Lawyer for the Dog (20 page)

“Let me see if someone in our marketing department is available,” says the woman at the front desk. “We usually work by appointment…”

“This has come up rather unexpectedly,” I say.

“Have a seat, and I'll see if I can find … Here, you can look over this packet and start filling out the forms.”

“But I'm not quite ready to—”

“I know, honey. Nobody's ever ready, but we need some information about your loved one before we can get the process started.”

“It's my mother.”

“And for your loved one, would you be wanting assisted living, nursing, or the dementia unit?”

If she says “loved one” again, I'll leave. “I don't know.”

“Okay, like I said, you just go ahead and fill out the forms, and I'll see if I can find someone in marketing.”

But I don't want to talk to marketing. She turns her back and I escape her, walking as fast as I can through the double doors, which spring open, set in motion by a man in a gray uniform who pushes a cart of cleaning supplies and who doesn't seem to care about intruders. I find myself at one end of a long hall I can't see the end of, with rooms on either side, the names of the inhabitants written with erasable marker on name plates on the doors. Now and then a door is open and I can peek inside. Violet McCarter (orange marker, smiley face beside the name) is in bed, asleep, TV blaring. Sam Schumaker (blue marker, no smiley face) sits in a recliner, staring out into space. The place smells almost too clean, as if everything remotely biological has been extinguished. The framed pictures on the walls are the pictorial equivalent of Muzak—pastel florals and idyllic landscapes.

But it's not so bad here, I tell myself, not like that place I saw once in a newspaper expos
é
, with filthy floors and pock-marked walls, where old people with haunted faces wasted away in their beds.

“May I help you?” says another person in a gray uniform.

“I'm visiting my aunt.” I point down the hall.

”We ask all our visitors to wear a name tag,” she says, smiling. “Please try to remember next time. It's for the protection of your loved one.”

I turn a corner, thinking maybe I should leave—I'll need to talk to “marketing” and do more research if I'm serious about putting Mom here—when I come upon an old man in striped pajamas, sitting in a chair that swallows him.

“How are you?” I say in that way we do when we want to keep moving.

“Please.” He grabs my hand. “You should come more often.”

“I think you're confusing me with someone else.” His hand is thin, cold. He won't let go.

“Your brother doesn't come,” he says. “Not since Christmas.” Then he tries to stand, wobbles, falls back into the chair.

“I'll find someone to help you.”

“
You
help me.”

“What's your name?”

“Bird.”

I remember passing his room a couple of doors back (Charles Bird, blue marker). “Would you like me to help you back to your room?” I help him get to his feet, his fingers pinching my arm as we make our way step by shaky step. When I have him safely in bed he grabs my hand again.

“You should come more,” he says. “Tell your brother … tell him he always was a selfish SOB.”

I flee, past marketing, past the front desk, into the late afternoon. Only when I'm outside do I realize how that sanitized air has lingered in my lungs, left me feeling like I can't breathe.

I'm on my way home, trying to imagine moving my mother into such a place, a place humming with good intentions, staffed with decent people doing the best they can, all pastels and florals and smiley faces, but still a place where Mr. Charles Bird sits alone, lost, only a few doors from his room. A place that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, likely to foster any golden memories.

I'm pulling into the condo garage when Gina calls. “Mr. Hart called to give you Anna's number. Want me to call her?”

“No, I'll do it.”

My mother's asleep again when I get home, but at least she's eaten.

“Was it a nice place?” asks Delores.

“Not too bad, but I'm going to look at a couple more. Where's Sherman?”

“Back there in her room. Looks like she made a friend for life.”

“What's that?” There's a circle of wet tile on the floor around Sherman's bowl. “She gave him some of her supper. You should have seen that animal, he just gobbled it up like nobody ever feeds him, but then he threw up.”

“He's not supposed to eat people food.”

“Guess she wanted to give him a special treat. I didn't have the heart to stop her.”

“What was it?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs. He chewed up four big meatballs like they was nothing! Before I go, you should take him out, see if he'll do his business.”

My mother's room is dark. Sherman's curled at the end of her bed; he winces when I pick him up. “Sorry, sweetheart,” I whisper. “You have a stomachache?” I hold him as gently as I can until we're outside. There's a sign sticking up out of the grass,
NO
PETS
IN
THIS
AREA
, but I don't have time to take him to the park, so I let him down behind a big camellia bush. He curls his back and seems poised to go, but then he looks up at me as if to say,
I need my privacy!

“Just hurry up, please.” When he finishes he seems exhausted, so I carry him back upstairs and do my best to comfort him. “I'm sorry you don't feel good. We'll have a quiet night, okay?”

*   *   *

After Delores leaves I heat up some leftover vegetable soup and sit at the kitchen table with a stack of files. In the first months after my divorce I discovered this cure to eating alone: I invite my clients to dinner. It's almost as if they're in the room. I can work on their problems and feel useful.

Sherman's under the table, his head resting on my feet. When he whimpers I lean down to make sure he's okay. One eye opens slowly but, as if focusing is too taxing, closes again. Maybe he's depressed. I wouldn't blame him. No one can explain to him what's happening, why he's in this strange place.

I review the draft of a divorce decree in one of my few uncomplicated cases, a short marriage with few assets, then open the Hart file. Henry Swinton and Michelle Marvel have filed cross-petitions asking Joe to stay his latest order. Michelle alleges that “the trial judge, in an attempt to punish the parties, is instead punishing their innocent pet.” Swinton writes that “Sherman will suffer irreparable harm in the present custodial arrangement.” He means me. Sherman whimpers again as if in agreement.

