“You’re the best boy,” I said. “Don’t worry; I’ll make sure you’re okay.” He wagged his tail and reached up to lick my face, paying special attention to the water coming from my eyes. I felt lucky to have him. I had caught a blessing—for to have earned the trust of a beaten dog is to own the heavens.
* * *
Sam thought it only fitting to accompany me to the vet for the surgery. I had called him after I made an appointment for the following afternoon.
“Of course I want to support him through this,” he said. “I know how I’d feel if that were—oh, right, never mind.”
The pink Cadillac pulled into my driveway right on time. There is only one vet in Fleetbourne, Dr. Susan Greenberg, Dr. Susan, as she is called by Fleeties prone to reducing the names of fellow citizens to characters who sound like they are in children’s books. Her office—converted from a weathered white beach house—was only a few blocks away.
Once in the examining room, she greeted me with a quick hug, then took a long look at the dog, running her fingers over his body, checking his eyes and ears.
“He looks wonderful,” she declared. “His skin is healing; his fur has a shine to it—he’s quite a handsome dog, isn’t he!”
Sam and I beamed with pleasure as she made notes in his chart. “So what did you name him?”
“I haven’t named him yet,” I said.
“I suppose you’re waiting for the perfect name to come along,” she said. I didn’t want to tell her that actually I had been waiting for the perfect home to come along and then have his new owner name him, so he didn’t get confused.
After a thorough examination, Dr. Susan was satisfied he was finally healthy enough for surgery.
“I’ll do it this afternoon—you didn’t feed him, right?” I nodded. “Good, so we’ll go ahead and then keep him overnight on painkillers, and you can pick him up first thing in the morning,” she said.
I turned to leave and noticed that Sam had a funny look on his face. “Is something wrong?” I asked him.
“Just the thought of it,” he said, shuddering.
“Oh, all the guys get squeamish like that,” the vet said, laughing. “They take it so personally.”
I had grabbed my purse, ready to leave, when someone knocked on the exam room door.
“Come in!” Dr. Susan called out.
It was the receptionist. “Officer Joe Miranda—you know, Animal Control—is here to talk to you,” she said to Dr. Susan.
“Animal Control?” the vet repeated, surprised.
“Well, actually, he followed the pink car here. He has some sort of alert on both the car and Aila’s dog,” the receptionist said.
We all went outside to talk to them. The dog was being impounded, Officer Joe apologetically explained to us, and since the animal hospital was where all impounded dogs were boarded, he had come straight here to save time. I was appalled.
“They can’t do this,” I insisted. “He’s having surgery and he needs a clear mind and besides, he’s . . . he’s innocent.”
Officer Joe, a regular at the Galley, was sympathetic. “I have to do it,” he said. “I’ve seen him at the store and he seems like a great dog, but until this is straightened out I have to follow the law. I have a complaint that he viciously attacked a man and I have to impound him until we straighten it out.”
“That’s crazy,” Sam interjected. “Don’t you need proof? I was there. He just barked.”
Officer Joe pulled a white summons from a clipboard and handed it to me. “I’m really sorry.”
I stuffed it into my handbag. “I won’t let you take him away,” I said angrily.
“He’s already here,” Dr. Susan pointed out.
Officer Joe studied his clipboard. “Male dog. Rust-colored fur. Is he neutered?”
“In about an hour,” Dr. Susan said.
Officer Joe checked it off. “His name?” he asked.
“He doesn’t have—” Sam started.
“Yes, he does,” I interrupted him. “Of course he has a name,” I said indignantly, and looked around at the small crowd of people in the waiting room—Sam, Dr. Susan, the receptionist, Officer Joe—and the dog.
“What is it?” everyone asked at the same time.
I had to think. It had to be a perfect name because he was the perfect dog. Despite how he had suffered, he turned out to be gentle, dignified, smart, and affectionate. He was always well behaved at the Galley. If we were apart for the evening, I could look forward to his joyful greeting when I got home, even if it was accompanied by a sprinkling of garbage. He was the best company when we sat on the pier together. And when I reached across the bed at night, he was always there, large and warm and snoring and comforting, keeping my nightmares at bay.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t conceive—didn’t want—a life without him.
