Her eyes, which have been wandering the room looking for the source of my voice, settle back on me.
It’s me talking. Chester. I need your help.
This is hard to manage. Penny is talking at the same time, going on about how “right” it feels to have me home again, how excited her online friends are to meet me and see all the things I can do.
As she talks, her mother looks confused. She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “He shouldn’t be with you.”
Yes! I’m so happy I go over to the bed and lick her hand. Thank you! I shouldn’t be with her.
Penny says, “No, Mom, it’s fine. See, he’s wearing his vest. He can come into the building with me. Therapy dogs are allowed in nursing homes.”
No. Tell her Gus needs me to go back to school. Tell her I have a job to do.
Her eyes are wandering again. Penny can’t stop talking. She tells her mother how special I am, how I can read words, how big my vocabulary is. “I really believe he’s going to be famous soon. We’ll be watching him on TV, Mom. He’s going to be the world’s first talking dog.”
Not really. I can’t talk except to a few people like you. And Gus. That’s why he needs me. Without me, he doesn’t understand other people very well because he can’t talk either. But together we do okay.
It’s funny, I think. When someone understands what you’re saying, it’s such a relief it’s hard to stop talking. Penny must feel the same way, because she can’t stop talking either.
“I have some people who want to see videos of Chester. My plan is to get him reading about twenty words and then I’ll send along a tape of what he can do. I don’t want to do it too early while he might still look like a dog doing parlor tricks, you know?”
“What about Gus?” her mother says.
Penny’s eyes widen. She hasn’t mentioned Gus’s name once since we’ve been here. “What did you say, Mom?”
“He belongs to Gus.”
“How do you know that? Has someone been in here talking to you?”
Her mother lifts one of her fingers and points it at me.
Now Penny’s really scared. “What are you talking about, Mom?”
“He says Gus needs him to go back to school. I don’t know why, though. Do you know what he’s talking about?”
How to Speak
PENNY DOESN’T SPEAK THE WHOLE DRIVE home. There are two messages on the answering machine from Sara, asking Penny to please call her as soon as possible. I’m scared this means something has happened to Gus, that maybe he’s back in the hospital already.
I don’t know what Penny’s thinking.
She storms around the kitchen, looking for something. When she knocks over the cardboard tower, she kicks it across the room like she doesn’t care anymore about all the time she spent making it.
I don’t know if this will help, but I go to the pile of new flash cards we’ve been working on. I can’t read any of them but I remember one of the new ones because it has a picture on it. A mouth with lips.
I pick it up and carry it over to her. She stops being angry for a second and takes it out of my mouth. “Speak?” she says.
She starts to really cry. Not the little tears she cried in the car. These are big sobs. I’m scared she might choke or stop breathing. It looks like maybe she’s having a broken heart attack. I don’t want Penny to have a broken heart and die. I just want to go back to my family and do my job with Gus.
I move a little closer. She’s crumpled up the flash card, so now neither one of us can read it. It’ll be okay, I tell her. Take deep breaths.
I’m surprised.
She takes a deep breath.
That’s good, I say.
She takes another.
It’s almost like she can hear me somewhere, in the back of her mind. Or maybe in her heart she can hear me, she just doesn’t listen most of the time because she doesn’t like what I have to say. It will all be okay if you take me back to Gus. I will work hard for him and be the best service dog you ever trained. You’ll be proud of me. You’ll see.
She can hear some of this, I’m almost sure. Or at least she can feel it.
That’s better than being famous.
She takes another deep breath.
I’ve got to keep going. I can’t stop now. I don’t want to be famous like the dog in the video who never gets to eat his bacon.
I can’t believe it. She’s stopped crying for long enough to smile for a second. We’ve watched that video a lot. I’ve never laughed at it the way Penny does. I always wonder if that poor dog is embarrassed now. How could he not be? Famous for wanting bacon so much that he gets a little whiny. It could happen to any of us. It’s funny to some people.
