by Tom Ryan
In Provincetown, there are miles of endless beaches with barely anyone around. The town shuts down, except for a handful of stores and restaurants. It’s a madhouse in the summer, but in winter, you can walk for miles through the dunes and see only seagulls.
So we were off to the shore, where there was peace, to the Wired Puppy Coffee House on Commercial Street, where dogs are allowed and the lattes are strong, and to a little rental with wooden floors with a stash of paper towels and cleaning supplies.
The goal was always to wrap Will in as much nature as I could, not just so he could see through foggy eyes, but to also feel it—on his skin, drifting over his white hair, and even in his lungs. I wanted him to inhale it and to become part of it, as it would become part of him. I’m not sure what he’d experienced before, but I thought he’d love the ocean air and the sand beneath his paws. Our little studio opened right onto the beach. It was a slice of perfection.
The ocean is cousin to the mountains in New England. Both have a tough primal side, but they inspire. And if the fabric of the natural world could inspire humans, we who have often let the comfort of what we’ve built rob us of what connects us to nature, I imagined Will would find it invigorating.
That first night, we sat on the chilly sand under mild air and watched the stars. Atticus and I were warm enough, but because we weren’t moving I wrapped Will in a blanket and held him on my lap. We stayed outside until my eyelids grew heavy, and for the first time in months, the three of us slept straight through until morning.
We woke when the sun lifted itself out of the water. Outside, Will started a little drunken butterfly dance to greet the day. He trilled with excitement at the water’s edge. The sand was cool against his paws and he bounced and frolicked, welcoming distinctive smells and a new adventure.
There was a dusting of snow on the outer Cape and the bike path was clear, other than the drifting beach sand. Because it was winter and no one was using the beach, we ignored the “No Dogs Allowed” signs. What’s a little civil disobedience among friends, especially when there was soul work to be done? Atticus and I took Will out in the Will Wagon, utterly bundled up so that only his face was showing. We walked for miles, stopping every half hour for Will to get out for some exercise. When we arrived at Race Point, the sky was clear enough to hurt my eyes, and all three of us squinted. Gusts of wind buffeted us, even blowing Will down, but he’d get right back up again. Waves crashed nearby and sea spray coated us as we walked along the water’s edge, with sea-foam reaching up to greet us. We saw no one on our walk, and Atticus ran up and along the dunes to where the sea grass started to smell where other dogs, and coyotes, had left messages.
I tried to stop Will from walking into the water, but when he managed to do so, I wrapped him up and dried his feet with a towel, then put him down again.
When the seagulls screeched, I think he heard them. I’d only ever see him turn his head like that once before, when one of the blue jays in our backyard was letting out her high-pitched cry. He cocked his head, as if to say, Give me more, and the seagulls did. If they were close, he’d walk by them, and when they flew off, he’d jog his crooked line, sprightly with mischief. It was the only time I saw him pay attention to another creature other than Atticus. Other creatures were always watching him, sometimes close enough to even touch him, but he never noticed them or responded.
We ended another day under the cover of night, pushing the Will Wagon through the ghostly empty streets of Provincetown under the glow of streetlamps. But back behind our cottage, we could see the stars so clearly.
When the full moon took center stage, I held Will up to see it. I don’t doubt that he did. In the middle of that darkness sat a huge glowing orb, climbing slowly. Looking at him next to me and seeing the moon reflected in his eyes, his mouth slightly open, all I could think was that as Will aged, he was becoming younger.
Whenever there was a new texture or smell or sight to behold, I wanted him to take in every bit of it. Knowing he’d likely been kept captive in a crate, I wanted him to be free. That’s the week he started his newest phase: life without a harness, collar, or leash. Not that I ever used a leash with him, since he was always by my side.
From that time on, he was as naked and free as Atticus was.
On our fourth day we woke up to snow showers. The sky was a brooding charcoal, and the water a lighter gray and as smooth as glass. A layer of snow settled on the sand, except where the lazy ebb and flow washed it away. Wayward snowflakes drifted down around us. It wasn’t like the snow back home. It was tender and the temperatures were mild. Will and Atticus explored the area as I sat with my camera, recording Will’s time with the sea.
In that serene place, in the midst of that quietude, I heard Will gag. He turned his head. He gagged again. Throatier this time. His body went into spasm when he coughed. Then he stopped coughing, and he was choking, fighting for air. Fighting to breathe.
I ran to him. But Atticus, who was closer, reached him first. He stood in front of Will and gently pushed his nose against Will’s.
In midstruggle, Will’s squinting eyes opened, and so did his mouth. He gulped in some air. Atticus stayed with him, touching his nose one more time. They looked into each other’s eyes until Will’s breathing became calm and steady. I fought the urge to pick him up. Instead I watched them facing each other.
A white dog and a black-and-white dog looking deep into each other. Behind them, the sky and sea were slate gray. In front of them, the ground was white with snow. Silence returned. The water whispered as it drew up to the sand and eased back. The snowflakes came now, true snowflakes, big and fat. They settled on us, and around us.
