Gaits of Heaven

by Susan Conant

  “Steve!” I screamed. “Steve, get up here now! Steve, help me!”

  Before I’d even finished yelling, Sammy provided his own veterinary treatment by lowering his head and vomiting copiously on the hallway floor. Kneeling at his side, I rested my hands on his heaving abdomen and whispered gently to him. “Good boy. Poor Sammy. Good boy. Get it all up.” Reaching out a hand, I banged Caprice’s door open and shouted, “Caprice, get up! Sammy is sick. Get downstairs this second and tell Steve to lock up the other dogs and then to get up here. Go get him! Now!” Hearing Steve at the bottom of the stairs, I called, “Steve, Sammy is sick. Don’t let the other dogs up here. Do something with them, and then get up here. Please! I need you!”

  In the light that spilled from the hall into Caprice’s room, I saw that the floor was littered with torn food packages and crumbs. The scene told the whole story: Sammy had raided a stash of food. And a big one at that. Strewn around were torn bags that had held potato chips, tortilla chips, candy, and yet more cookies. I was enraged. When Steve and I had welcomed Caprice, we’d carefully explained the house rules, most of which were about dogs. Caprice had understood those rules perfectly. Only this evening, she’d recited the ones that governed the safe and unsafe combinations of loose dogs. She’d been explicitly warned about malamutes and food, and she’d seen the precautions that Steve, Leah, and I took to prevent them from devouring every edible morsel in the house. Damn it! In return for our hospitality and our generosity, she’d done exactly what she’d been told not to do! I kept my temper only by thinking of Eumie’s death.

  Steve was cool. He calmly led Sammy a few feet away from the stinking puddles and lumps on the floor and slowly checked him out. Caprice had finally appeared at the door to her room and was leaning against the door frame. She wore a gargantuan red T-shirt. Her skin was blotchy, and tears ran down her face. She looked drugged with sleep. Or maybe just drugged. In a child’s voice, she said, “You’re angry with me.”

  Before I had the chance to tell her that she was right, Steve said, “Caprice, splash some cold water on your face. Right now, please.”

  “I feel so—” she started to say.

  “Wash your face in cold water,” said Steve. “Now. If I’m going to help Sammy, I’ll need some information.”

  I had the sense to leave things to Steve. Here was Sammy, standing a few feet from the hideous mess he’d brought up, still looking ghastly, and what did Caprice have to say for herself? I feel…If I’d opened my mouth, it would’ve been to inform her that no one gave a single sweet goddamn about her feelings. I was right to keep quiet. Still crying, Caprice made her way to the bathroom and emerged about a minute later with her face and her baby curls wet.

  “First of all,” Steve said, “I don’t see anything about Sammy that’s got me worried. At least not yet.” He sounded as if he were speaking to a distraught pet owner instead of to the person who could’ve killed our dog. “But I need to know what he swallowed. And there are three categories of things I need to know about. One is chocolate. Another is medication. Sedatives, antidepressants, marijuana, anything. Anything at all. And the third is foreign objects. Things. Socks. Underwear. Anything that could get lodged in his digestive tract.”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Without showing a hint of impatience, he said, “Let’s start with an inventory of what’s on the floor of your room. Put the light on. Good. Okay, there’s a wastebasket in there. I want you to pick up everything, one thing at a time, tell me what the package or the wrapper was for, and then put it in the wastebasket.”

  “There’s a bag that had oatmeal cookies,” I said. “It’s here.”

  “Tortilla chips,” Caprice said thickly. “Potato chips. Corn chips. Pralines. Butterscotch.” She paused to blow her nose. Then she continued to name the junk she’d kept in a cache in her room. Eventually, she said, “Chocolate chip cookies.”

  Steve must’ve heard me take a sharp breath. “Probably not enough chocolate to do any harm. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Medications. Do you take anything? Ever.”

  After a pause, Caprice said, “Sometimes. For sleep.”

