Harvey Comes Home

by Colleen Nelson

  “She was chatting away. I thought maybe she had a visitor and that was why she hadn’t heard me coming. I scanned the room to see who else was there. It was empty. Bertie sat on the floor, pretending to sew. She pinched her fingers together and pulled an imaginary needle through invisible fabric. ‘There now! Isn’t that better! You’ll be so much warmer this winter,’ she said, and held up the imagined shirt. ‘Let me put it on you.’ She went through the motions of dressing a person who wasn’t there and stood back to admire her handiwork.

  “I watched in shock as the one-sided conversation continued. She’d been alone in the woods all summer, and there had been nothing standing between her and madness. I’d abandoned her. Her pa was gone. She’d probably had nothing to eat but what she could forage on her own. General looked up at me, wondering why we weren’t moving. I set the sack down on the doorstep.

  “You know, I didn’t call out to her. Guess I was afraid of being so close to someone no longer in her right mind. I tore out of her yard, with General hot on my heels. I never told anyone about that day. Ma asked later about Bertie, but I lied and said she wasn’t home.”

  When Mr. Pickering finished, I couldn’t think of anything to say. He’d been carrying that story around his whole life. All of a sudden, a whole bunch of things about getting old made sense to me, like a picture coming into focus. At ninety-six, he had a chance to unload some of his memories. Maybe that’s why he was telling them to me.

  Harvey sat quietly beside Mr. Pickering through the whole story, but now he got up and stretched, his long, pink tongue curling as he yawned. I thought I should say something, but I didn’t know what.

  “Turn on the weather channel, will you? And ask Mary Rose to bring me some dinner. I’m too tired to go to the dining room.”

  “Okay,” I said, and called Harvey, who jumped to the floor.

  “Let General out, will you?” he murmured.

  This time, I didn’t bother to correct him.

  Chapter 22

  Maggie

  There were no calls about Harvey on Tuesday. Maggie was allowed to stay home to wait by the phone, but now it is Wednesday, and Maggie’s mother has told her she has to go to school.

  “You’ve already missed a week,” Maggie’s mother says. “I’ll call the school if I hear anything, I promise.”

  Maggie sits glumly at the breakfast table. She feels like the life has been sucked out of her. How will she ever have fun again? Laughing feels like a betrayal to Harvey. School, where her friends will want to hear all about her trip, will be painful. She doesn’t think she can put on a brave face.

  When they pull up to school, Maggie reluctantly passes the phone back to her mother. “You’ll call the school if someone calls?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  Maggie hesitates before getting out of the car. She can see her friends standing on the front steps waiting for her. She notices that Lexi got a new haircut while she was gone. Normally, she’d rush to be with them, eager to talk about her trip and gush about Lexi’s hair. But how can she pretend to be excited when Harvey is missing? She’ll have to tell them, she realizes. All of a sudden, she doesn’t think she can leave the car.

  “Mom?” She turns away from the window. She can feel a lump in her throat and isn’t sure how to get rid of it. Her chin trembles.

  Maggie’s mother puts her hand on her daughter’s arm. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find him.”

  Maggie doesn’t tell her mother about overhearing her parents’ talk the other night, or the doubts that have started to creep in. Harvey might be lost for good. And worse, they might never know what happened to him.

  “I’m not sure I can go up there.” She wants to go home and curl up on her bed.

  Maggie’s mother gives her hand a squeeze. “Yes, you can. There’s no point sitting around at home waiting for a call. Being at school will take your mind off things.”

  Her friends are talking together, probably wondering why she isn’t getting out of the car. It all feels too overwhelming. Maggie knows that she can’t think about it; she has to just go—like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  “You’ll feel better once you’re there. It’s the thinking about it that’s so hard.”

  Maggie blinks away the tears and takes a deep breath. Gripping her backpack straps in one hand, she opens the car door and is hit with a gust of wintry air. “Bye, honey!” her mother calls. “I love you.” Maggie shuts the door without turning around.

  “When did you get back?” Brianne asks.

