A Home for Goddesses and Dogs

by Leslie Connor

  I threw open the door.

  “Flashlights!” Eileen cried. She pulled out the kitchen drawer with such a bang it made me turn. She raised two flashlights—one in each fist.

  She and Aunt Brat rushed to catch up to me. Eileen grabbed her plaid and Aunt Brat her gray wool. Out the door we went and around to the back of the house. I dashed forward and led them into the woods.

  What a sight we must have been—three women running with our jackets flapping, boots half-tied. We ran through the woods toward the flooded stream. I waved my phone light overhead—because why not, and what else? Not like I had a plan.

  I reached the water and splashed forward. Cold and wet seeped in at the soles of Moss Capperow’s old brown boots. The headlights of the four-wheeler shone against the trees. The motor revved. I held up both hands—one with the light from my phone, the other, the bare flesh of my palm. I called out, “Halt!”

  The lights dimmed. The four-wheeler sat humming on the far side of the overfull stream. Aunt Brat and Eileen came up behind me. Both held flashlight beams on the Capperow uncle.

  “Cut it!” I yelled, meaning the engine. I made a slice with one hand across my throat. Oh, I was not used to this—telling an adult what to do. But I thought of Guffer, and I held my ground.

  “Please turn that off!” Aunt Brat hollered politely from behind my shoulder.

  “Shut her down!” Eileen reinforced.

  Capperow did as he was asked. The woods fell silent. He stood squinting into the beams of light that my women held on him.

  “You know Elloroy Harper?” I said. “He owns this land—the land you’re on right now.” The man was still. But I was sure he could hear me. “Y-you say this is about the dog. But the truth is, the dog hasn’t been any real trouble to you.” Moss would’ve told me.

  “Can’t take the chance,” the uncle said. “The dog doesn’t like this machine. So I’m fine with letting him know it’s here. He stays away.”

  “But you’re coming onto Elloroy’s land to do it,” Eileen said.

  “Yes! Makes you a bigger menace than the dog!” Aunt Brat called.

  “The dog is down—seriously down,” I called. “And it’s going to be a long time before he’s better.”

  Capperow grunted again. “What happened to him?”

  “Lumbar disk eruption,” Aunt Brat called.

  Eileen snorted. Under her breath she said, “Really, Brat? So formal?” She raised her voice. “He had back surgery. He’s got weeks of rehab. He’ll be no trouble to you—not that he ever was.” She stuck her chin forward.

  “We have to keep him still. That machine of yours terrifies him. He hears it from inside our house.” I jabbed my lit phone back toward home.

  Capperow’s chin lifted. He seemed to be listening.

  “We’d like to hear you tell us that you understand,” Aunt Brat said. “And that you’ll keep behind the wall. Off Elloroy’s property.”

  “Yeah,” said Eileen. “Hear what we say, now. Because last thing he wants to do is string a chain to keep you out.”

  “But he will if he has to!” I said. “So that’s the real question. Does he have to? It’s up to you, Mr. Capperow.” I was breathless now.

  He looked down at his feet. He pulled off his hat and slowly ran his hand over his flattened-down hair. He turned away, but he raised his hat into the air. A surrender? He climbed onto his four-wheeler. He cranked it up and spun away from us. We watched him bumping through the woods, over the rock wall and back to his own pasture. Gone.

  “Yes!” I shouted. I picked up my sodden foot and stamped it back down into the water. We cheered. We fell together, celebrating, our shoulders and elbows bumping, flashlight beams swinging like swords.

  “Here’s to Lyd-jah!” Eileen howled. “Huh-haw!”

  “Yes! For her fearlessness in taking on the malevolent green machine and its ignoble rider!” Aunt Brat said. She waved her flashlight overhead.

  “One for the Guff!” I called. “Woo-hoot!”

  We three linked arms and plodded back toward the trail, relieved and still reveling. I held my women up; they held me up.

  These are my goddesses, Mom! They won’t let me down! I will never fall down! . . .

  59

  When a Dog Comes Home

  On Friday morning, the three of us sat in the uncomfortable chairs at the veterinary hospital. Eileen cleared her throat and grumbled. “This sure is an old lesson,” she said.

