by Jim Kraus
Viktor pulled up behind me.
“Ride okay?”
“Beautiful. I love it.”
Molly opened her door and I expected Rufus to bound out. Normally he would have. He didn’t take to cars well and the less time he had to spend in them, the better.
Molly kept petting him and whispering something to him.
I don’t know what came over me. But something did. Some power. Or courage. Or foolishness.
“Listen,” I said to Viktor, “I know this is really forward. But I have a big bowl of spaghetti planned for dinner. Well, I do now, anyhow. I’ll tell you upfront that the sauce is from a jar. But it is good sauce—for being out of a jar. And the cheese is imported. That’s what makes it good—wonderful cheese. Would you like to stay for a quick dinner? Molly and Rufus seem to be becoming fast friends.”
I could practically see inside Viktor’s mind. His eyes gave his thinking away. He wanted to, but did not want to be forward either. He wanted to, but he had to protect his daughter as well. He wanted to talk about his wife with someone who really understood, but was afraid to.
I was afraid too. When was the last time I invited a man for dinner? Like never, really.
I was thinking everything he was thinking. Do we have too much of a shared background? Am I—or is he—a nice person? Or perhaps quietly and dangerously crazy? Would there be too much pain?
Then he smiled. And I smiled back.
We both knew the answer.
“Sure. I would love that. I’m pretty sure Molly would love it too. She’s a big fan of spaghetti.”
“It’s not gourmet spaghetti. It’s just me doing the cooking.”
He leaned toward me, speaking softly.
“I am positive that Molly’s grandmother uses ketchup in her spaghetti sauce, so anything will be better than that. All the pressure is off, okay? Sauce from a jar, to me, is gourmet.”
After dinner, Viktor and I sat on the screened porch. Rufus and Molly were inside. The music from the introduction of SpongeBob SquarePants could be heard through the screen door.
“Is it okay if she watches that show? It’s been a long time since I had to monitor children’s TV. I mean, I know what the show is, but kids’ media is confusing.”
Viktor held his coffee cup away from the sofa as if he was afraid of spilling.
“It’s okay. Some of it is over her head. But I don’t think any of it is bad. I don’t think so. Maybe it’s borderline, but it’s hard to keep up with everything.”
Dinner had gone well. I had the spaghetti done quickly. I had French bread slathered in garlic butter to serve with it, and I made a small mixed-green salad as well. The adults ate the salad.
Conversation flowed easily. I asked Viktor about his business. He asked me about my work. I didn’t mention my book writing. I will, but to drag out books right now felt a little like bragging. He knew all about the Herald and had known Kistler Hibbs back in high school, though Kistler Hibbs had been four grades ahead of Viktor.
“That’s what everyone called him back then too. He would correct people. ‘It’s Kistler Hibbs,’ if you please.”
I offered to make more coffee. Viktor accepted, but added that after the coffee they would go. Molly’s bedtime during the summer was later, but they were getting into practice of going to bed earlier each day to get prepared for school hours.
We could hear the ocean tonight, a gentle thrumming, plus crickets. The occasional car drove down the street. I could hear music from my next-door neighbor’s house. They were an older couple who were partial to classical music. I had no idea of the composer.
“Mozart,” Viktor said. “Clarinet concerto in . . . something or other. B-flat, maybe.”
“I’m impressed,” I replied. Seriously. I was impressed.
“The result of a wasted childhood. I never played ball, just listened to classical music.”
“Really?” I replied, already angry at his parents.
He laughed quickly. “No. My mother taught music. That sort of music filled our house. I grew up with it. I got to play ball too.”
“That’s good. I was ready to be mad at them—your parents, I mean.”
We sat for a minute. Viktor sipped.
“This is nice,” he said. “After my wife . . . I was angry for so long. Maybe still am, a little. Angry at the doctors. Angry at myself. Angry at God. You know—angry at everyone.”
I knew exactly how he felt.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said.
“But I realized, over time, that it was nobody’s fault. It happened. The world is a broken place at times. I guess we all want God to keep us alive forever.”
“I know. I know what you mean,” I said.
“Eventually, I found peace in the pain. I had to. I have a daughter to raise. That peace keeps me solid now. I thank God for that.”
“So how did you get the peace?” I asked.
“I guess it came when I could finally acknowledge that God has a plan, that everything happens for a purpose, even if we don’t like it and don’t want it, and that he is still good—even when I don’t understand it all.”
I smiled at him, in the dark, and hoped that he saw me.
After a long moment, Viktor stood up.
“We have to be going. I don’t want to, but Molly has to have a schedule. If not, she doesn’t do well at all.”
I took his empty cup.
“This was very nice, Mary. It was very pleasant.”
We walked in on Molly and Rufus sitting on the sofa. Molly’s arm wrapped around Rufus, who sat upright, as if he was absorbed in the SpongeBob cartoon. He might have been. He understood more on TV than I gave him credit for. But cartoons might be hard to explain to him.
Rufus and I stood at the screen door, waving as they left.
I felt both more solid than I had in months, or years, and more nervous as well. The nervousness I understood. The solidity, I did not.