Penny stops smiling. She holds out her hands for me to come over and put my head in her lap. “I’m just going to miss you so much,” she says. She’s crying again, a little. “I feel like I need you too, but maybe he needs you more.”
I lick her face, which always makes her laugh. I don’t know if she’s heard me or not. All I know is that she’s understood enough to know what she needs to do.
How to Go Home
THAT AFTERNOON PENNY STARTS TEACHING me seizure-response protocols. I’m so eager to learn that it doesn’t take long. Watching videos helps, except they’re all golden retrievers, which scares me a little. The only golden retrievers I’ve met have always seemed so sure of themselves. Once I saw a golden urinate on another dog’s foot. That isn’t a sight any dog can easily forget.
After Penny breaks down the tasks I’ll need to do when Gus has another seizure, it’s not hard to imagine doing this job. When I smell a seizure coming, I need to get him away from staircases and windows. I should have him lie down on the floor so he’s less likely to hurt himself falling.
After a seizure, I need to press a button that he’ll wear around his neck to call for help. If he’s not wearing the button, or I can’t get to it, I need to make sure he’s safe and go for help myself.
I haven’t done the button part, but I’ve done all the other things. It surprises me, realizing this, because so far Gus’s seizures have always happened when something else stressful is also going on. First the fire alarm, then the fight with Eleanor. Maybe if I remember these times when my instincts were good, I can build up my confidence.
Penny talks a lot about having confidence. It means believing you can do something even if you haven’t done it before and you aren’t sure. Penny says her problem for most of her life has been not having enough confidence in herself. “I don’t want you to have that same problem, too, Chester. Maybe that’s why I’ve worked so hard to show you how smart you are. I want you to believe in yourself the way I do.”
Now that we’re finally doing the work that will get me back home to Gus, it’s easier for me to like Penny again.
You should have confidence, too, I tell her. Look at the great job you’ve done with all your dogs! Look at the great job you did with me!
I don’t know if she can hear me the way Gus can and her mother could. I think my voice sounds like her own thoughts in her head.
“Sometimes I look at the wonderful dogs I’ve trained—I look at you, Chester, and I think I should have more confidence.”
It teaches me something. Gus is my person because he can hear me, but I can still help other people I love by sitting near them and thinking positive thoughts. That will never be my main job, but it can be my side job. I think a lot of dogs do this as a side job.
It’s an important one too.
Penny is very quiet before she takes me back to Gus. I’m scared that she’ll cry, so I don’t say anything. I sit as still as possible and try not to think anything either.
I watch Penny take slow trips out to the car with all my things. My bed. My bowls. My sack of food. It’s sad, but watching her empty her house of dog things, I get an idea: She should get her own dog! She shouldn’t let Wendy or anyone else decide whether she’s good enough to have a dog. She should go to one of the pl
aces we always see advertised on TV, where thin dogs look out from behind cages with eyes that say, Will you please bring me home? Whenever we see one of those commercials, Penny always says, “I can’t stand these ads. I can’t stand looking at those sweet sad faces on TV.”
Once, she said she couldn’t adopt one of them because too many sad things had already happened to them. Now, when she walks back into the house after her last trip, I’m sitting by the door waiting for her.
You should adopt your own dog from a shelter, I say, looking into her eyes. A lot of sad things have happened to me, but you still love me. You should find another dog to keep. You love dogs, and you shouldn’t have to always give away the things you love.
I don’t know if she hears me. If she hears, I don’t know if she’ll follow my suggestion. I think about all the months we lived together. She has a lot of reasons to say no, it wouldn’t be a good idea.
She used to talk a lot about neighborhood dogs she didn’t like. Poodles are too high-strung, she’d say. Border collies are too hyper, herding anything that moves. Goldens think they’re better than everyone else. Penny has many low opinions of other dogs but the lowest of all is for mutts. “You have to watch out for them,” she once told me. “You never know what you’re getting.”
