of Jewel’s things,

  the blue blanket,

  to the girl who comes?

  Should he keep searching for Jewel?

  Snowflakes touch the end of his nose

  like kisses.

  He knows that soon

  the sun will come up.

  He knows soon

  the storm will pass.

  The birds say so.

  Baby trusts birds (unlike squirrels).

  He knows what he must do.

  Baby settles in again

  in the shelter of the library.

  With a sigh, he rests his chin on his white paws

  and waits.

  28

  Two Books and a Key

  Daddy frowns at the yogurt cup in my hand. “This is what Baby drank out of, Daddy, I swear it is.” I call out Baby’s name again. Nothing.

  “Maybe that woman, the one who owned him, came back and got him,” Daddy says. He rubs his red hands together and blows on them to warm them up. Even though the snow has stopped and the sun is coming out, it’s really cold.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so,” I say. I feel pretty sure Ree would have found a way to let me know.

  Daddy looks back toward the street. “Well, we better get going, sugar. Your mama’s going to be wondering what’s taking us so long, and I got to go to work in a little while.”

  I feel a huge knot getting tighter and tighter in my chest. What’s happened to Baby?

  Just then, I hear someone call out, “Hey! Hey, Piper!” I shield my eyes against the sun on the snow with my hand. There, coming toward us, are Ree and Ajax. Her long legs eat up the distance between us in no time. She’s carrying something in her arms.

  My heart lifts. It’s the duffel bag.

  Before she has a chance to say anything, I say, “Is Baby with you?”

  Ree looks down at the duffel bag she cradles in her arms and shakes her head. “I had to move to underground parking at the library last night to keep out of the storm. I came over here to get Baby and Jewel’s bag and he was gone.”

  “Did you go looking for him?” I ask hopefully.

  Ree pulls on one of her dreadlocks. “Storm was too cold. I couldn’t drag Ajax around in it.”

  “Holy moly,” I mutter.

  Ree looks at my dad like she’s just now noticed him.

  “Your father?” she asks.

  I nod. Then I say, “Where do you think Baby went?”

  Ree sighs. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s trying to find his way to Mercy Hospital, where Jewel is.”

  Jewel. How could I have forgotten?

  “You found her yesterday?” I ask.

  “We found her, me and Baby.” Ree proceeds to tell me and Daddy about the bus ride to Mercy Memorial, and sneaking Baby into the hospital. “She’s got severe pneumonia,” Ree says. “If she hadn’t gotten to the hospital when she did, the nurse said she would have died.”

  “I bet she felt better after seeing Baby, though,” I say.

  Ree nods. “I’m not a crier,” she says, and I believe her, “but I got pretty choked up seeing those two together.” She shakes her head. “Baby did not want to leave her.”

  Imagining what it must have been like for both Baby and Jewel to see each other again after a week apart gets me pretty choked up too.

  “What’s in there?” Daddy nods at the duffel bag in Ree’s arms.

  “Everything Jewel had to her name,” Ree says. “Except Baby.”

  Daddy studies the canvas bag. I know he’s thinking about the two suitcases and one duffel bag we brought with us that held everything we had to our name.

  Ree shoves the duffel bag at him. “Here, you keep this safe.”

  Daddy takes a step back and puts his hands up. “We can’t be getting involved.”

  Ree glares at him. “Involved?”

  “What did you do with it when you went to the hospital before?” Daddy’s got that stubborn set to his jaw. Ree raises her chin. Two bulls locking horns.

  Like she’s talking to a two-year-old, Ree says, “A friend kept it for me.”

  She tosses the bag at Daddy. He catches it. “It’ll be safer with you. I can’t be hauling it around while I’m looking for Baby,” she says.

  My heart has been so heavy, I’m surprised when it lifts. “You’re going to look for Baby?”

  “Of course I am,” she says. “Linda volunteered to look after Ajax while I take the bus to the hospital.”

  Ajax looks up at Ree with pure adoration at the sound of his name.

  I take the buttered toast out of my pocket I’d brought for Baby. I squat in front of the big dog. “Here you go, boy.” I hand him the toast. I feel Daddy move closer to me. Ajax takes the toast as gently as if it were a baby bird. He licks my fingers in t
hanks.

  Daddy places his hand on my shoulder. “We need to go, Piper.”

  Ree nods. “Look in there and see what you can find out about Jewel, if she has family or anything.” She runs her hand over the top of her dog’s head and bites her lower lip. “Who knows what they’re going to do with her once she’s over pneumonia.”

  And then she’s gone, leaving us with a bag full of someone’s life and a big load of worry in my heart.

  What if Ree doesn’t find Baby? And what if she does? What will happen to Baby? Even with everybody—Ree, Linda, the dancing man, the others—looking after him, how could such a little dog survive the winter?

  Walking back to Hope House, I play the movie in my head again, the movie where Baby belongs to me and is my dog forever.

  Later, after Daddy goes to work and Dylan is playing downstairs with a friend, Mama and I spread the stuff in Jewel’s bag out over the bed.

  This is what we find: two sweaters, two blouses, a purple skirt, a plastic grocery bag with underwear, bras, and socks, a hairbrush, a ziplock baggie with toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, and deodorant, a toy bunny missing one eye, a small leather Bible, and another leather book.

  “The sum of a person’s life,” Mama says with a sigh. She thumbs through the leather book.

  I poke around a little more. At the very bottom, tucked in a corner, is a small drawstring pouch. I pry it open, hold it upside down, and give it a shake. A silver key falls out onto the bedspread.

  I hold the key up to the light. “What do you think this is to?” I ask. I can barely see something etched into the key: CWS3#25.

  Something drops from the book Mama’s holding. A photograph. A photograph of a smiling woman in a flowered dress, long silver hair held back in clips. The woman is sitting at a piano surrounded by kids dressed in their Sunday best.

  Mama turns the photo over. Written on the back in old-fashioned handwriting are the words “Fall Recital.”

  “Huh,” Mama says. “Must be a piano recital.” She touches her finger lightly to the woman’s face. “She’s lovely and obviously very proud.”

  I look at the face again, the flowered dress, the long silver hair. Could it be?

  And then I grab the photograph from Mama. “Look, Mama,” I say, pointing at something small and brown sitting under the piano. “It’s Baby!”

  Mama frowns at the photograph. “Are you sure? Lots of people have little dogs like that.”

  I shake my head. “See that white patch on his forehead that looks like a snowflake and the white paws? That’s Baby for sure.”