Rufus and I walked the beach that night, the tiniest hint of cooler weather in the breeze. I must have had a hundred questions in my mind, but did not feel like giving any of them voice.
Rufus did ask me one question though.
“How old is that little girl?”
“Molly. Her name is Molly.”
“Her name is hard for me to say.”
“Not much different than Mary.”
“I know. Mary is hard to say too.”
“Molly is five years old. Maybe six. If her mother has been gone for five years . . . yes, she’s probably six.”
“Her mother died,” Rufus said. “She told me she died.”
“Yes. I don’t know how. But she doesn’t have a mother now.”
“Oh.”
And that was all.
I sat on the porch by myself that night, and wrapped a throw around my shoulders. Rufus gave up on sitting beside me, or else he wanted to leave me alone. He might have been that caring. I found it harder, sometimes, to process emotions with his sad face staring at me.
Maybe this praying has done something to me. Maybe it has torn down a wall.
I felt . . . I want to say free . . . but that’s not it. I wanted to believe God is still good, like Viktor said. To feel lighter. And more solid. If God could do that for Viktor . . .
I looked up at the dark sky.
Dear God, I am sorry for being so . . . foolish. I am sorry for not talking to you. I am sorry for blaming you for what happened. Can you forgive me? I need your peace. Can you . . . ?
And that’s when I felt something break inside of me, something bad and harsh and cold and saw-edged and raspy and mean. It broke, it snapped, it started to crumble and splinter and dissipate.
And that’s when I started to cry. Not a sad cry, not a cry of pain, but a cry of release and relief. The tears fell for what I had lost, not only way back then, but in the years between then and now. I had lost me. I had lost my heart. My soul was damaged and broken and hidden.
And now, it felt as if li
ght was entering into my very being for the first time in years and years and years. I sat there, my shoulders hunched and my lungs gasping for air, and then it was gone and then I felt . . . normal again. Like I felt alive once more. Reborn, almost. No, it felt really like being reborn.
And that’s when Rufus slowly edged out onto the porch and stuck his cold nose into my calf and made me shriek like I had fallen into a vat of crystal-clear ice water.
We both jumped upright.
And I felt as good as I had ever felt in my life.
“Thank you, God. Thank you.”
22
The next day, just after lunch, my phone rang.
I should have invested in caller ID, but I remained in my frugal mode when I signed up for local, landline service.
I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hi. This is Viktor . . . from the scooter shop.”
How many Viktors does he think I know?
“Hi,” I replied, as cheery as I could make a one-syllable word.
“I called to see how the scooter is running.”
We both knew he lied. Not bad lying, but he didn’t care about the scooter at all—at least not for this call.
I knew why he called, but I would not make him squirm.
“Great.”
He paused. If we had been teenagers, I would have thought he frantically looked at his penciled sheet of handwritten conversation starters. I listened intently for the crinkle of paper. But all remained silent. .
“Listen,” he finally said, “. . . uhh . . . maybe we could . . .”
I decided to jump in.
“Viktor, would you like to come over and have dinner here tonight? I know it’s hard to get babysitters at the last minute. I would love to cook for someone other than just myself. I could make hamburgers. You could bring the chips and soda and maybe some potato salad?”
He paused again.
I prayed that I did not anticipate his positive response in error.
“I . . . I don’t know how to make potato salad.”
I managed to inhale.
“I don’t think I can either. I always buy mine. And maybe dessert? Key lime pie is a personal favorite of mine.”
I could see him smile through the phone.
“Mine too. Even Molly likes it.”
I own a grill the size of a paperback book, but if you’re only cooking four hamburgers, it works just fine. One each for the ladies, one and a half for the gentleman, and the remainder for the dog.
We sat around the kitchen table, passing chips and potato salad, Rufus going from Molly to me and back to Molly, trying to beg table scraps.
I only had to tell Molly once that Rufus should not be fed from the table. I know, I know, I do it all the time, and I would let Molly do it, eventually. But right now, she would probably give him her entire hamburger. My telling her once seemed to be enough. Every time Rufus sat beside her and stared up at her, Molly would slowly shake her head, her gloriously curly hair flowing like a cloud, and say, with great sorrow, “I am sorry, Rufus, I am not allowed to feed you.”
I am not sure what we talked about that night. But I do remember Molly laughing, her little girl giggles making us giggle as well, which made her laugh even harder. Laughter of a child—I had forgotten how magical it can be. Laughter both wondrous and bittersweet at the same time. I hid the bittersweet part deep in my heart, like a hidden treasure that was only for me.
After dinner, Molly and Rufus were dismissed to watch television. Viktor and I cleared the table.
“It is so good to see her laugh,” he said as he handed me a plate. “She doesn’t laugh much. Or hasn’t since . . . you know.”
I waited. I waited a bit more. Then I decided to ask.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
He shut his eyes. Kept them shut.
Then he said, “This is the short version. Molly was a year old. Karen cut her finger while cutting Molly’s birthday cake. Didn’t think anything of it. Didn’t heal quickly. Looked infected. Waited to go to the doctor. She was stubborn. A week later, I forced her to go. The wound developed a septic infection. She died three days later.”
