Nobody's Dog (11 page)

Somehow it's close to dawn by the time I reach the house. I feel completely empty, like my insides have been scooped out and I'm a walking shell. There's an echo inside me that repeats
my fault, my fault
.

I talked until my tongue got tired and my eyes dried up. The weirdest thing happened — I actually felt lighter. As I told Libby the truth, some of the heaviness left. When I turned the corner onto our street, I almost thought it was gone — that everything would be okay. But then I saw the dark house, remembered that Aunt Laura and Soleil and Patrick didn't know, but that I'd have to tell them, and that Chilko was still missing. The heaviness dropped on me like a piano.

Libby sits on the wall beside the back steps in her yellow pyjamas and a black hoodie. She looks so small but I know that's misleading. There's more there than you think. She smiles as I walk up, the smile of someone who feels happy and sad at the same time.

She holds up a finger. “First, I'll help you look for him, call the pound, whatever you want to do. Second, I won't tell my mom or Patrick — but you have to.”

I look at my dirty shoes, her bare feet.

“Third, do you need a hug?”

I start to say no, that's the last thing I need, but she comes at me and I find myself hugging her anyway.

“I think you win the most-in-need-of-human-contact award,” she says.

“What?” I ask, stepping back and picking up my bag.

“It's what my mom says when I'm upset. It's pretty stupid, I guess. So what's your plan?”

“We need someone with a car.”

“Who?”

I pull out my phone. “My friend Mason.”

“Does he know?”

I shake my head, already dialling. It rings, rings and I start to panic. Goes to voicemail.

Libby's looking at me.

“I'll try again,” I say. He has to pick up. He has to.

“Why don't you go upstairs, relax, get a drink or something. He's probably just asleep like everyone else in town.”

A day ago, Libby's attitude would have made me want to strangle her. But she's right. We agree to meet back here in ten minutes.

In the time it takes me to get a glass of water and change my shirt, which stinks of sweat, only four minutes pass. I can't wait anymore. I sneak back down the steps and hit redial. It rings on and on. I hit redial again. I'm starting to wonder if Mason's phone is at the bottom of a pool when he picks up, fumbling for a second before he says, “Grrph?”

“Mason? Are you up?” I sit down I'm so relieved.

“What the — no. I'm not.”

“It's Jakob.”

“What freakin' time is it?”

“Uh, early. Look, I know you're tired, but —”

“More like mostly dead. I'm not a morning person.”

I cringe. “But this is such a big emergency I can't even explain everything right now. I just really need your help.”

“What — you need money? More skunk shampoo? What else is there?”

“I need you to drive us — me and a friend — to a place.”

There's a pause, then muffled groaning. “What is this, some kind of drug handover? Can we talk about this later?”

“No,” I say, trying to keep my voice down, but find it rising anyway. “Mason, you helped me out with Chilko before and I need your help again. It's so much more serious this time. Life or death serious.”

“This is a lot for my brain right now.”

“I just need you to come and pick me up at the corner of West Sixth and Mahon. I'll tell you where to go. I promise I'll never ask you anything like this again. And I'll work your shifts at the store for a year. Or something else — you name it.”

“Listen, I don't want to be involved in some drug lord's plans for your dead body.”

“I promise there's nothing like that going on. But Chilko might die. Please say you'll come.” I want to grovel, but I'm not sure how to do that over the phone.

Mason pauses. “I'm totally going to get into trouble, aren't I?”

I let out my breath. “Me, actually. You'll just be an accomplice.”

I have a terrible vision of us sneaking out the gate only to find Aunt Laura or Patrick on the sidewalk waiting for us. They ask us where we're going but we don't say — we just keep walking. They follow, asking us again and again, begging
us to say something. Mason's car idles on the corner and we get in, Aunt Laura and Patrick pleading with us through the window. I feel like the smallest speck of dirt.

But as we close the real gate behind us, there's only the empty street and the sun coming up over the far mountains. The clouds have disappeared. Another perfect July day.

“Is that your friend?” Libby asks, pointing down the street as a brown station wagon pulls along the sidewalk.

“How old is he?” Libby asks as Mason gets out.

I'm so relieved it's him, I just start running.

Mason leans against the car. Other than his eyes being half-open, he looks asleep. “You better have a good story.”

“Oh, we do,” says Libby before I can say anything. “I'm Libby, by the way.”

“Hi, Libby?” Mason looks at me with the question on his face.

“Let's get out of here,” I say to them both. “I'll explain on the way.”

Mason's car smells like roses and candy.

Libby takes one sniff in the back seat and says, “Are you a florist or something?”

Mason gives me a look again, but I haven't had time to explain Libby to him. “My parents own a corner store. They sell flowers.”

“It's nice,” Libby says, picking up a few rose petals from the floor and dropping them in our laps.

