Last Things

by Jenny Offill

  Sometimes I tried to get Laika to go inside the doghouse out back, but she was smart enough to see the lock and run away. What had the dog done who had lived in that house, I asked my father, but he didn’t know.

  Laika ran off sometimes, but she always came back. Once I went out looking for her and saw her in her secret life. She was at the junkyard, running around with the wild dogs. She found a chicken bone in the grass and ran up to the top of the hill. The other dogs followed her. She snarled and growled when they came for her bone. One got too close and she bit him on the tail. He whimpered loudly and slunk away. Laika’s ears were sleek against her head and her teeth were bared. She fought the other dogs until they ran away. I called her name, but she pretended not to hear. The next day, I went back and found her sleeping in an old tire. When she saw me, she wagged her tail and ran to me as if to say, At last, I’m found!

  Once Laika came, I wasn’t lonely for my mother anymore. I knew that she had come back to me, wearing a different skin. Was Laika magic, I wondered, examining her pink belly and smooth paws. And she said without speaking, No more magic than water into ice.

  For the Fourth of July, Foxface invited us to visit her at the Cape. She had rented a house on the beach that was much too big for her, she said. Don’t worry, you can bring Laika, my father told me.

  I didn’t want to go and sulked through the long drive. When we got there, I saw that the house was an ordinary one, no bigger than ours. Foxface told my father she had rented the house from a family who left each summer because they needed the money. They had a daughter just my age, she said. It was a shame we couldn’t play together. There was a picture of the girl on the mantel. She had buck teeth and brown hair in a braid. I took Laika into the kitchen and gave her some water. Then I put my things in the girl’s room. She had a canopy bed and pictures of horses all over the wall. Under her pillow, I found a note that said, Whoever you are, I hate you. There was another taped to the radio. Don’t touch anything in my room!!! it said. This is not your radio!!!!! I put the note back under the pillow and went into the hall. Laika followed me. My father’s car keys were on the table. I took them and went outside with the dog. I could hear my father talking to Foxface on the beach. “I dare you,” she was saying in a lazy voice. “I dare you just to try.” Laika and I wandered around the backyard. It was three hours until the fireworks, but there was nothing to do.

  I got in the car with Laika and turned on the radio. The top one hundred songs were being counted down. Someone had called in to dedicate a song to a deaf girl who had taught him the meaning of the word “love.” She couldn’t talk, he said, but her hands told more than words could say. The deaf girl’s song was slow and pretty and it seemed a shame she’d never hear it. When the song was over, Laika whined. I saw Foxface, standing on top of a sand dune with my father behind her, laughing. They spotted me and waved. My father came over and knocked on the window. “Where are you two going?” he asked. “You weren’t going to leave us behind, I hope.” He gave Laika a piece of driftwood to chew. “Come for a walk with us,” he said. “Unless you were planning to steal the car?” He held out his hand for the keys. I had an idea that someday I’d be driving down a road somewhere and someone on the radio would start talking to me.

  On the way back from the Cape, my father and I stopped at a little hotel on the beach. There was a sign at the desk that said “No Dogs Allowed. No Kidding!” but we snuck Laika in anyway. My father carried her up the stairs with his hand over her muzzle just in case she made noise.

  In the hotel room, I unpacked everything and ignored my father, who was going on and on about the pool and the Jacuzzi and the free buffet. I wasn’t speaking to him anymore, but still he was speaking to me. The only thing I’d said since we left that morning was “Watch out!” when he almost hit a car in the street.

  I could hear the shower going in the next room. There was a door connecting the two rooms, but it was locked. I turned on the TV.

  My father stood in the doorway and smiled at me. “Have you banished me forever, Grace? Will you never speak a word?” He sat on the bed and took off his shoes.

  Someone walked by and Laika barked. “Shh,” I said.

  “At least she likes you,” my father told the dog. He went in the bathroom to change into his swimming trunks. I looked around the room. There was a Bible in the dresser and a bowl of fruit on the table. There were eighty-seven channels on the TV. I flipped through them. People cooking. Someone building a house. A man with a parrot. A car going up in flames.