My hand went to my throat.
“I am so sorry. I really am.”
“I know. I know you are, Mary. I could tell that the first time I met you.”
I had to hug him then, and he hugged me back. And all the pain that I had carried for so long seemed to flow out of me. I rested my head on his shoulder. He stroked my hair. I felt his arms around me. He felt solid and muscular under my arms. And warm. And tender. And gentle.
After a moment, he relaxed and let me go.
He looked into my eyes.
“Can I call you again?”
“Yes, Viktor. You can.”
The end of autumn brought some storms through Atlantic Beach, and a bout of chilly weather. Chilly in Atlantic Beach was T-shirt weather back in Chicago. At night, the beach felt nearly barren, save the lights of the homes that faced the ocean, and the occasional bonfire, with sparks flittering skyward and shadows dancing on the waves.
I had a sweatshirt on that night. I do not remember packing Rufus’s coat. He never asked about it, since it had never been that cold.
We walked north along the beach. It was our favorite route, the beach access easier because of sidewalks. The air stayed still, the waves made small catlike lapping noises on the beach, and the moon floated above the still water.
Rufus spoke first that night.
“Are you happy?” he asked. I’m sure he knew, but perhaps he felt the need to make sure.
I tried to be as honest as I could in my reply.
“I am, Rufus. I am very happy. Thank you.”
We walked up to the ruins of an old fishing pier. The city council had been discussing rebuilding it. Our newspaper reported that this round of discussion seemed to move the project much closer to a resolution.
Rufus stopped walking. He stared out over the ocean for a minute. A long minute. Dogs don’t stare much.
“I’m going to stop talking now,” he said, his words firm and solid.
I waited.
“You mean tonight? That’s fine,” I answered. Sometimes he talks a lot. Sometimes not much.
“No. I mean forever.”
I didn’t hear that correctly. I was sure what I heard was not what I heard.
“What?”
“It’s hard to do this,” he said.
“Hard to do what?”
“To talk. Most dogs don’t talk, you know. I need to be a dog again.”
“But you are a dog,” I replied. “A very good dog. You’re my best friend.”
“You have a new best friend.”
He was referring to Viktor.
“Are you going to marry him?”
I knelt down to Rufus.
“I don’t know. He has to ask me.”
“The little girl needs a mother, doesn’t she? You would be a very good mother. She needs a mother.”
“She does,” I said, trying not to cry.
“I like her a lot. She is very kind to me and very gentle. She never pulls on my ears. She talks to me. She tells me secrets. You should marry him.”
“He has to ask me to marry him.”
“Will you marry him if he asks you?”
“I will,” I nodded.
“He’ll ask you. I think that’s what the ‘victorious’ word was. It might have been Viktor. Maybe I heard it wrong.”
We both stared out to sea.
“I’m going to stop talking now.”
“But you’re my best friend, Rufus. In the whole world. You’re . . . I need you . . .”
“Not so much now. But I will always be your best dog, won’t I? I’ll be your best dog even if I don’t talk anymore? I like being your best dog.”
I hugged him with a fierce love.
“You will always be my best dog. Forever. I will always love you. You helped bring me back to God.”
“Thank you, Rufus. Thank you.”
And the breeze ruffled along the ripples in the sand, causing just the faintest hiss, and the moon glowed bright, lighting their way home. Rufus, a dog once again, a very good dog, walked home with his best friend, Mary.
23
Rufus stood to my side. It was early afternoon, in the spring, and the ocean reflected a gunmetal gray, quiet and gray, and the warm wind gently clattered the sea grass on the dunes. Clouds hovered above us, providing a white, comforting canopy.
Rufus wore a natty, striped bow tie around his neck, held there by a length of black elastic, which almost disappeared into his newly groomed coat. He did not want to wear it. That was obvious—even without words. He shook his head at first, trying to rid himself of the fashion accessory, until I took his jaw in my hands and stared into his eyes.
We were in my bedroom in my little house on Robin Avenue. He hadn’t talked in a long time, and I’d stopped expecting it. But I still talked to him. A lot.
“Rufus,” I said with some solemnity, “you have to wear this. Every member of the wedding party has to be properly dressed. That means bow ties on every dog in attendance.”
Rufus would be the only dog in attendance, but that was beside the point.
He looked back at me, then slowly settled, knowing, understanding.
“I know you won’t speak. It’s okay.”
He nuzzled into my neck.
“You listen to Molly, Rufus. You be her friend.”
He pushed into me harder.
“I am happy, Rufus. Viktor and Molly are so very happy. And . . . I know you are happy too.”
A small crowd gathered with us that Sunday afternoon. Everyone wore sandals or went barefoot. Ava had come. Beth had come. Bernice sent a beautiful bouquet. Viktor’s mother-in-law was there, hugging, crying, and hugging more.
Molly and Rufus walked down the imaginary aisle together.
Viktor and I followed them.
Molly stood on one side, Rufus on the other, as we said our vows . . . before God.
Oh, yes—and God was there as well.