I . . . loved . . . him.
I looked at his scarred and broken skin struggling to grow new, fresh fur, met his eyes as he looked up at me with love and trust. I ran my hand over his square box head, his powerful jaws that carefully took treats from my hand with such tenderness, his powerful, muscular body, even more bulked up from running on the beach every day. And his ears, oh, his poor ears, one ear ripped off . . . one ear cruelly cut in half. One ear . . . one ear . . . And then I knew. I knew his name as clearly as if he had whispered it to me.
“Vincent!” I exclaimed with finality. “His name is Vincent.”
Chapter 19
Vincent spent a week in jail.
Even though the first thing I did after I left Dr. Susan’s office was call Lawrence LaSalle, LLD, the lawyer Shay had mentioned, Vincent and his new name spent their first week together incarcerated.
But I was lucky. Even though impounded dogs are usually kept in isolation, Dr. Susan did me a favor by allowing me to visit Vincent, who, newly neutered and groggy from painkillers, sleepily greeted me with a thorough licking every day.
“I can’t remember the last time they impounded an animal,” Dr. Susan said to me over lunch, a modified version—no anchovies—of the Sandwich that I brought her from the Galley. “Though I seem to remember a potbellied pig that escaped into someone’s backyard last year and ate all their cherry tomatoes. He was caught running down the middle of Beach Five with red stains all over his body, like a serial killer.”
“Doesn’t there have to be a bite mark?” I asked, wondering if the salesman had somehow faked one from Vincent.
“No bite marks,” she replied. “He just ate them all. Two whole bushes.”
* * *
Despite several frantic phone calls from me, it took the lawyer several days to call me back. He spoke in a deep, measured voice that immediately made me feel reassured.
“Did Shay tell you anything about me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “She said your name was Lawrence LaSalle, LLD, and that you sang flat.”
He laughed. “My reputation precedes me. But they needed a baritone, so they got what they got.”
He explained that he was a Boston trial lawyer, had actually been thinking of a long-overdue visit to Shay and Terrell, and so decided to combine a business and pleasure trip into his crammed schedule that coming weekend. “Shay gave me a vague idea of what’s happening,” he said. “Now, who was supposed to be the terrorist? You or your dog?”
“A friend of mine,” I answered. “He’s a wounded vet. He just wanted to buy a truck.”
“Why would that create a problem?” he asked.
“His family is from Jordan, so he has a Muslim name,” I explained. “And then he told the salesman he was Muslim. The salesman accused him of buying trucks for ISIS.”
“Wow. I see.” He then gave me a list of things he needed: a full narrative with the date and time, Sam’s version, a copy of Vincent’s dog license and health history, a copy of Sam’s driver’s license, and anything else I wanted to add. In the meantime, he would have an assistant do some investigating.
“We can
meet as soon as I get a hole in my schedule and go over your options,” he said. “It’s obviously a ploy to scare you off from filing a civil suit over that salesman’s behavior.”
“We should discuss fees first,” I said, worried.
“Ah, yes, fees.” He paused for a moment. “Shay once told me your specialty is some kind of weird sandwich. I love weird sandwiches, so, if you are in agreement, we can negotiate a few of those.”
* * *
It was a slow-moving week. I missed Vincent terribly and worried constantly about what he was thinking.
“I don’t want him to feel I abandoned him,” I told Shay while we were setting the Galley up for the day.
“Listen, you’re doing the best you can,” she reminded me. “Vincent is in good hands, in a safe place with someone you totally trust. It’s not like he’s eating cold gruel every day and making license plates.”