  Laika sighed. She was tired and wanted me to stop walking around. Wherever I went, she had to go. I lay down on the bed and waited for her to fall asleep. It didn’t take long. As soon as she did, I got up and looked out the window. There was purple sky as far as I could see. I started to close the blinds, then stopped. There were dead flies all over the windowsill. I thought of my mother and the bathtub drain. Laika stirred. If she woke up and saw the flies, she would get scared and bark, I knew. I went to the dresser and got out a piece of paper. I brushed all the flies onto it and threw them away.

  Laika woke up and came over to see what I was doing. She poked her nose into the trash can and dragged the paper out. I felt a little sick, thinking of how scared she would be. I tried to take the paper away, but she was too quick. She put it on the floor and ate the flies all at once. And that was how I learned that Laika was a dog and not my mother’s star of destiny.

  When we got back to Windler, I rode my bike over to Edgar’s house. I brought the book on meditation back to give to him. His father answered the door and invited me in. He was a bald, sunburned man with tufts of hair in his ears. In one hand he held a tennis racket and in the other a drink. “Come in, Grace. You’re just in time for a surprise,” he said.

  Edgar came downstairs, carrying a book on mold. When he saw me, he nodded hello. Then he went out on the porch to read.

  “Not so fast, Mr. Silence,” his father said. He took Edgar’s arm and led him out back. In the driveway behind the house was a beautiful silver car. It had a black top and gleaming white tires. On the hood was a ribbon and a sign that said All Yours.

  Edgar closed his eyes, then opened them again. He walked around the car, touching everything. He stopped in front of his father and made a small bow. Then he held out his hands for the keys.

  His father laughed. He put the keys back in his pocket. “What do you say, Edgar?” he asked.

  Edgar shook his head. He handed his father the silence card, but his father ripped it in two. “I said, What do you say?”

  Edgar sat down cross-legged on the grass. He looked straight ahead and breathed slow, quick breaths. Then he switched to longer ones. These were the kind people who walked on hot coals used, the book said.

  His father got in the car and honked the horn. He kept honking until Edgar put his hands to his ears. Then he got out and ran his hand along the gleaming hood. “It’s a beauty, don’t you think?” he said to me.

  Edgar passed him a note.

  “You have exactly one minute to make a decision,” his father said. “After that, I’m taking it back.” He got in the front seat and started to count.

  Edgar looked at me, then he looked at the car again. His father was counting slowly, but he was already up to ten.

  Edgar closed his eyes and stood on his head, with his legs bent. I followed along in the book. Queen, that one was called. He stretched out into King, then Downward Dog, then Snake, then Fish.

  “I’m up to fifty-five,” his father said.

  Edgar let out a tremendous sigh. He put a finger on one side of his nostrils, breathed in and out, then switched. This he did again and again. Sometimes he made a small hum like a machine.

  “For Christ’s sake,” his father said. “Sixty, going once, twice, gone.” He took out the keys and started the car.

  Edgar leapt to his feet. There were grass stains all over his white pants. His father turned off the engine and stared at him. “Well?” he said. />
  Edgar cleared his throat. I looked at him, but he wouldn’t look at me. “Thank you,” he said. His voice was hoarse from so much silence. There was grass in his hair and all over his clothes.

  “That’s more like it,” his father said. He laughed and tossed him the keys. Then he went inside.

  Edgar got in and started the car; then he turned it off again. He jumped out and ran into the house. When he came back, he had a backpack and a stack of letters tied with a piece of string. He handed the letters to me. They were creased as if they’d been folded in half, but none of them had been opened.

  “Your mother’s mail,” Edgar said. “I’ve been saving it for her.” He threw his backpack into the car and got in. He rolled up the windows and turned the radio on. Then he backed carefully out of the driveway, around his father’s sailboat and his mother’s watering cans.

  I put the letters he’d given me in my bike basket and rode along beside him to the street. “Where are you going?” I asked, but he wouldn’t say. He put on mirrored sunglasses and rolled up his sleeves. Suddenly I remembered the impostor. “Edgar?” I said. He paused at the end of the driveway, waiting for a car to pass. As soon as it did, he floored the gas and sped away.

