The Dog That Talked to God

by Jim Kraus

  And talking to Rufus was like talking to a precocious five-year-old who knew the names of every dinosaur that ever walked the earth but couldn’t tie his shoes or make it to the bathroom in time every time. Rufus, like that child, was remarkably poised, and terribly articulate on some subjects, and then, much like the average American five-year-old at times, speaking in baby terms. I could be like that as well. I knew how to write a novel, but balance a checkbook? Well, for me, that seemed as difficult as speaking Russian . . . underwater. In the winter. “Rufus,” I said, my voice now under control, “humans have to know each other a long time before they do . . . that. Most humans, I guess. At least, the humans I know. Some go faster. But that’s not normal. I guess. At least to me, it isn’t.”

  One of my guilty pleasures was my three-year subscription to People magazine. Hollywood types, it seems, bedded and moved on to the next person at an alarming rate. How would any of them keep it all straight, I wondered. And how discouraging it seemed to me to read that a pair broke up because “it wasn’t fun anymore.” One Hollywood actress in a failed marriage had actually said that. As if it was noble to leave the other person because you stopped laughing and the sex became normal.

  Don’t get me started.

  “I would never do that with someone if I wasn’t married to him.” I explained to Rufus.

  Rufus did not appear to hold onto his hurts or slights much longer than a moment—and he may not have taken any offense to begin with. After sniffing a browning geranium, he looked up and asked, “What is ‘married’ ?”

  Well, what is that? How does one explain it to a species that does not mate for . . . well, for any length of time?

  “ ‘Married’ means saying the other person is so special that you make a promise that you will be with him forever and never be with another person. You get married to someone with all your friends and family watching. So they can share in your happiness.”

  Rufus gladly accepted a tossed treat.

  “And then you mate?”

  I sighed.

  Rufus wasn’t being prurient at all. He was just trying to figure out humans using dog perceptions.

  “Yes, Rufus. To me, to people who believe and follow God, marriage comes before mating.”

  Rufus snorted once, then once again.

  “Does God say that is the way it is supposed to be?” he asked.

  “He does.”

  “Okay.”

  And with that our conversation for the evening had ended. I believe we both had a lot to think about.

  6

  The next morning, Rufus and I went out for a short walk. He had never talked in the mornings and I did not expect otherwise today. I didn’t really pay attention to what went on around me—nothing, I am pretty sure—and Rufus became the beneficiary of my lack of awareness as I thought about the night before.

  Dating.

  How perfectly weird and abnormal is that? For a forty-plus widow woman, that is.

  And here’s the rub: I didn’t consider what I had done as dating. I had seen one man, for less than an hour, over not-a- dinner. So this had been a semi-date. No one expected anything to follow after the semi-date. There would not have to be any second meetings with Brian, unless we both thought that it wouldn’t be horrible. He could call, he might not call, and the world would continue to spin on its axis.

  Did I want him to call me?

  I don’t know. I knew I would have to have an answer before Ava called me the following morning, so I actually had set the alarm an hour earlier and had my first cup of coffee at 5:00 a.m. It was so early that Rufus did not even follow me downstairs. A few minutes later, he did stumble down, but only after he heard the refrigerator door open. That meant his chance of a snack increased exponentially.

  I had hoped that the quiet and the early hour and the night’s sleep would help me sort things out and put things into perspective.

  It did no such thing.

  Brian had been very nice . . . and while I did not expect there to be fireworks, they would have been nice.

  Maybe it is different the second time. Maybe there can be no fireworks. Maybe it is a different form of attraction, of affection, and perhaps, even a different form of love . . .

  I must have tossed a dozen treats to Rufus during our six-block walk. The tossing—done purely out of habit.

  Once home, I made a second cup of coffee. I resisted the urge to check e-mails. I could be sure that Brian had not e-mailed me, but . . . there I felt that deep desire to be desired. Like accepting a job offer for a job you really don’t want, but you accept it anyway because they wanted you and that felt really, really good. I tried to sort out my feelings, but nothing sorted. Ideas and thoughts flashed about.