Little consolation. My nightmares came back. Boats slipping under the water, venomous sharks circling the pier, Dan and my father swimming out to sea under a full moon that suddenly disappears. I would bolt from my bed and throw on a jacket and race down the beach to sit on the pier. I felt safer there than in my own bed. It was like sitting with an old friend; the creaky, swaying wooden boards stretching across the moving water brought me back to myself. I watched the moon wax gibbous, night after night, watching it grow increasingly ominous, becoming a presence in the sky, menacing, stronger, turning the beguiling, winking crescent it once was into a traitorous full moon.
* * *
Mrs. Skipper came in not long after Vincent was impounded, a satisfied smile playing on her lips as she picked out her groceries and returned to the front of the store to order her morning Danish.
“Good thing you got rid of that dog,” she said approvingly, tugging her old blue sweater across her shoulders as though it were going to shield her from danger. She set down her shopping basket.
“He’s just on vacation,” I said airily. “He’ll be back soon.” I picked up a bakery tissue and put two cherry Danishes into a white bakery bag.
“He was vicious,” she added, emptying her groceries onto the counter.
“I’ve known people who were more vicious than he could ever be, Mrs. Skipper,” I retorted, looking her straight in the eye.
She raised her eyebrows at this. My remark didn’t sit well with her at all. Shay was writing the Marine Conditions on the whiteboard and turned around to give me a surprised look.
“Are you implying that I’m vicious?” Mrs. Skipper raised her chin, ready for combat.
“Just saying that I know people who are.” And then I couldn’t help myself. “By the way, I checked those videos and there wasn’t one second that you and he were together.” I raised my chin, too. “He was behind the counter the whole time.” It was a lie—I had just gotten the cameras installed by a local handyman the day before—but she had no way to know that.
She squinted her eyes just a tiny bit. Then she cleared her throat. “You know,” she started, “I knew your family right down to your great-grandparents.”
I stopped checking out her groceries. “Yes, you did,” I replied evenly.
“And,” she added, “I know your grandmother was crazy as a loon. In fact, all the DeCastros were crazy.”
DeCastro had been my grandmother’s maiden name. Though I felt a rush of anger, I shrugged and smiled. “She just liked to sing, Mrs. Skipper. Like some people like to gossip. It made her feel fulfilled.” I finished totaling her order and started bagging it.
“Aaand,” she continued, her voice rising to make sure I could hear her over the crinkle of paper, “you’re crazy, just like her. You were a crazy little kid, and you’ve never outgrown it.” She leaned forward so I would get the full effect of her next words. “Tell me, do you still stand in the bay and scream for her? How long did that go on? Two, three months?” She counted out the exact change, took her packages, and headed for the door, pausing in front of it. “Everyone knows you sit on the pier all night. Who are you waiting for?” She opened the door and the bell tinkled wildly. “Crazy is crazy,” she ended. “It never goes away. Good day, dear.”
* * *
How right she was. You don’t outgrow crazy. It has followed me like the tail on a dog. After I beat up Tommy his revenge was to tell anyone in school who would listen that I was crazy like my grandmother. Every social gaffe I made after that was seen through the filter of madness. Of course, my grandmother, toking away her days and nights, submerged in water up to her hips, while her white hair blew wildly in the wind, only added to my reputation.
If I were superstitious, I would have stayed indoors that night. You are not supposed to talk about the dead, it summons them, but I didn’t know that then. I had barely eaten dinner; it had become such a habit to share it with Vincent that it didn’t seem worthwhile to even prepare. The house felt hollow without him, how could I once ever have thought to give him up! I loved him so. I left the kitchen and went outside. The moon was robustly full, and though I didn’t really have the courage to endure it alone, I sat in the rocker on the deck and faced the bay.
The moon was leering over the still, black water. There were dark smoke clouds clustering together like a conspiracy before drifting across the sky, reaching toward the moon, in order to cloak its murderous luminescence. I sat very still in my chair, very alone, looking up, unable to turn my face away. The moon became a Cyclopean eye peering into my soul. It knew I was there. It had been a night such as this, still, calm, that the moon drew my father and Dan out to sea, reassuring them, making promises that it would be the perfect night to boat and fish before it betrayed them to the oncoming storm.