  I pedaled furiously on my bike, trying to catch up with him, but when I turned the corner, he was already gone.

  When I got home, the blind girl was having a party. You’re 12! the banner over her driveway said. Her father drove up and unloaded a cake and a box of soda from the back of his car. I threw my bike in the garage and called Laika to come spy with me.

  Around dinnertime, everyone started arriving. Cars pulled up and parked all along our street. I wasn’t invited to the party. Only kids from the blind school were. Some of them came with guide dogs. Others had canes or walked holding someone’s arm. From the bushes behind their house, Laika and I watched everyone. She growled a little when she saw the other dogs, but I held her mouth shut with my hands, so she got quiet again.

  From my hiding place, I could see the blind girl opening her presents. Someone had given her a hula hoop and she was feeling her way around it, trying to guess what it was. After a while, her father put it over her head and explained how it worked. She laughed and tried to hula hoop, but it kept falling to the ground. “Like this, Becky,” her father said, holding it steady around her hips. For a moment, it caught and spun. Everyone clapped as it circled her hips.

  Her mother turned on the porch light and sat under it. I could see now that not everyone at the party was blind. The ones who were were touching one another’s hands and faces and standing in the dark corners of the lawn. The ones who weren’t were huddled on the steps beneath the only light.

  For a moment, Becky stopped in front of the bushes where we were hidden. I held Laika’s mouth shut so she wouldn’t whine. Becky leaned over and tied her laces. She wore a rhinestone tiara that someone had given her, and when she moved, it caught the light. Laika whimpered and shifted her weight from one side to the other.

  The blind girl hesitated, then took a step back. She held her hands out in front of her as if pushing someone away. “Hello? Is someone there?” she said.

  Laika and I held our breath. Becky’s mother came out of the house and rang a bell. She announced a scavenger hunt and read the list aloud. A pocket knife, a dog’s dish, a fishing pole, a pair of skis. When she finished with the list, she rang the bell again. “Remember to choose a sighted partner,” she said.

  I stepped out of the bushes and took Becky’s arm. “I’ll be your partner,” I told her.

  “Oh,” she said, startled. “Is that Donna?” She raised her hand to touch my face. Laika ran off to chase something at the edge of the lawn.

  “I’m Donna’s cousin.”

  The blind girl smiled and asked my name. “It’s Anna,” I told her. “Come with me. I know where to find a dog’s dish.”

  “Oh, good,” she said.

  I took her arm and led her across the street. It was dark out. On the lawn of Becky’s house, her mother was handing out flashlights and pairing everyone up. “Hurry,” I told her when we reached my yard. I took her around the shed to the old doghouse. It seemed smaller than I remembered. In the kitchen window, I could see my father fixing a drink. He stared out at the dark lawn, but he couldn’t see us.

  I stopped in front of the doghouse and unlatched the door. “It’s inside,” I told Becky. “You have to go in and get it. I’m too big.”

  “What is it?” she asked. When I told her it was a doghouse, she laughed and got down on her hands and knees. She laid her tiara beside me on the grass, then crawled in.

  As soon as she was inside, I clicked the lock.

  “I think I’ve got the dish,” she said.

  I held my breath. My heart was beating too fast. I could hear her banging around inside the doghouse.

  “Why did you close the door?” she asked. “I can’t find my way out.”

  I sat down on the grass and waited.

  “Anna?” the blind girl said. “Anna, are you still there?” Her voice sounded strange.

  When I didn’t say anything, she banged on the door and yelled, but the thick wood muffled the sound. Finally, all the noise stopped and I could hear the ragged sound of her breathing. I tapped lightly on the door.

  “Yes?” she said instantly. “Is that you, Anna?”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I spoke quietly to her in the voice of a bird about the monster that had swallowed her. “He will tear you to pieces if he hears you make a sound, but if you’re quiet through the night, he will let you go.”

  The blind girl banged on the wall again. “Let me out, Anna,” she yelled. “Please. I promise not to tell.”

  I checked the lock one more time to make sure it would hold. Then I went inside and fell asleep.