  The phone rang and nearly knocked me off the chair. Even Rufus jumped up in his crate in surprise.

  It was 5:45.

  In the morning.

  Who calls this early? And it better not be him. Or Ava.

  I have this nifty phone system that announces who is calling in a weird, sort of French-accented computer voice.

  “Arizona call,” the voice announced, with a chopped, dispassionate French tone. “Arh-a-zonuh cahl.”

  Arizona? Who do I know that lives in . . .

  I shut my eyes.

  Oh, Lord, no . . .

  I walked over to the desk. Rufus cowered in his crate, perhaps thinking I was going to lock him in or something.

  I picked up the phone and pressed TALK.

  “Hello?”

  “Mary? Is that you?”

  It was my mother-in-law, or, I guess, legally, my former mother-in-law.

  “Bernice? How nice to hear from you.”

  “Mary?”

  Who else would be answering my phone at 5:45? A burglar?

  “Yes, it’s Mary. How are you, Bernice?”

  “What time is it there?”

  Bernice is a well-enough educated woman. She always asked the same question when calling from Arizona. Her son, her late son, explained the time difference perhaps a hundred times to her—even making her a map with the two cities listed: Wheaton and Mesa—and what time it would be in both of them.

  It made no difference. It never had.

  “It’s 5:45, Bernice.”

  “In the morning?” she said shrilly, her tone incredulous. “Are you sure? I called early because I didn’t want to miss you.”

  I never go out. Once, and only once in the past three years, I had missed one of her infrequent calls. She had grown frantic that time, imagining that I lay dead at the bottom of the stairs.

  “I didn’t wake you, did I?” she asked. Jacob’s parents were early risers, but I would have bet that she set her alarm for extra early this morning.

  And then I realized why she might be calling.

  Lord, please let me be wrong. Please. Oh, please, please.

  “Who was that man you were with last night, Mary? You were on a date? Is that it?”

  It is why she’s calling. Good heavens above, she knows. She already knows.

  A thousand thoughts swirled about, as if I were trapped in a windstorm of neuroses—and I could not assemble my thoughts into a string to produce a rational response.

  “He was . . . I mean, he is . . . the friend of a friend.”

  I could hear her sharp intake of breath.

  “So you’re dating now? Is that it? Already?”

  I sat down on one of the stools by the counter. I could feel my face begin to flush, my fingers tremble, guilty over something that I hadn’t done, guilty over sinning against my dead husband.

  “I wouldn’t have called it a date, Bernice. Honest.”

  “That’s not what Lena said. She was there. She saw the whole thing. And Lena does not lie, Mary. She goes to church. She’s as honest as they come.”

  I used my free hand to massage the already-tightening muscles in my neck. If I didn’t work on them now, they would start to spasm, and I would have to take to my bed with a heating pad. Or woul
d I need an ice pack? It didn’t really matter. When the tightness happened, nothing would help—except time.

  “Bernice, all I did was have coffee and a piece of pie with a nice gentleman. And how does Lena know that he’s not my insurance agent or financial planner or . . .”

  “Is he either of those things?”

  “No,” I replied, feeling guiltier, like I was trying to find an acceptable alibi.

  “Well, then, it’s not very Christian to tell fibs like that.”

  “I’m not. But Lena didn’t see . . . what she saw.”

  “She did too. She’s a God-fearing Christian woman, Lena is, and if she saw you on a date, then you were on a date.”

  I had no reply. I had been on a date. A semi-date, but it would have been too hard to explain the difference.

  “Okay, Bernice. I admit it. It was a date. It’s been three years. It’s been a long time.”

  Bernice remained silent. Not quiet, but silent.

  “We just talked. Honest. It felt good to talk.”

  Bernice drew in a sharp breath. That I could hear.