“Okay, so Libby's my neighbour from downstairs,” I say. “I thought the more people to search for Chilko, the better.”

Mason's eyes fly open. “Wait a minute. Chilko's missing? Didn't you tell your aunt?”

“Yeah, well he's not exactly my dog, remember? He
belongs to a guy called Patrick. He's dating Libby's mom.”

Mason leans his head on the headrest. “How come every time I see you, things get way complicated?”

Thanks to Mason's crazy-fast driving, we're at the intersection in no time. It's the same and completely different in daylight. For one thing, it's friendlier. You'd never know a dog got hit here last night. Or that two people died in a car accident here six months ago.

“I brought some dog treats,” Libby says, already jumping out of the back seat.

We start in the same area I did a few hours ago, but it's a hundred times easier in the day. Things I thought were logs and bushes must have just been shadows — the woods are more open than it seemed last night. Libby goes off in the direction of the river. I'm not sure if we should organize a system, but by the looks of the other two, they're just trying their luck everywhere. We call Chilko's name, three voices in different pitches saying it over and over. The woods seem to swallow it up like it did last night.

I scan under every bush, hoping for a flash of grey fur or white tail. Every so often I think I hear the shout of one of the others, but it always turns out they tripped on a root or walked through a spider's web. An hour passes and all we find are squirrels and candy wrappers.

The sun is up over the trees now and it's getting hot. I pull aside another bunch of branches to peer into a bush.

“How far could he have run, Jakob?” Mason says behind me, sounding exhausted. “I'm pretty sure we've searched every inch of this place.”

I throw a stick into the empty bush. “I'm not sure how hurt he is. It was dark. He could have run all the way
home for all I know.”

“Then we should check there,” Libby says from behind me. “Patrick will either be worried sick or at the vet's with him.”

I sit on a log that lies across the path. This is what I was hoping wouldn't happen. If there was a chance we could find him this morning, by ourselves, at least when I took him back to Patrick, it would have been me that found him. Now I have to show up empty-handed and tell him everything. Who knows what he'll say. Or do.

Mason pats my shoulder.

“What?” I mutter.

“You sure love that dog, I guess.” He sits on the log beside me. “I know you're going to get a whipping, but at least you're doing this because you care. Right?”

“Whatever. Thanks.”

“Let's go home,” Libby says. “There's nothing else to do.”

I put my head in my hands. “This is so messed up.”

“Hey, man. This is one of those times.”

“What times?”

Mason winks at Libby. She blushes. “A time you're glad you only have to live through once. Like when I dropped a jar of molasses on my foot. Terrible.”

I get up. “Mason, he could be dead right now. It's not funny.”

“I know it's not funny, Jakob. That's when humour is good. Don't you think so, Libby?”

Libby looks like she can't decide whose side to take.

“Listen, my grandpa died last year and his last request was that everyone at his funeral tell one joke. Preferably about him.” Mason shrugs and starts walking down the trail toward the road. “I'm just saying. As the one who was rudely woken up at five in the morning, that's my advice. Now are
we going back or what?”

“Let's go, Jakob,” Libby says beside me. “Maybe it won't be that bad.”

I look around me, wondering if I can make a home for myself in the woods. Just live here for the rest of my life and survive on bugs and leaves. Being a hermit might make up for everything.

I let her go ahead. She walks fast and soon disappears around the curve. I know I should be hurrying — Chilko's still injured somewhere. I only wish I knew where. I take all the air I can into my lungs and let out the loudest, longest shout I can. “Chilko!”

Birds sing back. Nothing else.

“And where have you been?” Aunt Laura says as we walk through the gate. She's standing, arms crossed, on the deck. Waiting.

Libby touches my arm. “Good luck.”

“Thanks a lot,” I mutter, wishing she wouldn't leave me, but this isn't her mess. It's mine.

I drop onto the couch and wish I could sleep for five days before I have to tell her the truth. I've never been so tired in my life, even after all the other nights roaming.

“What's going on, Jakob? I thought we were being straight with each other.” Aunt Laura sits opposite me, trying to look calm, but failing.

“I'm sorry.”

“What does that mean? What aren't you telling me?”

“It's nothing illegal,” I say.

“Well, thank god for that,” she rolls her eyes, then stops. She leans in closer and takes a breath. “Is it about your parents?”

I've forgotten about that part. It was about the accident, only now it's about so much more. I nod. “I went to find the intersection where the accident happened.”

Aunt Laura's mouth hangs open.

“I kept having these flashes of the car and Mom and
Dad, but I couldn't remember enough. I went looking for the spot and I found it. Somehow it triggered the memories. I saw it all.”

“My god. Why?”

I tell her about the dreams, the pieces that wouldn't fit together.

She shakes her head. “I could have taken you. You should have said something.”