  “Take a look where you keep anything like that. Your purse. Anywhere you could’ve put any sleeping medication.”

  I was watching Sammy, who was beginning to perk up. From Caprice’s room—our guest room—I heard a drawer open and close and then the sound of a zipper. “It’s all here,” Caprice said.

  With endless patience, Steve said, “Objects. Anything missing? Any scraps of fabric on the floor?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Check whatever you were wearing today. Socks. Underwear.”

  “All here.”

  “Then we’re probably out of the woods,” Steve said. “We’ll need to keep an eye on you, Sammy, and watch out for dehydration. Or further developments. But it looks like you’re doing fine.” To Caprice, he said, “I’d like you to come on downstairs with us. There are a few things we need to go over. You want to get dressed? Or get a robe. Before we talk, there’s a mess here to clean up. I’ll get you what you’ll need.”

  My first thought was a Ted-like one: chutzpah! The nerve! And how uncharacteristic of Steve! Then I realized that he was simply telling Caprice that fair was fair: since her carelessness had made Sammy sick, she was the one responsible for mopping up after him. Still, I took pity on her and helped out. Even for me, the task was challenging. In a lifetime with dogs, I’d developed a strong stomach. That night, I needed one. I have to admit, too, that I had a selfish motive, which was to make sure that Caprice didn’t damage the floor. When Rita had moved up to the third-floor apartment and we’d redone the second floor, we’d had the hardwood sanded and refinished. In the normal course of things, dogs who realize that they are on the verge of puking all over the place will immediately hasten to the spot where they’ll do the maximum amount of damage to valued human possessions. If a dog is seized with queasiness while he’s in the kitchen, will he considerately upchuck on the linoleum or tile? Never. Why? Because linoleum and tile are easy to wash. So, rather than create a mess that can be cleaned up at no expense and with no permanent harm done, he overcomes his nausea for the few seconds it takes to dash into the living room and leave an ineradicable splotch in the center of a light-colored rug, and not just any rug, either, but one that will be wrecked if you try to shampoo it yourself and thus requires professional cleaning, with an extra charge for the removal of pet stains. Sammy, of course, found himself in a situation somewhat different from that one. Once he’d realized that he was on the verge of bringing up what he’d wolfed down, he’d eyed our guest room and said to himself, This won’t do at all! Nothing here but a cheap area rug that can go through the washing machine! So, he’d shoved his muzzle and the cookie bag out into the hallway, where he’d spied our newly refinished hardwood floor, which was perfect for his purposes, since it couldn’t be scrubbed with hot water and assuredly couldn’t be bleached.

  I made Caprice do her share of the work, and a disgusting share it was, I’m sure. When we’d finished, she washed her hands and face, put on a second and even larger T-shirt over the first, and joined Steve and me in the kitchen. To my relief, Sammy was his perky self again. Steve had even allowed him to sip water. Steve had made fresh coffee, caffeinated for himself and decaf for me. Caprice accepted a cup of decaf, and we sat around the table.

  “Sammy is going to be fine,” Steve told her. “All he did was overeat. But the consequences could’ve been serious.” He patiently described chocolate toxicity, gastric dilatation and volvulus syndrome, and the hazards of ingesting foreign objects. For him, he was remarkably succinct. “And if there’d been medication in the same place as the food…I don’t have to tell you about that.”

  “There wasn’t,” Caprice said.

  “From now on,” Steve said, “prescription medications belong strictly out of the reach of dogs. Not in your purse or your backpack that you leave ly
ing around. Food belongs in the kitchen.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “You understood before. This time, from now on, you follow the rules. Part of my job is dealing with the results of carelessness. And that’s what we don’t want here. No matter how careful you are, dogs are going to get into things. All we’re trying to do is minimize the chances of those episodes. Now, about the food. You might’ve noticed that in this house, we eat nutritious food. And that’s what we feed our animals. Treats are treats. And most of them are nutritious, too. You’ve seen the book that Holly and I wrote. No More Fat Dogs. The reason we wrote it is that most dogs in this country are fat. They’re overfed and underexercised. Now, if you want to eat junk and overeat junk, that’s your business, but I don’t want it happening here.”