  “You can’t talk at Bible study? Which you don’t attend anymore, either. Lena goes. You don’t.”

  I tried to place Lena. The name was familiar, but I could not recall an image. I would have guessed mousy hair, brown, done in helmet style, with longish dresses that could only be the product of a Sew-Rite pattern book, hand-sewn with a few crooked seams—but only where they don’t really show.

  Stop being so mean, Mary. You’re horrible.

  “I know, Bernice. I’m struggling with writing a book. It’s hard.”

  I did not like lying to my former mother-in-law, but if she could throw guilt around, so could I. “Sales haven’t been as good as they have been in the past. Keeping up with all the expenses is a real struggle. I’ll . . . I’ll probably have to sell this place eventually. Too expensive for me to maintain.”

  Actually, I was doing mostly okay, I guess. There had been insurance and all that. Eventually, I would probably sell this house—more because it had become way too big for me, rather than purely for financial reasons.

  “Well, if you’re running out of money, running to a new man is not the answer. We could afford to send . . . I don’t know . . . maybe a hundred dollars a month. We don’t need to eat out as often as we do.”

  We were playing a tennis match of guilt.

  “No. I wouldn’t think of it. I’ve been thinking of looking for a job. Have a steady income—rather than wait on royalties.”

  “Well . . . Mary . . . I guess it has been a while. It’s just so hard. You know. It’s like I don’t want to admit that they’re gone.”

  She is good. She really is.

  I bucked up, pinched my cheek, refused to cry.

  I am terrible.

  “I know, Bernice. It is hard. But we only had coffee . . .”

  “And pie. You said pie.”

  “And pie, yes. I don’t think he’ll call again. But it was nice to talk. You have George, after all. You have companionship.”

  I would have sworn Bernice snorted. A derisive snort, at that.

  “Sure. We talk. All the time. He’s a regular talking machine, George is. Yak, yak, yak. That’s all he does is talk. Can’t get him to shut up.”

  I recognized her tone as sarcastic. George, at his most gregarious, was no more than monosyllabic. I never understood how the two of them produced such a wonderful son. Sometimes the acorn gets carried off by a fast-moving squirrel and planted in some other, entirely different, and more humane garden plot, tended to by kind and gentle farmers who till the earth with grace and love.

  “I’m glad you called, Bernice. I’ll keep you posted on the news. I’ll send an e-mail. You are reading e-mails, right?”

  Another snort.

  “George says there’s a virus and I tell him to call that Greek Squad place and he won’t because they charge money and George swears he’ll get it fixed himself.” She drew in a breath, as if she had emphysema, which she didn’t. “So no, we’re not getting e-mails. Print it out and mail it to me, Mary. Mail, we get.”

  I promised I would and clicked the phone off, and then stared at Rufus, who had slept through the entire conversation. There would be no asking him questions about it this evening, that’s for sure.

  Ava called ten minutes later.

  At 6:15 a.m.

  I don’t think she ever woke up that early for anything else.

  “So . . . ,” she said, drawing out the word long enough to color it up with several sexual innuendos, if I had been that type of person—which, of course, I was not.

  The early hour, the odd subject, guilt, an already jittery, caffeinated nervous system—I mean, that all takes its toll on logic, reason, and The Chicago Manual of Style.

  Blast you, Strunk and White.

  “So . . . what?” I responded, feeling all clever and witty.

  I am being sarcastic. Or is that ironic? Too early in the day for either, I imagine.

  Ava was many things, but she was not a fish that took the shiny, easy bait. She would wait in the cool, deep shadows, before snapping.

  “How uncomfortable were you?”

  “Not at all, really. That is . . . until Bernice called this morning.”

  “Bernice? Your Bernice?”

  She had snapped at the bait, the shiny lure with a barb.

  I related our conversation, and despite the early hour, Ava laughed heartily, not just from the absurdity of it all, but from picturing Bernice in her tattered housecoat—worn because of parsimony, not poverty—and a set of curlers from Woolworth’s in her hair. She still had curler sets that dated back to the Eisenhower administration.