  “What’s that?” asked Aunt Brat.

  “They don’t call waiting rooms ‘waiting rooms’ for nothing.”

  “Oh that,” said Aunt Brat. “Yes.”

  I sighed and raised my legs out in front of me. I knocked the toes of my good lime-green sneaker-boots together. The hem of my sweater coat was ringed in dried mud from the night before. Aunt Brat saw it too. She gave me a side-eye.

  “Could be time . . . ,” was all she said. For sure, this wasn’t the first time she’d had the thought that my sweater needed a good washing.

  “Hmm,” I said with a shrug. “I’d have to take it off.”

  She smiled the wry smile.

  Eileen fidgeted in her chair. “Where’s our dog?”

  Finally, we were called into the tiny examination room—and finally, our big yellow dog was helped in. My breath caught at the sight of him draped over a bright blue sling at his belly. There was a long patch shaved into his deep, deep fur. A zigzag of black stitches, maybe seven inches long, showed through a clear bandage.

  “Guffer,” I whispered.

  I thought I might never see you again. . . .

  The attendant let him down to a sitting pose and I crouched low to be with him. At first, our dog didn’t seem to recognize us. His golden-brown eyes bugged out, whites exposed. He gazed around the room but didn’t focus.

  “Guffer? Hey, buddy.”

  “He is still very sedated,” the attendant explained.

  So I knelt beside him, and I talked to him. Slowly, he seemed to come around. He mewed. He edged closer to me. Our foreheads touched. He let out a few sleepy, dog-talk sounds—a moan, a little yowl, then something more like braying. Then one single long howl, as I’d never heard from him before.

  Aunt Brat and Eileen and I laughed in sympathy; we almost cried. He acknowledged us then, even wagged his tail just a little while all three of us found a place on him that we could pat.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s been so long. But we’re going home, Guff. Do you remember home?”

  They showed us his gait—and let me say, it was awkward. His hinds buckled, and he listed to his left while he swung his right hind foot wide. His toes caught and turned under every other step. He didn’t seem to feel that.

  Was this really success? I think we all wondered. But the surgeon insisted all signs were positive. He’d get better and better.

  One thing was clear: Guffer had always wanted to charge forward, and he still wanted to. We decided that was a good sign.

  With our instructions in hand, we hoisted him into the car. He sat on the back seat with his big fur body leaning into my side—and didn’t I love that?

  Eileen read our instructions out loud while Aunt Brat drove. “Do not let the patient run,” Eileen said. “Keep him leashed at all times. Use the sling to help him get outdoors to void. Enjoy some fresh air with your pet—oh, I like that idea,” she said. “Ahh, keep to the medication schedule. It says he’ll sleep a lot in the coming days, and that’ll be good for him. That’s going to be a different sort of Guffer,” Eileen said.

  That turned out to be true.

  All through my April break I kept watch over him. Old Soonie sat with us like a devoted granny-dog nanny. I cuddled her while Guffer slept—and he did sleep, for hours at a time. Whenever he woke, I helped him outside and down the new ramp. There was a bit of art to lifting him in the sling and then whipping it out from under his belly so he didn’t sprinkle it with pee. Business done, I’d let him wobble-walk several yards before I turned him b
ack. I opened a lawn chair in the yard and I sat with him balanced between my knees where he could face south while the mid-April breeze blew across his nose.

  Friends came to visit, no more than two at a time so as not to overexcite Guffer, though he often slept through arrivals. (Different dog, for sure.) Raya and Sari admired the way I was all camped out on the couch with Aunt Brat’s sleeping bag right beside Guffer’s new floor mat.

  “Are you dying of boredom?” Raya asked. “Because let me tell you, I’m not a good nurse. I’d be going crazy.” Then she quickly added, “But if you do need someone to cover, you know I would do that.”

  “Same here,” said Sari.

  I thanked them. “I really want to be here with him.”

  I’m sure they thought it seemed like long hours to keep beside a mostly sleeping dog. But I had a project to work on. I brought all the goddesses down to the couch, and like Sari Winkle had suggested weeks before, I was putting them in order and starting that memoir.