  “Two days ago,” she admits. “But late at night. We needed to sleep in yesterday. And then—” She breaks off, not sure how to continue. “Something horrible happened.” She doesn’t mean to make a dramatic pause; she’s trying to keep her voice even. “Harvey’s lost.”

  The girls howl in protest.

  “When?” Lexi asks.

  “H-how?” Brianne stammers.

  “The day after we left!” A surge of anger hits Maggie. She’s kept it at bay, but now it comes at her full force. “The stupid dog sitter didn’t know the gate was open.”

  There is a chorus of “That’s terrible!” and “No!”

  “We can help you look for him after school,” Brianne offers.

  Maggie shakes her head. If only it were that simple. “We looked all day yesterday and put up posters. But it’s been so long. He could be anywhere.” She blinks back the tears that prickle behind her eyes.

  “I’ll bet someone took him. A dog thief or someone. You should tell the police.” Lexi loves conspiracy theories, so Maggie is not surprised by this suggestion.

  “I just want to know he’s okay,” Maggie says tearfully. Her friends wrap their arms around her, commiserating.

  Maggie stumbles through her day, doing her best to concentrate during class. She visits the office three times to check for a message from her mother, but each time, the secretary shakes her head. After school, Maggie does her homework and eats dinner with her mother’s cell phone by her side. But it never rings. When Maggie goes to sleep, she does so with a heavy heart.

  Harvey is still lost.

  Chapter 23

  Austin

  “Still haven’t heard from Harvey’s owners?” Grandpa said when the two of us were walking home from Brayside on Wednesday.

  “Nope. Nothing.” Which was true. I hadn’t heard anything.

  Grandpa made a noise in his throat that meant he had more to say on the topic. “He belongs to someone. Don’t you get too attached to him; it’ll just make it harder to give him up.”

  Too late, I thought. Mom felt the same as me, even though she tried to act like she didn’t. Every day when I walked into the apartment with Harvey, she said hello to me and gave Harvey a belly rub. I checked online at school to see how much Westie dogs cost. A lot. More than Mom and I would ever be able to afford. The only way we’d get a dog like Harvey was by me finding one.

  Harvey strained on his leash, pulling me toward a fire hydrant. You’d think he had to put out a fire the way he yanked to get there. I let him sniff around for the right spot to pee. It was getting dark out earlier and earlier now. His white coat was bright against the gray sidewalk and buildings.

  “He’s good for the old people,” I said. “Like Mr. Pickering. He talks to me now.”

  Even under the streetlights, I could see the I-told-you-so in Grandpa’s expression. “I thought Walt scared you.” Grandpa called everyone by their last name when he was at work, but as soon as we left for the day, he talked about them as if they were all on a first-name basis.

  “He does scare me a little. Well, he did.” I thought about the farm and Bertie and General. When he was talking about them, I forgot he was old Mr. Pickering. I started seeing him as the boy in the pictures in his photo collage. “He’s not so bad.”

  Grandpa nodded and ruffled my hair. Harvey pulled
and dragged me over to a tree, sniffing like his life depended on it. Do dogs ever run out of pee? I wondered.

  “Not sure how much longer Mr. Pickering will be on his own,” Grandpa said. “I think he’ll get moved up to the second floor pretty soon.”

  This news gave me a jolt. “Why?”

  “Guess his heart is giving him some trouble, and he’s getting confused. He’s ninety-six, after all. He’s not going to live forever.”

  “He looks fine,” I said. But the truth was, there had been times when he put a hand on his chest and winced. I’d seen all the pills that he had to take. And sometimes he forgot to go to the dining room for meals and Mary Rose had to remind him. Grandpa’s warning left a bad taste in my mouth.

  “He’d hate it on the second floor,” I blurted.

  “It’s for his own good.”

  I scowled at Grandpa. He didn’t know Mr. Pickering like I did. Up on the second floor, he wouldn’t be allowed to come and go as he pleased, because there’s a secret code to the elevator. Nurses come around to give out medication and the old people have to be supervised when they shower. None of the rooms have kitchens—just a bed and a little sitting area with a TV. Mr. Pickering wouldn’t be able to make his toast and tea. And what about Harvey? Were dogs even allowed up there?

