A Dog's Purpose (17 page)

“Okay, yes, he’s friendly. I don’t think that’s his blood, though. Ma’am, we’ll need to hold on to the dog for a while; is that okay?”

“I can stay, if you need me to.”

“No, that’s all right,” the woman said.

I was taken over to one of the cars, where a very gentle man took some scissors and snipped off some of my fur, putting it into a plastic bag.

“What do you want to bet it’s the same blood type that’s on the shoe? I’d say our four-legged friend here was on canine patrol tonight and got himself a good bite of arsonist. We get a
suspect, the blood is going to help put him away,” the woman told the man who was giving me the haircut.

“Lieutenant,” a man said, approaching. “I can tell you where our perp lives.”

“Oh, do tell,” the woman replied.

“I got the dumb ass bleeding his way in a straight line to a home about four houses down. You can see the blood on the snow from the sidewalk; it goes right up to a side door.”

“I’d say we have enough for a search warrant,” the woman replied. “And I’m going to lay odds that somebody who lives there has a couple of teeth marks in his leg.”

For the next several days I lived at Chelsea’s house. Duchess seemed to think I was there to supply her with a twenty-four-hour-a-day playmate, but I couldn’t dispel the nervous tension that kept me pacing back and forth, waiting for Ethan to come home.

Mom showed up the second day. She told me I was a good dog, and I could smell the boy on her clothes, so I cheered up a little and played Duchess’s favorite game of tug-on-the-sock for an hour or so while Chelsea’s mother served strong-smelling coffee.

“What in the world was that boy doing? Why would he set your house on fire? You could all have been killed.”

“I don’t know. Todd and Ethan used to be friends.”

I turned at Ethan’s name, and Duchess used the moment to yank the sock out of my mouth.

“Is it for sure Todd? I thought the police said the blood work would take longer.”

“He confessed when they took him in for questioning,” Mom said.

“Did he explain why he did it?”

Duchess was shoving the sock at me, daring me to take it. I pointedly looked away.

“He said he didn’t know why he did it.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake. You know, I always did think that boy was strange. Remember when he pushed Chelsea into the bushes for no reason? My husband had a fit. He went down and talked to Todd’s father and I thought the two of them were going to get into a fight.”

“No, I never heard that. He pushed her?”

“And Sudy Hurst says she caught him trying to see in her bedroom window.”

“I thought she wasn’t sure who it was.”

“Well, now she says it was Todd.”

With a sudden lunge, I grabbed the sock. Duchess dug her feet in and growled. I pulled her around the room, but she didn’t let go.

“Bailey’s a hero, now. Todd’s leg took eight stitches.”

At the mention of my name, both Duchess and I froze. Dog biscuits, maybe? The sock went slack between us.

“They want his picture for the paper,” Mom said.

“Good thing I gave Bailey a bath,” Chelsea’s mom replied.

What? Another bath? I’d just had a bath! I spat out the sock, Duchess shaking it joyously, prancing around the room in victory.

“How is Ethan?”

Mom put her coffee cup down. The boy’s name and the flash of worry and grief coming off of her caused me to go over to her and put my head in her lap. She reached down and petted my head.

“They had to put a pin in his leg, and he’ll have . . . scarring.” Mom gestured toward her face and then pressed her hands to her eyes.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Chelsea’s mother said.

Mom was crying. I put a paw on her leg to comfort her.

“Good dog, Bailey,” Mom said.

Duchess stuck her idiot face right in front of me, the sock loosely dangling from her jaws. I gave her a low growl and she backed away, looking bewildered.

“Be nice, please, guys,” Chelsea’s mother said.

A little while later Chelsea’s mother gave pie to Mom but not to the dogs. Duchess lay on her back and held the sock with her paws above her mouth, just like I used to do with Coco in the Yard, what seemed like forever ago.

Some people came and I sat with Mom in the living room and blinked at the bright flashes, like lightning with no sound. Then we went over to the house, which was now covered in plastic sheeting that flapped in the wind, and some more flashes went off.

A week later, Mom gave me a car ride and we moved into the “apartment.” This was a small house built into a big building full of houses, and there were lots of dogs everywhere. Most of them were pretty little, but in the afternoons Mom would take me over to see them in a big cement yard. She would sit on a bench and talk to people while I ran around, making friends and marking territory.

I didn’t like the apartment, and neither did Dad. He yelled at Mom a lot more there than at the house. The place was small, and, even worse, we were there without the boy. Both Dad and Mom would often smell like Ethan, but he wasn’t living with us anymore, and my heart ached. At night I would pace the house, compelled to wander around restlessly, until Dad would yell at me to lie down. Dinner, the high point of my day, was not as interesting when Mom served it to me—I just didn’t feel hungry, and sometimes didn’t finish it.

Where was my boy?

We were still living in the apartment the day the boy came home. I was curled up on the floor, with Felix the kitty sleeping up against me. I’d given up trying to shove him away; Felix apparently thought I was his mother, which was insulting, but he was a cat and therefore, in my opinion, completely brainless.

I’d learned to identify our cars by the sounds of their engines as they pulled into the parking lot, so when Mom’s car arrived I jumped to my feet. Felix blinked at me in bewilderment while I trotted over to the window and jumped up, pressing my paws against the frame so I could watch Mom come up the steps.

What I saw down in the parking lot caused my heart to race: it was the boy, struggling to stand up out of the car. Mom was
bending to help him, and it took several seconds for him to get upright.

I couldn’t help myself; I was barking and spinning, racing from the window to the door to be let out and then back to the window so I could see. Felix panicked and dove under the couch and watched me from there.