  To my amazement, Caprice hadn’t burst into tears when Steve had mentioned overeating. When he’d said the word fat, I’d felt blood rush to my face. Caprice hadn’t reddened. She’d just kept watching Steve’s kind face.

  He continued. “Prescription drugs. If you’ve got medication prescribed for you, take it the way you were told to take it. You got anything else? Anything prescribed for Ted? Or your mother?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Over there, at Ted’s, that was the house rule. Share your meds. But all I have is Ambien and Sonata. And some Valium. And a little…I think it’s Xanax.”

  “Anything prescribed for you?”

  Caprice looked almost shocked at the notion of taking pills that weren’t meant for someone else. “No. Nothing. My therapist is a psychologist. Missy Zinn. She doesn’t prescribe.” After a little pause she added, as if Missy were guilty of an oversight, “And she hasn’t sent me to anyone.”

  I finally spoke. “Does Missy Zinn know about the pills you’re taking?”

  Caprice lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I didn’t want her to be angry with my mother. It was just something we always did. Shared.” I saw no sign that Caprice made any connection between the just something we did and her mother’s death. “With Dr. Zinn, I did a little work on my feeling needy. The divorce. The divorce was hard. Everyone was angry at everyone else. And hurt. Monty blamed Ted, and Johanna hated my mother.”

  Here, I cannot resist drawing attention to the verb to work as used by therapists and their clients. Work, as I understand it, means putting out a lot of effort and then having something to show for it: a ditch that’s been dug, a book that’s been written, a class of first-graders who’ve learned to read, a cat who’s been cured of a urinary tract infection, or a dog who’s learned to heel so accurately and gracefully that when you’re his partner, you know that with your voice, your treats, your footwork, your timing, and, most of all, your relationship with the other half of the team, you’ve performed a damned miracle—what you started out with was a dog, and what you’ve ended up with is the honest to doG reincarnation of Fred Astaire. And that, let me tell you, takes work. But talking about your mother? Your father? Your parents’ painful divorce? To my mind, that’s just not work. It’s talking, isn’t it? Rita vehemently disagrees. In fact, when I told her about the miracle of Fred Astaire, she said that it was a pretty good analogy, except that it described patients who started out in pieces and ended up whole. But then, Rita has never trained a dog to heel like a dancer, and I, of course, have never practiced psychotherapy.

  “I’m sorry to hear about the divorce,” said Steve, “but if you’re going to lose weight, you’re going to need to decrease calories and increase exercise. It’s real simple. Eat less. Do more.”

  If you’re a dog, it is simple! Get an owner who decreases your calories and increases your exercise. In fact, as I hoped Caprice didn’t realize, Steve was delivering exactly the same lecture he’d given a million times before…in a slightly different context. Fortunately, he stopped before he reached the part about obesity’s contribution to the clinical signs of canine hip dysplasia.

  “There’s a group,” I said hesitantly. “It’s called Overeaters Anonymous. OA. There are meetings in Cambridge. I know someone who goes. If you’re ever interested, I know she’d be glad to have you go with her.” The someone was a member of the Cambridge Dog Training Club, but I didn’t say so. Caprice wouldn’t necessarily have been flattered by the canine nature of our concern for her. To prevent any misunderstanding that might ever arise, let me say outright that if Steve and I treat you as we’d treat a stray mutt, if we phrase our advice in veterinary terms and refer you to dog trainers for help with your human problems, please don’t be insulted. You should, on the contrary, feel honored: if we treat you like a dog, it means that we’ve peered into the depths of your soul, recognized a familiar essence, and are fulfilling the religious obligation to worship the goD within.

  Caprice groaned. “Twelve steps.”

  “I’m afraid they’re unavoidable,” I conceded.