  “I still don’t know how General lost his leg,” I mumbled to Grandpa. Grandpa’s arm went around my shoulder. Instead of it making me feel better, it made me sad, because all of a sudden I realized that Grandpa won’t be around forever either.

  Chapter 24

  Harvey

  Harvey bounds in from the outdoors and Austin bends down to remove some dried-up leaves tangled in his fur. The air has turned chilly. A change is coming—Harvey can sense it.

  Austin holds Harvey’s chin in his hands. Their eyes meet. “You’re happy here, aren’t you?” he whispers. Harvey tilts his head at the boy, curious about the shift in his voice. Harvey licks Austin’s hand and gives it a sniff, but detects nothing out of the ordinary. When the boy stands up, his footsteps are slow and tentative, so Harvey follows suit, subduing himself. He has learned to read his people and follow their behavior. Harvey can read signs the same way a good ratter tracks his prey. Something tells him that he needs to be alert, and he pricks his ears as he follows the boy down the hallway.

  Harvey assumes he is going to his favorite room, and sure enough, Austin stops in front of it and raps on the door. He can already smell the muskiness, the lived-in quality of the room that makes him want to burrow in deep, from under the door.

  Harvey raises a paw and scratches the door, but Austin quickly says, “No.” A yip then, to let Mr. Pickering know they are waiting. That is also met with a “Shush” from Austin. Harvey hears the familiar sounds of Mr. Pickering making his way to the door. It clicks and Harvey gets a whiff of the delicious slippers that he’d love to sink his teeth into. Mr. Pickering can’t quite bend all the way down to pat Harvey on the head; but he tries, his fingers dangling in Harvey’s direction. Harvey ignores the fingers and trots inside—underskirt swaying thanks to a satisfactory grooming by Artie—to find his spot on the recliner.

  “Harvey wanted to say hello,” Austin says. That much is obvious since Harvey is already seated on the recliner, patiently waiting for Mr. Pickering to join him.

  Harvey can tell that the old man is rested. He moves without hesitation and his voice is more robust. Harvey nestles into the slot between the man’s arm and the chair’s armrest. He is content. He rests his chin on his front paws and looks around the room. Harvey sighs. He feels the man pat his head, stroking the space between his ears. His hands fall heavily and lack the vigor of a younger person’s, but the knobby fingers know how to get in the space just under his ear and on the side of his neck, just the way someone else used to. The memory bursts into his head for only a second and then disappears. Without smells to connect his past and his present, the someone flutters away.

  Harvey smells the sour saltiness of Austin, who sits across from him. There are a hundred other scents that linger on Austin’s clothes and shoes; he is coated with other people and places.

  The old man’s voice fills his ears.

  “The rest of that winter was rough. Maybe it was because Pa was gone and I was old enough to know about the hardship we were enduring. Or maybe that winter really was a worse winter than the others.

  “I didn’t go to school much because there was too much work to do around the farm. I took to sleeping in the cow barn again. And I’d go out almost daily to leave something on Bertie’s doorstep. Don’t know if she figured out that it was me who was leaving it, but she never said anything the few times I showed up at school.

  “I took Pa’s shotgun with me whenever I left the farm. One of our neighbors killed a deer, so Ma sent me to trade some of her chickens for the meat. Her cellar was no match for the three of us growing boys. We went to bed hungry a lot of nights, but I got used to it. Everyone was in the same predicament.

  “Although Bertie had it the worst.

  “Usually, when I left something for her on the steps, I’d do it quick and hope she didn’t see me.

  “She hadn’t been to school for a while when I went to her shack to check in on her one afternoon. The snow had fallen and a thin blanket covered the ground. There was no smoke rising from her chimney and I wondered if she’d left the shack altogether. Maybe her pa had finally come back for her and they’d moved to another place. But footprints near the door told me she was still living there after all.