“But I've been having the dreams for months and I couldn't tell you,” I say. “I needed to go back there one more time to know for sure. A dog was in the road and Dad swerved and we spun around. It wasn't his fault.”

“Did you think it was?”

“I didn't know, but now I do. It was mine.”

Aunt Laura stares at me. “It was an accident, Jakob. You didn't cause it.”

“I did. I kept bugging him about getting a dog and then there was one in the road and he didn't believe me — I tried to warn him — and he almost hit it. We spun out on the wet road. If I hadn't been distracting him, we would have been fine.”

She shakes her head but I can see her trying to process what I've said. “No. That's not true. It was a terrible coincidence, but you didn't cause the crash.”

“How can you know that?”

“I know because you just told me what happened. It was dark and the road was slippery. A dog ran in front of the car. It was not your fault, Jakob.”

“You're wrong. You weren't there. I know what happened now.”

Aunt Laura looks at her hands, then at me. She looks for what feels like a whole minute, as if she's seeing me for
the first time. “Okay,” she says. “Maybe what you say is true.”

“It is,” I say, feeling the weight of it all over my body.

“It doesn't matter.”

I blink fast. “Of course it matters.”

“No, it doesn't. Your parents died in a terrible car crash, and you survived. You've been struggling, as I have, to deal with it since it happened. How or why it happened stopped mattering a long time ago.” She leans forward and grabs both my knees. “They would forgive you, Jakob. They would forgive you in a second.”

I haven't cried this much since I was a kid and road-rashed the whole side of my body falling off my bike. I want to believe her but there's the whole other part of this mess that she still doesn't know about. How can I deserve to live when Chilko's maybe dead somewhere because of me? I let her hug me. I hug her back.

We're just sitting back, wiping our faces when there's a knock at the back door. Soleil peers through the window.

“Sorry to bug you,” she says when she's cracked the door. “Patrick's here. He wants to know if you've seen his dog.”

I look at the floor but I can feel Aunt Laura's eyes on me.

“Libby said I should come and ask you,” Soleil says. “Have you even met Chilko yet, Jakob?”

I take a deep breath, hoping it will slow my heart down. “Yeah, I have. I guess he should come up.” I can't look at her — at either of them. Want to run away so their eyes don't bore into me anymore. Soleil disappears silently.

“Jakob, what's going on?” Aunt Laura's hand reaches for me, touches my shoulder.

Steps on the stairs, across the deck, his shadow in the doorway. Then his deep voice: “Morning. Sorry to bother
you, but have you seen Chilko? He's missing and I've checked everywhere around my house.”

“Jakob?” Aunt Laura's voice is tight.

I glance at Patrick. He looks almost as tired as I feel. His eyes are hollow, missing something that was there the last time I saw him.

And I did that.

“You'd better come in,” I say. I don't know how long my voice will hold out before it cracks.

When Patrick's sitting on the couch beside Aunt Laura, I sink back into my spot and grasp at the best way to start. There's no J putting smart words into my mouth. Just me.

They sit across from me, waiting, wondering what I can possibly have to say. Wondering how bad it is.

The story spills out fast but it's all there: each night roaming, the time I met Chilko at Patrick's with Libby. The last two nights, when I stole him from the yard. Last night, when I found the truth about the accident and lost Chilko at the same time. I don't feel anything — not fear or guilt or sadness. Just empty. The emptiest person on the planet. This is what it feels like to steal, to take someone's life or someone they love's life, and be responsible for it.

I can't bear to look up. I don't even know how to apologize for it, so I just say, “I understand if you never forgive me. I don't deserve it.” And I realize it's true. I don't deserve to be forgiven by Patrick, but especially not by Chilko, if he's even alive.

“Oh, Jakob.” Aunt Laura gets up. “I had no idea. I'm so sorry, Patrick.”

I grip the arm of the couch, waiting for him to speak. Nothing is worse than waiting. When I glance up, he's looking at me straight. His eyes are serious, heavy. I can't tell
what's behind them. “So you searched the area where the accident happened?”

“Twice. He must have run off. Maybe tried to make his way home.” My throat is dry.

“Did you call anyone? Animal shelter or the pound?”

“No.” It sounds so stupid that we left it up to ourselves. What was I thinking?

Patrick gets up.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“Me too,” he says.

“I'm a terrible person and I should never have done any of it. All I want is for him to be okay.”

He starts for the door.

“Jakob, we're going to have to talk about this,” Aunt Laura says. “This is a serious issue.”

“I'm grounded for life. I ground myself.”

“Well, that's not the point —” she begins.

Patrick closes the door behind him without saying goodbye.

“I just don't know what to say,” Aunt Laura whispers. “How could you do this?”

I rest my forehead on my knees. I don't know.

The door opens again.

“Before he's grounded for life, Laura —” Patrick pauses just long enough to look me in the eye. “Can he come with me?”