Today, I need that escape more than ever.
I pull up beside a muddy pick-up truck in the overgrown lot. I head into the main house to change into old jeans and a sweater, the kind of outfit that can stand up to fifty over-eager dogs – and all the mess that comes along with them. Right away, I’m attacked by a barking, drooling herd of Labrador puppies. Someone found them in a box out on the highway. It breaks my heart to think of them out there in the dark, crying for their mother.
“Whoa, easy there.” I push them down, laughing, but they trail me all the way outside. I find Edith, the owner, mending wire fence by the kennels. She’s a legend around town, the one who started taking in strays twenty years back. She built a couple of kennels every other year, taking in every abandoned dog and unwanted kitten litter around. Soon, there was a whole farm full of unwanted animals running wild. The puppies race on ahead, bouncing eagerly around her, then skittering off to play in the mud.
“Sorry I’m late,” I greet her, my boots squelching on the wet ground. “I got held up at work.”
“That’s no problem, sweetheart.” She looks up, her wiry grey hair pulled back with a bright batik-print scarf. “I’m just finishing up here. The collies got out again last night. I had a call at three AM that they were halfway to Wilmington.”
I smile and reach to help her fix the wire in place. “How’s Chester doing?” The old German Shepard has been sick for a couple of days now.
Edith tuts. “Not great. He’s still off his food, so I called the vet in. Maybe he’ll know what’s the problem.”
“Poor guy,” I agree. “I’ll go stop in, see if I can make him drink something.”
“And would you move the feed, when you get a chance?” Edith makes a face. “We had a delivery, but the boy just left it on the porch, and you know my back’s not what it used to be.”
“No problem.” I straighten up. “I’ll go see to it now.”
I head back inside and start my usual routine. Some people think it’s boring, dirty work to refill feed bowls and clean out the kennels, but I like it. I’ve always loved animals, especially dogs. I love how simple and loyal they are, how they don’t judge or criticize, but accept you. When I was a kid, I had a terrible stammer. The experts all said it was nervous anxiety and nothing to worry about. I started speech therapy, learning how to slowly take control of every word, but it was a long, hard process. Worst of all for any ten-year old kid, it made me different. The kids at school would tease me until I was so self-conscious that I barely spoke at all. I retreated into my own little world, losing myself in plays and poetry, whispering a single word in response to questions, or just ignoring them all. Other people’s words were safe – I could memorize whole monologues from school plays – but when it came to speaking my own mind, I couldn’t string the sentences together. Mom didn’t know what to do, until someone suggested a pet might help. She brought me out here one day, and that’s all it took. A motley litter of strays came bounding out to meet me, and I fell head over heels in love. You see, I didn’t need to speak to the dogs to make them like me. They seemed to know exactly what I was feeling without a single word. They didn’t tease me, or judge; they just loved me for me. Unconditionally. Even later, after the speech therapy worked and nobody could tell I’d ever had a problem, that acceptance and peace never went away. The animals helped me when I needed them most. When I was at rock bottom again, after Finn left and I had nothing but questions and scars that nobody else could see, I found myself back here, trying to forget the world all over again.
Finn…
I take a break from hoisting feed-bags. His face fills my mind, that knowing smile and vivid stare that could melt from blue to green and back again, like the waves shifting in a storm. How many nights have I lain awake, wishing that he’d come back again? They were the futile prayers of a heartbroken girl. Now that the universe has conspired to deliver him to my doorstep again, all those questions flare to life.
We were friends, first. I was just a junior, and he already had a reputation, strolling around school in those black jeans like he didn’t give a damn. He was cool, reckless, a heartbreaker through and through – and so far out of my orbit, it was like we were living on different planets. My friends would whisper the latest gossip about him in hushed, scandalized whispers: all the girls he hooked up with, and the latest trouble he was in. I never even spoke to him, until one October afternoon. I was out with the dogs in the woods back behind town, and found him by the creek, playing his guitar.