  “‘Bertie?’ I called out. I peeked into her window, scraping the frost off with a fingernail. ‘Bertie?’ I called again. I didn’t see anything at first, but then a shape moving in the corner caught my eye. A dark lump was rocking back and forth, tucked in the corner.

  “I burst through the door. The cabin was as cold as the outside, and I could see my breath come out in puffs as I bent down to check on her. She had a thin quilt wrapped around her shoulders. I crouched down to look into her eyes. She stared through me, limp hair falling over her face.

  “‘Bertie!’ I gasped. I grabbed her shoulders, shocked to feel nothing but bones. A shiver ran through her like a convulsion. Panic filled me and all at once I knew she was going to die here. She was too weak to leave. I scooped her up like a child—she probably weighed the same as little Sylvia. I carried her out into the snow-covered yard. General sniffed her feet, barely covered in the same leather shoes she’d always worn, and raised sorrow-filled eyes to me. Maybe he could smell her frailness. The fiery wild thing that she had been was no more.

  “I shouldered my way through the brush. Branches ripped at my face and clothes, snapping off and falling underfoot. I held Bertie’s face against my chest. I could feel her breath rattling through her ribs. All I knew was that I had to get her home. Ma would know what to do. She’d lay her down in the bed and cover her with a quilt and spoon hot broth into her mouth.

  “Darkness had started to fall as I made my way across our yard. Home was close. Let me tell you, my heart was pounding with the effort—and with fear. In the distance, I heard howls. General stopped, hackles raised. He barked back in a ferocious answer to the call, and started to move away from me. I’d seen the dog pack a few times that winter, always in the distance. Once, I found what was left of a kill and stared at the head of a young doe jealously. The pack was growing. They would be after the same game that I was.

  “‘General, come!’ I bellowed. The gun was slung over my back, and I couldn’t reach for it with Bertie in my arms if trouble came.

  “At the sound of my voice, Bertie began to murmur nonsense. ‘It’ll be okay,’ I huffed as we passed the well and one of Ma’s gardens. A few sticks poked up through the snow. ‘We’re almost there,’ I said, more for me than for Bertie.

  “‘Ma!’ I shouted on the doorstep. General barked and pawed at the door. ‘Ma!’ Honestly, I wanted to cry with r
elief that we’d made it. I knew Bertie wasn’t out of the woods yet, but at least she’d be safe and warm.

  “Ma opened the door and a blast of heat hit me. The wood stove was on and I’d never been so relieved to step inside my home. ‘I found her like this,’ I panted.

  “Ma’s eyes widened when she took a look at the limp pile in my arms. Bertie’s skin was so pale, it was almost gray. The space under her eyes was puffed up and purple. Ma pulled me inside and shut the door after me. She directed me to her bed and set to work. I stood by helplessly, watching as she layered quilts over Bertie and heated hot-water bottles.

  “Seeing me doing nothing, Ma said, ‘Go to the well.’ It was a relief to have a job. I grabbed the bucket and went back outside. General was waiting for me and stayed close beside me as I walked across the yard. Already my tracks had almost been covered by the snow. One dog howled again. Then another.

  A chill ran through me. They were getting closer. I put a hand down on General, a silent order to stay close.”

  The old man stops. Harvey lifts his chin, aware of the change. Across from him, Austin sits on the edge of couch, his whole body tense as he leans forward.

  “All these years later, I still wonder how much of it had been my fault. Bertie could have died in that shack. I’d abandoned her when she needed me most. As I trudged toward the well, guilt formed a lump in my throat and I fought back tears. Bertie was sleeping when I got back to the house. Ma had started a kettle, and it whistled on the stove. She came out of her room and shut the door gently behind her.

  “‘Is she going to be okay?’ I asked.

  “‘She’s starved half to death,’ Ma said, shaking her head. She looked at me as if she had more questions, but she didn’t ask them. I grabbed my woolen hat and a warmer coat, and went back outside. General trotted over and followed me toward the barn. Ma would sleep with the twins tonight and let Bertie have her bed. The best thing I could do was stay out of the way.