  Sitting with the dog reminded me of the days I’d sat propped at the edge of my mother’s bed. I didn’t tell that to anyone. Guff was a dog, after all; someone might not understand. But I knew my own truth about it. I also knew I was looking at a different outcome this time. This vigil was joyful, and that opened the door for me to visit Mom again with the help of the goddesses. I started by jotting down the smallest of memories. Our story grew from there. Soon the passages I was writing began to feel like letters to my mom.

  I wrote and wrote and wrote.

  60

  Blountville Calling

  All seemed well. I’d grown up knowing the freeing feeling that comes when worry lifts and moves off for a while. So it was with a mom whose health made her dip, then rally. Guffer was recovering; these were rally days.

  One day, Aunt Brat, Eileen, and Elloroy were all downstairs covering Guffer while I showered. I was in my room, rubbing my hair dry, when my phone buzzed. The number didn’t look familiar. One of those calls, I thought. But then I saw the origin: Blountville, Tennessee.

  Blountville? . . . Tennessee? . . . Wait . . . why do I know this?

  I accepted the call. “Hello?”

  “Yeah. Cici Hoover here. You called me.” It sounded like an accusation.

  “Oh my gosh,” I said. “Right. . . .”

  “About a dog?”

  The old tag—I’d taken it off Guffer’s old collar . . . how many weeks ago?

  “Oh, yes. Uh . . . but we—”

  “I know the one. The blond shepherd. With a mix of something else in there.” Cici Hoover coughed dryly into the phone. “I handpicked that pup off a farm. Damn pretty dog, that one.”

  I started to smile. Handsome Guffer. . . .

  “Even if he was dumb as stump.”

  Oh . . . unkind. . . .

  She laughed a wheezy laugh before she went on. “But I figured I could either sell him or use him to make more like him.”

  “Make more? You mean breed—”

  “People have always gone for purebreds,” said Cici Hoover. “But they’ll pay for good-looking mutts too. Designer dogs are the new market. All I needed was to find a female just as pretty.”

  I began to feel uneasy—no, worse than uneasy. What was Cici Hoover’s story? I had to keep listening.

  “But then I’d see him out front where we kept him tied up, and I started seeing something not so right. He had bad hind legs. There’s a thing called dysplasia. In the hips. I got a good eye for troubles. Could see it, especially when the kids rode by him on the dirt bikes.”

  Machines . . . with wheels. . . .

  “God, they used to tease that one. He was a big coward.” Cici stopped to laugh. “He’d skitter away till his line jerked. That dog looked like he’d just as soon hang himself.” She laughed again, then coughed a gross cough.

  I covered my mouth with my hand.

  Poor Guffer . . . and he’d been just a pup. . . .

  This was his dark past unspooling. I knew it.

  “Got so he could work right out of his collar. Got loose all the damn time. The kids had to go chasing after him and drag him home again.” I heard a huff-puffing sound. Cici Hoover was smoking a cigarette. “Ended up crating him most of the time. And pretty soon, I look at them legs and think, Naw, not worth breeding. Good for nothing. And every day I’m feeding him, it’s costing me. So I listed him. Got someone interested—and then I get busted! The police come for me, and some group comes for the dogs. Humph. Calling itself a rescue. It was robbery. They took all my dogs. All the pregnant ones—three about to whelp. Cost me thousands. And then they made me sign some surrender papers. They said it’d go better for me that way. Liars! I had to do time anyway.”

  “Time?”

  “Yeah—jail! They hit me with this count, then that count. Animal cruelty. There were twenty-seven dogs here. By the time it got all added up I had four years to serve. Got it reduced to time served plus a hundred and forty days.” She let fly a few choice swear words. “I missed your call while I was locked up.”

  I swallowed hard. Cici Hoover was silent except for her huff-puffing on her cigarette. Long seconds, those were.

  “You still there?” she said.

  “I am,” I said. I pulled my fingers through my damp hair. I shivered. “The dog . . . he had a weak disk in his back. It ruptured, and—”

  “Huh? His back, you say? See. Knew there was something, and it can get passed on, ya know. In the genetics.”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes,” I said. “Well, he’s had an operation. He’s doing well. He’s got some fears,” I said. “But he’s a good, sweet pet. And, if you care at all, Ms. Hoover, I can tell you this: He is loved.”