A seagull flew overhead, it cried out, and Atticus walked away, along the water’s edge. Will followed him until he could no longer keep up. That’s when I picked up Will and carried him through the miracle of falling snow. Together we followed Atticus down the beach and the flakes gathered on my shoulders and in my hair, and some found resting places on Will’s long black eyelashes.
We stayed in Provincetown for two more days and walked and napped and played. But the two dogs remained separate after they had touched noses on the beach. I’d find Will looking at Atticus, but Atticus never returned his gaze. He was back to keeping Will at a distance.
From the beach house I called Marijane in Arizona. She hadn’t been to Provincetown in decades, and it was so different from her home in the desert that she wanted me to describe everything we’d seen, and how the salt in the air and the sea spray felt like on my skin. She asked about Will.
“I wonder if he has ever been to the ocean before. Does he act like he’s enjoying it?”
I didn’t leave anything out, including how deeply we slept through the nights. When the subject of Will’s choking came up, I could tell she was tensing up like she was there watching it. But when I brought up Atticus’s cure for Will’s breathing issues, she seemed to understand. I could feel her relaxing. Her time with the Navajo and their legends had broadened Marijane’s view of the world. The young nun who had never been more than an hour out of Boston had become a mistress of the mystical.
She once said, “Tommy, the Church was a good place for me to start, but there were other plans for me, and I ended up where I was supposed to be, learning what I was supposed to learn.”
Before we hung up, she asked me if I would put the phone up against Atticus’s ear.
“I want to say something to him.”
He was sitting up on the couch, looking at me. When I went over to him I said, “Marijane has something she wants to say to you.”
He looked at the phone and I held it up to one of his ears. I could barely hear her murmured voice and with her words his ears and eyebrows rose and lowered, rose and lowered.
When I thought she was done, I asked, “What did you say to him? He seemed very intent on this side.”
“I shared a Navajo blessing with him.”
“Really? What was it?”
; “That’s Atticus’s story to tell. If he wants to share it with you, that’s up to him. Good-bye, Tommy. Walk in beauty.”
Just for the record, Atticus has never shared what Marijane said to him that day. I added it to all the other secrets he kept.
Will’s seizures didn’t end, but they seldom came after that, and because they were less intense, I no longer worried about them as much. I’m not sure exactly why that was. Perhaps something was born in me during those weeks that taught me not to worry about things I couldn’t do anything about. Or I realized that each day holds its own challenges, and when they came along, somehow I’d be ready for whatever it was. And then there was strange, otherworldly Atticus. It seemed that he knew a thing or two I didn’t. I have never been closer with another soul in my life, but it would be silly to pretend to know the mysteries he carried through life.
Living with Will was living on a razor’s edge. On one side was life, on the other death. But when I checked in on how I was feeling about when I’d one day have to say good-bye to Will, I realized it would come when the time was right. Maybe I did my mourning for Will when I first met him and he was only half alive.
When I was much younger I went on a date with a psychology student, and she gave me a fun four-question quiz. I answered the questions and she took notes. She later told me that my answers to the questions revealed my feelings about how I saw myself, how I thought others saw me, how I felt about sex, and last, a fourth subject.
The last question was “You wake up in a pitch-black hallway. The only reason you know it is a hallway is that you can put your hands out and feel the walls. You begin to walk. Slowly you make your way along. There is no noise other than your footsteps. You walk and you walk and you walk. You walk for ten minutes, thirty, maybe an hour, always in the darkness. Ultimately, you come to a door in all that blackness. It’s at the end of the long hallway. The only reason you know it’s a door is because you can feel it. You blindly search for a doorknob, find it, turn it, and . . . it is locked. What’s your initial emotion?”
She looked at me like I was strange when I answered, “I’m excited!”
“What?”
“I’m excited. I want to know what’s on the other side.”
“That’s weird . . . Most people say they are frightened or panicked or anxious. No one says they are excited.”
“I did. What’s it supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to reflect how you’ll feel when you die.”
That made sense to me. I do want to know what’s next.
In our unassuming life of meeting each day as it came, I no longer stressed about how a city councilor was going to vote, if a developer was going to tear down a historic building and put up one twice as big in the same small space, or if a bad cop was going to get reprimanded for stealing evidence or stalking women in his cruiser.
I have Max to thank for making me care about something more important, Atticus for helping me truly believe in our infinitude, the forest and the mountains for stripping me down and building me back up again, and finally, Will, for teaching me humility and acceptance.
There is humility in dedicating yourself to another. In serving others. In a way, washing the feces from Will’s fur, or holding him through a seizure, or seeing him awaken to wonder again—every bit of it was humbling. All of it seemed like some kind form of atonement, and I began to take comfort even in the unpleasant tasks.
I used to worry so much about changing my family when I was young, or Newburyport when I was older, but I was learning that the best way to change this world is to change yourself and your perception of it.