  “This’d be more than twelve steps,” Steve said with a smile, “but you could try walking Lady. She could use the attention. And before we all get some sleep, let’s go over what you’re doing this summer. If you don’t have a job, you should get one.”

  Vets rush in where shrinks fear to tread.

  Caprice looked stunned. “A job?” She sounded as if he’d suggested that she drop out of Harvard and start panhandling in the Square.

  “Paid employment. Or you could volunteer. Or take a course somewhere. What’s your, uh, field of concentration?” Harvard doesn’t have majors, and not because it’s a bastion of antimilitarist liberalism. The real reason is that majors would suggest the possibility of minors, whereas at Harvard, everything, simply by virtue of being at Harvard, is always preeminent.

  “Physics,” Caprice said.

  “You could tutor physics,” I said. “Or math. Paid or volunteer. But no one has to decide anything now. Your eyes are drooping.”

  “Have you taken any medication tonight?” Steve asked.

  Caprice was silent for a moment. Then, addressing Steve, she said, “No. I ate myself to sleep. But I’m okay now. I’m actually tired.”

  “Hey, this isn’t going to be hard,” Steve told her. “We live real well. We eat well. We sleep well. We work hard. We have fun. We’re glad to have you here. Now, go to bed. You want Lady with you?”

  “If you trust me with her,” Caprice said.

  We did.

  CHAPTER 24

  Tellers of entomological tales may long to be flies on walls, but I dislike insects and have no desire for even the briefest metamorphosis into one. What I’d like the power to become is an invisible dog on the floor, preferably a golden retriever, a peaceful, ancient creature given to snoozing and eavesdropping. If Monty Brainard had owned a dog, visible or otherwise, I’d have mentioned it by now; he did not. Even so, if others may imagine themselves as flies on walls, I am entitled to listen in on Monty through the ears of that old golden, who is startled awake at 3 A.M. on that same Friday night.

  So, curled up on an area rug on Monty’s bedroom floor, I hear the ring of the phone. Monty utters a monosyllable that no self-respecting golden would repeat. He clears his throat, picks up the phone, and grumbles, “Yes.” The rug, as I see it—I, Holly, the fantasizer—is an ethnic one of some sort, perhaps Polish or Afghani. I, Holly the invisible dog, cannot see it; Monty does not bother to put on his bedside light.

  After listening for what I, the golden retriever, find to be a frustratingly long time, he says, “I know the middle of the night’s your pattern, but it’s a pattern you’re going to have to start breaking.” And I, Holly, she who is conjuring up the dog, make a mental note to myself: like therapists and dog trainers, participants in twelve-step programs need to establish boundaries and set limits. And just how do I, Holly, know about the twelve-step program? The golden tells me. She is very intuitive.

  “What you’re doing,” Monty continues, “is that you’re not going to meetings and calling me instead. The meetings are the heart of the program. If you show up at them and then you still need to call someone, oka
y. But you’re not doing that. There’s no substitute for the meetings. And I know we’re in the same dilemma. And not everyone else is. But close enough.”

  Monty listens and resumes. “Look, it’s not just guilt. It’s shame. It’s both. And it’s easy to think that it’s people like us, parents, who really feel it. Take me. The idea is that I go to my daughter and say, ‘Well, honey, Daddy needs to tell you that he knows he’s been shortchanging you on time and attention and everything else, but he’s got a good reason. He’s hooked on Internet pornography, and he’s been protecting you from knowing that Daddy’s a pervert.’ And then I undo the harm I’ve done? Then I make amends? I’m not there, and I’m not going to get there. I’d do anything to protect my daughter. But it’s hard for everyone else, too. Show up at the meetings. You’ll see. We’ve all got the same problem.”

  Well, okay. I have to confess that on that Friday night, the actual one, I had no idea about Monty’s secret and that I later learned it from a human being and not from an invisible dog. The admission is disappointing. Still, I did learn it in time to credit the elderly golden with intuiting it, and I’m always happy to do a favor for a dog.