  “Oh yeah?” she said. “Well, before you get all attached, you should know, I’m planning on getting them all back.”

  “What?”

  “My dogs. My business. If I was a baker, they wouldn’t take away my ovens, would they?” Her voice was louder now. “Just cuz I go to prison for a while. Get what I’m saying? Breeding dogs is not illegal. I want my dogs back. Every one of them—”

  I killed the call. I threw the phone on my bed. Then I grabbed it up again. I blocked her number—fingers shaking.

  Oh . . . Lydia! . . . What did you do? . . .

  Seconds later I was down the stairs and standing in the kitchen having the fit of all fits while I held the phone in my trembling hands.

  “Th-there was a name. On his tag. Back when we got him.” I was frantic to explain. Three mouths hung open. All eyes were wide—especially Elloroy’s circling behind his lenses. I started to babble again.

  Aunt Brat reached to cup my hands in hers. She peeled my phone out of my fingers and handed it off to Eileen. My aunt held me. I slowed down. I told them everything that Cici Hoover had said.

  “Sounds like an illegal puppy mill,” Eileen said.

  “Those are dreadful,” said Elloroy.

  “They did the right thing taking those dogs off her property,” Aunt Brat said.

  “You’re not kidding,” I said. “Cici Hoover comes off like a dirtbag even from the way she tells it!” My jaw quivered. “To think I called her to see if she could help us. I thought she could tell us why Guffer was so difficult and scared and spooky. I’m sorry,” I told them, “but it wasn’t a secret. There wasn’t anything to tell since she never called back. Not until now. She says she’s going to get all her dogs back. She means Guffer!” I looked over at our long yellow dog, lying on his side, his black lips slack with sleep. I don’t think I could have loved him or wanted to protect him more than right then.

  “Lydia, it’s all right,” Aunt Brat said. “This woman is not going to come for Guff.”

  “Yeah. She’s bluffing,” Elloroy added. He flapped a large paddle hand.

  Meanwhile, Eileen looked up the last call to my phone.

  “I already blocked her,” I said.

  “Good work,” Eileen said. She put the number into her own phone.

  “You’re n
ot going to call her, are you?”

  “Nope. But I’m going to report her. The rescue group will want to know. They’ll tell the authorities.”

  “As a precaution, yes,” said Aunt Brat, “because she threatened—”

  “Bluffed,” mumbled Elloroy.

  “—and I am sorry that happened,” Aunt Brat finished her sentence. “But I promise you, I am not worried about this.”

  “Me neither,” said Eileen.

  “Well, I am!” I could not keep the squeak out of my voice. “What if she means it? What if she tries to take him? What if Elloroy is here, all alone, when she comes? She could take the dog—”

  “Over my dead body!” It was the loudest thing I’d ever heard Elloroy say. He pressed the heels of his long flat hands against the edge of the table until his elbows straightened and his old bones cracked. He spoke again, much more quietly. “Nobody takes the dog. Not as long as I’m still breathing.”

  61

  A Handful of Dirt

  Elloroy had an appointment with his doctor. Aunt Brat and Eileen both wanted to go with him.

  “Elloroy, are you all right?” I asked.

  “Routine visit,” he said. “They just like to have a look at me. See if they can figure out why I’m robust when I ought to be—”

  “Dead,” we said.

  So I was alone with the dogs that afternoon, still playing nurse to Guffer. I’d just gotten him settled on his sleeping mat after a trip outdoors. Soonie had curled up onto the couch. Her long nose tucked into the cushion, she was ready for a good nap too. Outside the window a big SUV was rolling up. I knew all the cars and vans and pickups that ever came climbing up Pinnacle Hill. But I didn’t know this one, and neither would the other great watcher of arrivals: Guffer.

  He would want to greet, bark, jump, and be slinky. It was one of our big worries while he was recovering. But right now his eyes were closed and he was breathing steadily. So I slipped back outside to intercept our visitor.