  It was my father who found her. He went outside to get something he’d left in the yard and heard her crying in the dark.

  After he took her home, he came into my room and shook me awake. “What’s gotten into you, Grace?” he said.

  I explained about the spirit houses and how by morning she would have turned into a new thing.

  My father shook his head. He went downstairs and called Aunt Fe. I sat on the top step and eavesdropped on him. “I think it might be best if she came to visit Mary and Alec for a while,” he said. When he came upstairs to tell me, I pretended to be asleep. He stood in the doorway a long time without saying anything. Then he turned off the light and went away.

  When the crow fell, its wings jerked back once, then folded in. Alec started to cry and put down his new BB gun, which he had named Mr. Bang! and carried everywhere the day before. I cried too.

  “If you didn’t want to kill it, why did you shoot it?” Mary said. She hated crows because they were dirty, thieving birds. She claimed one had stolen her silver anklet, the one with the tiny jingling bells, while she slept in the hammock out back. I remembered the way she had sulked when my father offered to buy her a new one. “He’s not fooling anyone with those colored contacts,” she said.

  Later Alec and I went back to the field without Mary and put the dead crow in a box filled with marbles and Alec said, “I’m sorry, bird,” before hiding it in the hollow tree that was our secret place.

  But the next day Alec had the gun again. “It was just a dumb bird,” he said, taking aim and pretending to shoot off Mary’s arms and legs one by one. Mary was asleep in the sun and smelled like a coconut. I wanted to wake her up and make her look at the bird in its box, but I knew she wouldn’t want to.

  I’d told Mary once about the birds’ alphabet, how they darted and swooped, spelling secret words in the sky. I showed her a flock of birds flying in a V, even though it was the one letter I hated for them to make, because other people knew it too. “That’s a Y,” Mary said. “Look, they’re spelling my name. Someday I’ll make my husband buy a jet and write our names in the sky.” Then she ran off to make a necklace for Laika, who was running around in circles on her chai
n.

  Laika knew about the alphabet too. Sometimes I would take her for a walk down to the end of the dirt road and we’d sit quietly, watching the dark shiny birds dropping onto the field. After a while, I would let go of Laika’s collar so she could run under the fence toward them. When she ran, the birds flew up all at once, as if they were connected by string. The way they rose up reminded me of my mother throwing her hands in the air when she was mad. I give up, she’d say. You win. You win. After the birds were gone, Laika would lie in the middle of the field and watch them circling above her. She never barked at them, the way she did at everything else that moved. When the last ones flew out of sight, she would roll around and around in the grass and howl. I thought that Laika must be the smartest dog in the world, smart enough to be an astronaut like her namesake, the dog who’d starved to death orbiting the moon.

  One day Alec said, “I bet my dad and your mom ran off together and she’s the one who writes those stupid postcards. He never used to talk like that.”

  “But she’s dead,” I said. “She drowned in the lake.” Sometimes I dreamed of the car as a fish that had swallowed my mother.

  “She could have faked that to run away. Did you ever see her close up when she was dead?”

  I had to admit that I hadn’t, though my father had planted a tree in the backyard in her name.

  Alec plucked two feathers from the bird and gave one to me. He pricked his arm with the feather’s quill until he drew blood. I did the same. We touched wrists. “Now we’re bird brothers,” he said. “If I wanted to, I could teach you how to fly.” But he didn’t want to.

  Alec had found a secret cave in the woods and sometimes he let me go there with him. But he always took me on a complicated, doubling-back route so I couldn’t find it on my own. The opening to the cave was so small we had to crawl in on our hands and knees, but once inside we could stand up. Alec called it the Room of Everything Good and carefully monitored what was brought into it. So far, the only things he had allowed inside were three boxes of matches, deer bones, his father’s Swiss Army knife, my mother’s book of dreams, assorted rocks, a comic book about a murderous plant, coins from Africa, and an old zippered jacket that we were devoted to because it was reversible. I wanted to bring the dead bird to the cave, but Alec said it would stink up everything. After a few days, he gave in and let me keep a fan made of its feathers and Scotch tape inside.