When keys jangled in the lock, I was right there at the door, quivering. Mom opened the door a crack, and the boy’s smell wafted in on the air currents.

“Now, Bailey, get back. Down, Bailey, stay down. Sit.”

Well, I couldn’t do
that.
I briefly touched my butt to the floor and then jumped up again. Mom put her hand in and snagged my collar, pushing me back as the door swung wide.

“Hey, Bailey. Hey, boy,” Ethan said.

Mom held me away from the boy while he limped in, holding what I would soon learn were called crutches. He went over to the couch and sat down while I twisted and turned in my collar, whimpering. When Mom finally released me I soared across the room in one leap, landing on the boy’s lap, kissing his face.

“Bailey!” Mom said sternly.

“No, it’s okay. Bailey, you are such a doodle dog,” the boy praised me. “How are you, huh? I missed you, too, Bailey.”

Every time he spoke my name, a shiver of pleasure ran through me. I could not get enough of the feel of his hands running through my fur.

The boy was back.

Gradually, over the next couple of days, I came to understand that things were not right with the boy. He had pains that he’d never coped with before, and walking was awkward and difficult
for him. A mournful sadness drifted off of him, coupled with a gloomy anger that flared sometimes when all he was doing was sitting there looking out the window.

That first week or two the boy would leave every day for a car ride with Mom, and when he came home he was tired and sweaty and usually wound up taking a nap. The weather turned warm and the leaves came out and Mom had to go to work, so the boy and I were left alone in the apartment with Felix, who spent all of his time plotting to escape out the front door. I have no idea what he thought he was going to accomplish out there, but the boy had a rule against the cat going outside, so that was that—except Felix didn’t follow any rules, which I found to be maddening. He often scratched at a post in the living room, but the
one time
I decided to lift my leg on the thing everyone shouted. He never finished his dinner, though nobody ever thanked me when I cleaned up after him—in fact, this was something else I got yelled at about. Part of me wanted to see him get away with his plans to run off, just so I wouldn’t have to put up with him anymore. On the other hand, he was always up for a little wrestling, as long as I didn’t get too rough. He would even make a game of chasing a ball when Ethan rolled it down the hallway, usually veering off to let me grab it and take it back, which I thought was very sporting of Felix. He really didn’t have much choice, though, since I was, after all, the dog in charge.

It was not as fun as the Farm, nor even as fun as the house, but I was happy in the apartment because the boy was there nearly all the time.

“I think it is time you should go back to school,” Mom said at dinner one night. I knew the word “school” and looked at the boy, who crossed his arms. I felt the sad anger inside of him.

“I’m not ready,” the boy said. His finger raised up and touched a deep purple scar on his cheek. “Not until I can walk better.”

I sat up. Walk? Were we going for a walk?

“Ethan. There’s no reason—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom!” Ethan shouted.

Ethan never shouted at Mom and I could immediately feel that he was sorry, but neither of them said anything after that.

A few days later, though, there was a knock on the door and, when Ethan answered, the apartment filled with boys. I recognized some of their smells as the boys who played football in the big yards, and most of them called me by name. I glanced over to see how Felix was taking my special status, but he was pretending it didn’t make him jealous.

The boys laughed and shouted and stood around for about an hour, and I felt Ethan’s heart lifting. His happiness made me happy, so I went and got a ball and carried it around in my mouth in the living room. One of the boys grabbed it and rolled it down the hallway, and we played for several minutes.

A few days after all the boys came to visit, Ethan got up early and left with Mom.

School.

The boy was walking with the help of a polished stick called a cane when we moved out of the apartment. The cane was very special: the boy never threw it, and I instinctively understood that I wasn’t supposed to chew on it, not even a little.

I didn’t know where we were going when we all loaded into the car, but I was excited just the same. Car rides were always exciting, no matter where we went.

I grew pretty excited when the familiar smells of the creek and the street came through the window, and I bounded in through the front door of the house as soon as they let me out
of the car. Though I could still smell smoke, the air was also filled with the scent of new wood and carpet, and the windows in the living room were larger. Felix seemed very suspicious of his surroundings, but I was out the dog door and racing around in the relative freedom of the backyard within seconds of arriving. When I barked with joy, Duchess answered from down the street. Home!

We’d barely settled in when we took the big car ride to the Farm. Life was finally back on track, though the boy was much less inclined to run than to walk, leaning on the cane.

One of the first places we went was to Hannah’s house. I knew the route pretty well and galloped way ahead, so I saw her first. “Bailey! Hi, Bailey!” she called. I ran up for some of her in-depth cuddling and scratching, and then the boy came up the driveway, panting a little. The girl went down the steps and stood there in the sun, waiting for him.

“Hi,” the boy said. He seemed a little uncertain.

“Hi,” the girl said.

I yawned and scratched at an itch on my jaw.

“Well, are you going to kiss me or what?” the girl asked. Ethan went to give her a long hug.

He dropped his cane.

Some things were different that summer. Ethan began waking up long before sunrise and driving Grandpa’s truck up and down the county roads, shoving papers into people’s boxes. They were the same papers that the boy had once placed all over the carpet in the house, but somehow I didn’t think it would be appreciated very much if I urinated on them, even though there had been a time, when I was a puppy, when wetting down the papers would have gained me high praise.

Hannah and the boy spent many hours together, sitting quietly
by themselves, sometimes not talking, just wrestling. Sometimes she even went on the early morning car rides, though normally it was just the boy and me, Bailey the front-seat dog.

“Got to earn some money, Bailey,” he sometimes said. I would wag at my name. “No football scholarship now, that’s for sure. I’ll never be able to participate in sports again.”