In the car driving to Gus’s house, she’s very quiet. I take a risk and say, You might be wrong about the mutts on TV. Yes, you don’t know what you’re getting, but that’s the exciting part. I didn’t know what I was getting when I first met Gus. He was scared of me and I was scared of him, too. Love is when you get to know each other well enough to not be scared anymore.
I don’t know if Penny can hear me.
Her eyes are on the road. She’s driving slowly because she doesn’t want to get to where we are going.
Eventually we do and Sara opens the door the minute Penny’s car pulls into the driveway. “We’re so happy to see you again!” she says to me, not Penny. She comes over to my door and opens it because she can’t wait anymore.
I bounce around and around like a puppy so she knows I’m happy too.
It’s wonderful to be home.
That night, in Gus’s room after Sara turns out the light and leaves us alone, Gus talks to me for the first time since I’ve been back. Did you go somewhere? It seems like I haven’t seen you for a while.
I think about how frantic I felt and how much I missed him. I wonder if I should be hurt that he hardly noticed I was gone. No, I think. This is my job. He’s learning how to notice people and animals enough to miss them. I’m teaching him that.
I tell him, I wasn’t far away. And now I’m back. I won’t do that again, I promise. I didn’t like being away. I missed you.
I wait for him to say the same thing to me, but he doesn’t.
For a long time he doesn’t say anything at all. And then, just as I’m drifting off, he surprises me. You missed something.
Oh? What?
One bird flew away. There used to be four. Now there’s three.
I sit up a little. I thought he’d forgotten about the bird nest we shared before we started watching TV. When you spend your day looking out the window, the stories are a little slower and less exciting. But they’re there. If you look long enough, they’re there. Gus taught me that.
Did it die? he asks me now.
Probably, I think to myself. I remember there was a little one who didn’t look very strong. No, I say. I think it went back to school to see all its friends.
Gus sits up in bed, confused.
That was a little joke. Birds don’t go to school.
He lies back down. I don’t want to go to school either.
Think about the parts you liked. Like Mama and her dishwasher. And Amelia.
Who?
Amelia. The girl who comes over to sit with us. She needs a friend, I think. She gets sad and frustrated sometimes. Like you, a little bit.
I do?
Yes. Sometimes.
Okay. I guess I do.
A Real Surprise
THE NEXT MORNING, I WAKE UP to a real surprise: a brand-new orange vest with words written on it. I can’t read them, of course, but Sara reads them for me. “Official Service Dog. Please Don’t Pet Me. I’m Working Right Now.”
Even though it’s not the friendliest message in the world, I love the vest more than any present I’ve ever gotten, including Drubbie, my favorite chew toy, who I accidentally chewed up a long time ago.
I’ll never chew this.
At school, I wonder if people will recognize me wearing my new vest, but I’m surprised. Everyone does recognize me! Most of them come over to pet or hug me, then they read my vest and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, Gus—I shouldn’t interrupt Chester, should I?”
I like that they talk to Gus about this.
He doesn’t answer for now, but maybe someday soon he will. Maybe he’ll say, “It’s okay,” or “Not now.” We can work on different possibilities.
For now I won’t try to feed him answers or force him to talk the way I did before. People have to decide these things for themselves. The best thing I can do is help when he needs me, and when he doesn’t, I can sit near him, thinking positive thoughts.
I’m pretty sure this helps.
Before Penny left our house yesterday, she told Sara that she was thinking about visiting the animal shelter to see if there were any dogs she liked. “That’s a wonderful idea!” Sara said. She sounded very happy, like Penny seemed more normal to her now, saying something like this instead of talking too fast about how smart I am and how I can read.
It is a more normal thing to say. Dogs can’t really read and we can’t use flash cards to talk to the people we love, mostly because if we really love them and they love us, we don’t need to. We can just sit near each other and listen to our thoughts. Some of them are mine and some of them are his. That’s how it works when you find your person.
Unfortunately, when we walk into Ms. Winger’s classroom, the first person we see is Ed.