  After we both stopped laughing (and I admit that I felt guilty for laughing, though I am sure Ava did not), she asked me again, “So?”

  “The date went fine, Ava. I liked being out again. I felt grown up and not in a bad way. But I don’t know if I’m feeling what I’m supposed to be feeling. I know it can’t be like it was, but what happens now? There’s no fireworks—that I get. But what should there be, then?”

  Ava didn’t have any answers for me. I didn’t expect them. She once admitted that there were no fireworks with her first husband, and there weren’t any with Dr. Tom, either.

  Maybe Ava was just not the fireworks sort of woman.

  I wonder if Rufus knows what fireworks are.

  Oh, that’s right, he does. He hates them. Last Fourth of July, we spent most of the evening walk spastically lurching into bushes every time another bottle rocket whizzed up into the warm summer night.

  I guess I shouldn’t ask him about expecting fireworks then.

  I spent the day sitting at my computer, straightening up my desktop, moving Word documents into folders and folders into other folders, getting thing uncluttered. I even spent nearly an hour just eliminating old e-mails, like the video of the surprised kitten in the shoebox and the monkey that plays the piano. I know I’m too sentimental. It is hard to get rid of the past.

  Not that my organizational frenzy extended to my real office. No, the office stayed an undisciplined mess. Jacob had pushed me to be more ruthless. “You use most of your office for long-term storage, sweets. You have an open space on your desk the size of a postcard—and not one of those big ones, either. I don’t see how you can produce anything clear and pithy in such disorder.”

  Of course, I laughed when he said pithy. I mean, how many people use the word pithy on a regular basis, if ever? I had heard Jacob use it more than once, for sure, and laughed every time.

  Okay, so I am an arrested adolescent.

  Pithy.

  You have to admit it’s a funny word.

  And the office was a mess. I had scrapbooks and photo albums on the top shelf of the closet, which no one could access because you had to remove the shelf below to get at it. They were lost in plain sight. And the other closet, I filled with all manner of paper that I would never, ever use—like thick, yellow card
stock. Why in the world did I buy that in the first place? Might have been for a potential school project by my son. School remained out of the question, but I could not get rid of that thick, yellow paper. It was perfectly good—just not usable to me.

  Maybe if I held a garage sale, I could get rid of all the odd bits and pieces that were clogging up my life.

  Who am I kidding? That will never happen. It’ll take a bomb or something.

  That night, after a totally unproductive day trying to plot out the second act of a book that I hoped some generous publisher might buy, Rufus and I went for our walk. The book, in the Amish genre, was a stand-alone novel about a beautiful Amish girl . . .

  Wait a second. Didn’t I already write this one?

  Of course, the plot felt similar to an earlier book, but not identical. In this one, the beautiful Amish girl actually had a twin who had been separated at birth from her sister. The worldly sister gets involved in drug smuggling . . .

  I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t make any sense at all.

  But my desktop was neat and tidy and I felt a small wave of accomplishment lap at my feet.

  And now, in the cold, in the dark, with Rufus almost bounding about, I felt normal again, at peace. No books. No dates. No Arizona phone calls. I sucked in great gulps of the coldness, exhaling great clouds of breath into the night air. The air was cold, not too cold, just gloves-cold, not yet mitten-cold with a scarf.

  Brian had not called. I truly and honestly did not expect him to call. I knew he would wait at least a day. I am sure both Ava and Dr. Tom counseled him on not acting too eager, not wanting to scare the skittish fawn off into the deep forest.

  Fawn? Who am I kidding?

  They probably told him not to make the old, grizzled, arthritic doe skedaddle out of the cornfield and into the next cornfield. They were being honest.

  So he would not call today, and probably not tomorrow. The third day—that’s when he would call. If he called. There were no guarantees. He may have felt no chemistry either. He may not have felt any fireworks.