We woke up to a mild morning on our last day on the Cape. It was still dark out. The stars to the west were hung with care, and they looked down on us when we went outside to await the sun. The eastern sky went from dark to gray, and when a flicker of flame sparked the horizon it was like someone spilled orange paint on the heavens and it was spreading up. When the sun appeared it was enormous and the water and the atmosphere burned pink. Atticus and I sat next to each other, and Will skipped in his distinctive way to the sun. The higher it climbed, the stiller he stayed. When it was all the way out of the water, he tilted his head as the blinding reflection reached across the ocean to meet him. He pulsated and tensed, and ducked his body as well as he could. When he was at his lowest, he sprang up in slow motion and tried to leap. His front legs danced in front of him while his rear legs stayed where they were, planted on the sand. Three times he kicked his legs out as far as he could, and then he turned in our direction. I walked over to him and he readied his body for me to heft him up. In my arms, he sat in the crook of my right elbow. We looked at the sun together, just as we had looked out at the horizon a few months earlier from the ledges of Pine Mountain.
“Will, I’m glad you liked the ocean. Maybe we will come back again next winter. What do you say?”
In response he tucked his head against my neck.
7
An Uninvited Guest
Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
—HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A question can change a life. It can inspire us, send us in a new direction, and wake up a tired heart. A question can have lasting effects that send ripples out across the world. Goodness knows I asked Will questions all the time—not that he could hear any of them.
“Could you please show me who you are?”
“Can’t you see I’m trying to help you?”
“How do I make the pain go away?”
The question that changed Will’s life, however, didn’t come from me.
Four simple words. They were enough to start a movement. You wouldn’t think something so small would have lasting consequences. Then again, we’re talking fairy tales here.
“Are these for Will?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are the flowers for Will, or are they for you?”
“They’re for Will, but what difference does that make?”
“When they’re for Will, I pick out more fragrant flowers. When they’re for you, I choose flowers that are nice to look at.”
That in a nutshell is the magic of Dutch Bloemen Winkel. The Dutch “Flower Shop” is a Jackson surprise. As charming as our covered bridges, country inns, and the little white church are, it’s a tiny flower shop in the center of the village that has the most charm. All year long, but especially in the fairer seasons, brides-to-be from across New England descend on the small shop to order flowers for their weddings. Jackson is a favorite place for those who are getting married. The scenery is straight out of a postcard. The inns are something out of old movies set in New England. Weddings in our little town are all the rage.
The morning I went in to buy flowers for Will, Carrie Scribner, the owner, wasn’t there, but Orly, one of her employees, was. Like most of the people Carrie employs at her shop, Orly has a rare kindness about her and is a fitting extension of Carrie. Not that Orly isn’t special on her own, but I think that Carrie’s kindness rubs off on people.
Carrie is like Monsieur Perdu in the novel The Little Paris Bookshop, a self-proclaimed “apothecary of books,” but her specialty is knowing just the right flowers to prescribe for a spirit in need of a lift.
On top of being an artist, Carrie is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. With her husband, Joe, their young son, Grey Bern, and Tulip and Toad, two black French bulldogs, they have created their own magic in their rustic home on the side of a mountain. When I chose to sidestep drama in my life and avoid those who drain others, I also made an active choice to spend time with people who embrace life. So while Carrie’s flowers were always striking, the woman behind them was equally so, as was her friendship. All one has to do is walk in the door of the shop to feel special.
I have come to like the civility of flowers in a home and appreciate the feminine burst of nature. They
add elegance to our modest life. You may not find much hanging on our walls, but the bookshelves are full, and the vases are islands of loveliness.
A town is right for me when there is an honest mechanic, a good bookshop, an empathetic vet, and an intuitive florist. In Jackson, we had Dutch Bloemen Winkel and the Wildcat Service Station, while White Birch Books and Rachael Kleidon were near enough in North Conway. There wasn’t much else I needed.
In a simple arrangement of flowers, Will found the entire universe. He needed little else to raise him up and take him somewhere else. They were his drug of choice, whether he was out in the yard, responding to the call of every unknown wildflower and aromatic weed, or inside, admiring a mason jar full of life.
So I decided to plant my first garden that spring. It was a small patch of wildflowers, only three feet by ten. Will watched me as I used a pitchfork to turn the soil, raked it free of weeds and rocks, and dropped to my knees to plant the seeds. The package promised a mixture of flowers, and I wasn’t sure what would come up, except at the far end, where I also planted pumpkins.
Pumpkins ripening in late summer and early autumn feel like New England to me. Like flowers for Will, they simply make me happy. Since living in Jackson, I always put out pumpkins, not only for me, but for the wildlife to nibble on at night.
The garden served three purposes: flowers for Will; pumpkins for the bears, raccoons, skunks, and me; and something for the butterflies and bees.
When Will looked at me on all fours, my hands rich with soil, I said to him, “This is for you, Wildflower Will. Your own garden.”
We watched the daily progress. First came little green shoots, and then the buds shyly showed their faces, before a full bloom surprised us one morning. They were small but hopeful. Others came up taller, even looking like weeds, but pretty nonetheless. Will didn’t care what they looked like; he cared what they smelled like. As the garden matured, I’d find him pushing his way into the middle of it to sit and look around. I’d find him sleeping among the blooms many an afternoon.