“What’s he doing here?” Ed asks when he sees me. “I thought he wasn’t allowed anymore.”
Seeing him is hard for Gus. This is the first time since something happened in the tunnel that gave Gus two black eyes.
Walk around him, I say.
Gus doesn’t hear me. Part of the problem is that Ed is interesting to him. Ed is like the chainsaw guy in the woods. Gus is scared but Gus likes feeling scared sometimes. I get a crazy idea—maybe Gus can scare him. Maybe Gus can do something that will frighten Ed enough for him to leave Gus alone after this. Remember the zombies? I say. Remember how you scared them away?
I know Gus hears me because he holds up his arms in an X and chops the air in front of him. “Nis!” he shouts. Chop, chop, chop. “Nis! Nis!” Chop. Chop. Chop. He looks and sounds weird, which is perfect. Ed takes a step back.
The other kids giggle nervously. Ed backs really far away.
“You’re a strange one, Gus,” Ed says. He’s worried the other kids are laughing at him, I can tell. Then I realize: They’re laughing at him, not at Gus.
With someone who plays strange, scary tricks on other kids, you have to fight back in strange ways. The other kids look at Gus like he’s brilliant, chopping the air with his Cross Sticks arms.
Afterward, Amelia comes over to us. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she says to me, but she’s careful to look at Gus while she talks.
Gus doesn’t look at her, but he does do something interesting. He takes one of his hands and covers the part on my vest that says, “Please Don’t Pet Me. I’m Working.”
He’s trying to say something. He wants to tell her, It’s okay! Come over whenever you want.
That’s nice! I say.
And then I stop myself from saying any more.
I don’t want to confuse him. He found his own way to talk to her, which means my job is to sit near him and think positive thoughts. You’re doing great, I think, but don’t say. She’s a nice girl, and maybe someday you can invit
e her to our house and show her our nest.
She’d like that, I think.
We all would.
Author’s Note
Dearest Reader,
As any parent of a young child with autism can tell you, nonverbal communication is an essential piece of getting through most days. The idea for Chester and Gus came to me after watching our dog, Buddy, and our autistic son, Ethan, have one of these “conversations” when they were alone. Ethan was upset about socks that wouldn’t go on easily, and Buddy, trying to help, brought him first a shoe and then—amazingly, considering he wasn’t a trained service dog—a different sock. Frustrated, Ethan kept holding up a flat, stop-sign hand at Buddy’s offerings as if to say, Not now, dog. I’ve got a sock here that doesn’t work. I watched all this, a little heartbroken. I wanted to say: He’s trying to help, Ethan. We all are. As Ethan got more frustrated and headed toward a meltdown, Buddy hunted through the laundry spread out on the den floor at Ethan’s feet and picked up his final offering: a pot holder.
I hooted from the corner and even Ethan had to laugh. A crisis was averted without a word.
Buddy was not a service school dropout dog when he joined our family, but as I did research for this book and watched the extraordinary work service dogs do—fueled by an innate desire to serve “their person,” they almost always do more than they were originally trained for—I realized Buddy shared one essential trait with these dogs: He cared more about helping, comforting, and cheering his family than he did about himself. Even toward the end of his life, after he got cancer, it was clear: He worried more about us and our sadness than about his own pain.
I wrote this story from Chester’s point of view because watching Ethan through Buddy’s eyes gave me a new, much-needed perspective at a crucial time in our lives when I feared Ethan would never make any real bonds. I gave Chester and Gus their own mysterious connection because I believe animals can provide this, especially for children who most need it. Watching Buddy and Ethan over the years taught me (a writer, who has overvalued language, I’m sure) about how we express love when words aren’t available, or even an option. I wanted Chester and Gus to be a celebration of what I’ve learned as a parent: bonds formed without words are as meaningful and durable as those created on a river of chatter. Dogs have taught us all that eyes speak volumes and love can be conveyed in perfect silence. What an essential lesson that is for parents of children who communicate in their own mysterious ways.
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