How I missed them all, my grandmother, my father, my mother, my husband. Yes, I wanted them all returned. I loved them, crazy or foolish as they were. I closed my eyes and thought if I concentrated, if I wished hard enough, maybe I could call them in. Maybe they could ride the waves to the beach and just come home.
A wind started up and I could see the white-fringed waves coming toward the shore, then leaving their lace prints behind as the water retreated. It was hypnotic to hear their rhythmic lapping against the sand and see the slow, inexorable rising of the bay as it crept toward me, starting its journey to high tide. And then, in the cloud-broken moonlight, a visage, a dark figure, its head and shoulders rising slowly as the water streamed off, leaving it slick and ominous, before it disappeared, only to appear again, even closer to the shore.
I stood, transfixed. My tongue was frozen to the roof of my mouth. The figure, substantial and solid, stopped, now standing staunch against the waves, the white foam swirling circles around it. The moon was tormenting me, barely allowing me to see. A dim figure, head and shoulders. Then suddenly joined by another. And another. My heart was pounding with apprehension as three, then four, rose from the sea, wavering for a moment before disappearing into the water, only to rise again, water streaming from their bodies as they faced me. A crevice of moonlight caught something and four pairs of eyes gleamed at me. Just for a moment. Just long enough for me to realize they had faces.
Oh! I knew. I knew who they were.
Oh God.
The ghosts of my family, finally returning to me.
Chapter 20
Sam’s voice sounded sleepy. “Aila?”
“I need to talk,” I gasped. “Please. Just talk to me.”
He was awake in an instant, on full alert. “What’s wrong?”
My voice betrayed my fear. “It’s just such a bad night. I can’t—”
“I’ll be right there,” he cut me off. “Hang on. I’m coming over.”
I was sitting in the kitchen now, the back door open, waiting. I had to talk to someone and didn’t want to wake Shay. I knew she went to sleep early, and there was no one else. I used to call my mother.
A car pulled up, I didn’t even rise from my chair; I knew who it was. No one comes to the beach at night, except the very lonely. Everyone sleeps; everyone else is
content enough to leave the moon and the tides and the water alone to do whatever business is necessary for their survival. I am the only one who sits on the pier. Except for Sam.
He didn’t bother to knock; he just let himself in. I stood up to greet him, but he swept me into his arms before I could utter a word.
“You’re all right,” he said, breathing his relief against my face, stroking my hair, my back. “Thank God you’re all right. I didn’t know what to think.”
He stood back to look at me more carefully. “What’s wrong?”
I instantly felt foolish. “There was something out there—in the bay. Coming close to shore,” I said. “Several of them. I don’t know who they are.”
“You have a flashlight?” He was a soldier. Instantly ready to patrol. And protect.
I pulled one out of a kitchen drawer and he took it and, without another word, left through the back door, snapping it shut behind him.
I am not the type to pace the floor and wring my hands in useless emotion. I grabbed a knife and followed him.
“I see them!” he called to me as he headed toward the water, his cane clicking against the wet, hardpacked sand. “I see four of them.”
I couldn’t breathe. “Sam. Wait!” My mouth was so dry, I could barely call to him. I didn’t want him to stand there and face them alone. I raced down the steps and across the sand to his side. He had placed himself on the gravel, away from the water—I realized the water would damage his leg—and he was holding his cane unsteadily under his arm, fumbling with the flashlight, until it suddenly snapped on. The beam fell across the black figures. They turned to him, in unison, their large, blank sea eyes glowing in the light.
“Seals!” he shouted. “Seals! They’re just seals!”
And they were. I had never seen grey seals come so far into this part of the bay, but tonight they had. Rising and slipping back into the black water and rising again, their true selves veiled by the clouds, there were four of them, silently watching me, heads and shoulders—if you can call them shoulders—sticking up from the surface, watching this crazy woman stare back at them.
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