I make a list of witnesses: Mr. and Mrs., check. Dr. Borden, check. Mindy Greene, the next-door neighbor, check
.
I put a question mark next to Veronica, Mrs. Hart's maid, though it's unlikely she'll risk saying anything negative about her employer. An “X” next to Bill Falkner, the ex-cop detective Mrs. Hart hired—I don't need to watch the video of Rusty Hart kissing Mindy Greene. The last name on the list is Anna.

I'm a thousand miles away from New York City, but I feel like an intruder. “May I speak to Anna Hart, please?”

“May I ask who's calling?”

“This is Sarah Baynard. I'm a lawyer in Charleston, South Carolina. Is this Ms. Hart?” She doesn't answer, so I keep talking. “I'm sorry to bother you, but your parents are involved in some litigation—”

“I don't see why that concerns me.” The voice is controlled, the words sharp and clipped, no hint of a southern drawl.

“Your parents are divorcing.”

“I know that. Why they'd bother to divorce after all these years of being miserable together, I can't imagine, but I'm not going to get involved in their absurd little drama. My father has already asked me and I've—”

“I don't represent your father.”

She laughs. “So, you're
her
lawyer?”

“I represent … The judge appointed me to protect the interests of their dog.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“I just have a few questions…”

“Look, Ms.—”

“Baynard.”

“Ms. Baynard, I haven't been in my parents' home for years. I haven't seen or spoken to my mother since I was eighteen. I have nothing—”

“But you talk to your father.”

“Not often.”

“I wonder if you would mind telling me what led you to become estranged from your mother?”

“Why don't you ask
her
?”

“She told me that you had some differences over a boy.”

“Look, I've spent ten years and thousands of dollars with a therapist, and I can assure you it's much more complicated than ‘differences over a boy.' But again, I'm not going to get involved in this. I can't believe they even
have
a dog.”

“Why is that?”

“Because they never let
me
have one.”

“Who, your mother or your father?”

“Both. They could never agree on anything. She wanted a little dog, he wanted a big dog. She wanted a purebred dog, he just wanted a dog.”

“So Sherman is their first dog?”

“I have no idea. Like I told you, I haven't been home in years. Is someone hurting the dog?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“Because you said something about protecting the dog…”

“Right. I'm kind of like a guardian for the dog, appointed by the court. Your parents both want him.”

“That figures.”

“They both love him very much.”

“So to show him how much they love him, they fight over him, right? Sounds familiar.”

“I'm not sure I'm following you.”

“In all these years they've never figured out how to share anything. They couldn't even share me. My mother wanted total loyalty from me, which in her mind meant I wasn't allowed to admire anything about my father. My father was just as pathetic in his own way. He didn't want me to grow up to be like her, so he was constantly criticizing her to me, undermining her. They didn't have a clue how to raise a child. And now I guess they're doing the same thing to the dog. I'm sorry, I'm afraid I have to go.”

“Just a couple more questions. When you father talked to you about the divorce, he didn't mention the dog?”

“No.”

“And has he ever mentioned the dog in any of your other conversations?”

“Not that I remember. We don't talk very often. Look, I have to go. I have to pick my daughter up from the babysitter.”

“Your father didn't tell me he had a grandchild.”

“Because he doesn't know. I'm not going to let him become involved in my child's life, so why hurt his feelings? He and I have lunch here in the city once a year or so. We're not close. Besides, he wouldn't approve.”

“Approve of what?”

“I'm a single mother. I know what he thinks about—as he would put it—‘children born out of wedlock.' And let me be clear: It isn't just my father. My mother's just as bad, in her own way. The combination is lethal. They've never agreed on anything.”

“So, I guess that answers my last question.”

“Which is?”

“Do you think your parents could learn to cooperate in sharing custody of the dog?” Silence on the other end of the phone. “I'm sorry I had to bother you about this.”

“Ms. Baynard?”

“Yes?”

“What I told you about my daughter is confidential.”

“I don't see why I would have to bring it up.”

“And if my father has some idea about calling me as a witness, you can tell him it's not a very good idea. What I'd have to say wouldn't help him. It wouldn't help either one of them. I feel sorry for the poor dog.”

“Sherman seems to be holding his own.”

“You know what?” Her voice is acid with sarcasm. “Maybe the dog should divorce
them
. Find a new home.”

*   *   *

After the phone call I feel sick, as if the Harts—Mr., Mrs., and now Anna—have somehow infected me with their anger and sadness. Even Sherman, poor fellow, seems to be succumbing: He's lethargic, not exactly sleeping but not fully awake, either. Every few minutes he whimpers and his whole body jerks. His nose feels warm. I take him back to my bedroom, settle him on the bed, lie down beside him.

“I'm sorry,” I say, stroking his back.

What am I apologizing for? None of this is my fault. I didn't break up the Harts' marriage or screw up their relationship with Anna. I didn't ask for this case. I'm not responsible for Joe's midlife crisis, if that's what it is. I didn't ask for custody of this little dog.
No
, I tell myself,
it isn't your fault
, but I can't shake the feeling that maybe it is. As if to comfort me, Sherman nuzzles into my neck. Each time he exhales his whiskers tickle me a little, but I don't mind.

 

A Memo to the File

The howl seems to come from a wild beast, a cry from the darkness, but when it wakes me I realize it's right here, beside me. Sherman. He's in pain.

There's nothing to do but call the vet. I dial the emergency number and he answers on the third ring, sleepily: “Tony Borden.” Just hearing his voice calms me. He listens as I describe the symptoms.

“He's quiet now,” I explain, “but he just isn't … He's not acting like himself. I was going to call you in the morning but—”

“Can you bring him to the clinic?”

I check my watch. It's 2:00 a.m. Delores won't be here for another six hours. “I can't leave my mother.”

“It'll take me half an hour to get there. What's the gate code? I don't think I kept it.”

“Should I be doing anything?”