The Dog That Whispered (23 page)

The article was a breezy recap of the doings of the people in Squirrel Hill. Hazel looked it up and discovered that the neighborhood was not far from the University of Pittsburgh, and was formerly very ethnic, mainly Jewish. The article read:

Whoever wrote this really likes parentheses—if that's the correct plural version of the word. Spelling wasn't my best subject either
.

Hazel stopped reading and simply scanned the rest of the piece, not noticing any more pertinent details about the Steeles. The writer prattled on, detailing other former retirees who had moved to Florida and since returned to the Pittsburgh area in recent months.

Hazel went back to Google and typed in “Heritage Square Senior Apartments and Retirement Village,” and immediately was connected to their website, with photos, phone numbers, and address.

She found her small notebook and wrote the information down.

Can it be that easy?

She hardly noticed that her heart was beating faster, almost as fast as if she had sprinted up four flights of steps.

Aren't I supposed to suffer more? Encounter more setbacks and obstacles?

She finished the last of her now lukewarm coffee.

This will not make a very good Lifetime movie, that's for sure
.

H
AZEL DID
NOT LEAVE
for Pittsburgh the next day as planned.

She encountered a bad case of nerves that morning, feeling jangled and wired and anxious, and knew that driving into a strange city would be more traumatic and perhaps even terrifying in her altered state.

Know, not know…sounds like a quote from Yoda, yet both results are equally terrifying
.

Instead of traveling, she ate a very leisurely breakfast, which came free with her room, read the local papers, then drove to the campus of Slippery Rock University and walked around the bucolic and peaceful quad, spending over an hour in the bookstore, where she bought a Slippery Rock sweatshirt. She had lunch at Quaker Steak and Lube in the university's student center and got her fill of medium-spicy chicken wings.

After that, she began to feel normal again—unstressed, unvexed.

She went back to her two-room suite, took a nap, and watched a baseball game on TV—who was playing did not matter—while having a cheese-and-sausage pizza that Weege's Pizza had delivered right to her room.

The following morning she spent an entire shower steeling herself—
No pun intended
, she thought as the words “steeling myself” popped into her mind—and, following a much lighter breakfast, headed south, toward Pittsburgh.

Her Quest's navigation system determined that the trip should take no more than an hour. Hazel always added 25 percent to the time estimates of the Quest. If the suggested route went through a major metropolitan area, she added up to 40 percent more time.

The map gizmo really doesn't know how I drive, which is slower than most—especially in congested areas
.

The way was much less confusing than Hazel had initially feared, the suggested route veering left and right and around as it navigated the neighborhoods east of Pittsburgh proper. The GPS ticked the miles down, and soon enough announced, “Destination is ahead, on the right.”

She saw the tall residential tower from a block away and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

She pulled to the curb half a block away and once again attempted to calm herself down.

“What's the worst that can happen? The lady there says it is not her son. If that happens, then I'll try something else.”

She checked the traffic twice, then pulled into the street and slowly drove into the small parking lot of the Heritage Square complex.

Is it a complex if it only contains one building?

She switched off the engine and took several more deep breaths. It did not really calm her down or settle her nerves, but it did buy a few seconds of time.

She took the photograph from the glove compartment. She had sealed it in a clear plastic sleeve. And if anything happened to the Quest or her purse or its contents, well, she had scanned both sides of the photo and stored them digitally in the cloud.

She looked at her face in the rearview mirror.

A little panicked, I guess. But not crazed panicked. Just a normal panic
.

She brushed a hand through her hair, straightened the collar on her blouse, and stepped outside.

She stopped.

Dear Lord, if this is meant to be…you know what to do, I guess
.

She walked toward the front doors, attempting to think calm thoughts.

This looks like a pleasant sort of place. Clean. Well maintained
.

She stepped inside and knew immediately that it was a place for seniors by the smell of mothballs mixed with Vicks mixed with the aroma of oatmeal and prunes. To her left was a long counter. She could see only the heads of two women sitting behind it.

“I would like to see a resident who lives here,” Hazel announced, “but I don't know what room or apartment, or whatever, she lives in. Do I have to call first, or what?”

The closer woman looked up from a computer screen.

“Are you family or a friend?”

Hazel had not anticipated that question.

“A friend. I guess.”

The woman shrugged.

“It doesn't matter. You just have to sign in.”

Hazel signed her name in her small, neat cursive handwriting.

“And who are you visiting?”

“Her name is Gretna Steele.”

The woman behind the counter brightened.

“You're in luck. She's right over there. By the piano. In the green sweater.”

Hazel heard a joint in her neck pop and crack as she quickly turned to look where the woman was pointing. In the middle of a pool of afternoon sun an old woman sat in an upholstered chair, looking out to the courtyard beyond.

“She's Gretna Steele?”

“She is,” the woman confirmed. Then she called loudly, half-standing, “Hey, Gretna, you have a visitor.”

Hazel blanched visibly. She had not anticipated that sort of introduction, but now that it had happened, there was no alternative but to smile, wave, and make her way toward the piano and the old woman in the green sweater.

The eyes are the same. They are
.

Thurman paced back and forth, from the front door to the back door, not even stopping in the kitchen to see if his food bowl had been magically refilled during his half-minute absence.

Every time he walked by, he snorted, a little under his breath, almost as if in disbelief, or rather dismay.

This was Wilson's early afternoon; he had no classes scheduled, and for the first time in many weeks he did not have any papers or tests to grade. Instead of focusing on professorial tasks, he sat in the leather recliner in the family room and read a biography of Winston Churchill.

Thurman made his circuit again and again and again.

The soft, muted clacking of a dog's nails on the hardwood floors eventually got to Wilson.

“Thurman, what are you doing?”

Thurman stopped just outside the family room, on the far side of the arch that separated it from the hallway.

The dog looked over to Wilson and growled.

“You're nervous?”

Thurman appeared to nod his head.

“And what, pray tell, does a dog have to be nervous about?”

Thurman managed a grimace, then he smiled.

Food
, he whisper-growled.

“Thurman, we have played this game too often for me to believe you. That's not it, I'm sure. What is it?”

How far I have descended into this canine madness
, Wilson thought.
I am actually convinced that Thurman understands me. And worse, that I understand him
.

Thurman sat down and appeared pensive.

Nervous
, he growled.
Worried
.

Wilson shook his head, at himself.

“About what, Thurman?”

Thurman wanted to shrug and tried to shrug, but never could quite accomplish it. He must have thought the gesture was excellent shorthand for all sorts of emotions and responses.

Instead of doing the shrug with precision, he growled instead,
Not know
.

Wilson stared at the dog for another moment, until Thurman got back up, shook himself energetically, and continued his pacing.

“Well, Thurman, if you don't know, I can't help you,” Wilson said, and returned to his reading.

And Thurman continued to walk and make small worried growling noises, with no words attached to them, every time he passed the arch and caught sight of Wilson, who apparently did not care enough to investigate more thoroughly.

“Do I know you?” Gretna asked, her eyes narrowing as Hazel came closer. “You look familiar somehow.”

“You are Gretna Steele, aren't you?”

Gretna was sometimes slow to become suspicious, not often, but sometimes.

“And who wants to know?” she asked, then smiled, almost. “Sorry. They have these seminars here that tell the rest of these old fogeys to be careful with strangers and never give out your Social Security number. You don't want my Social Security number, do you?”

Hazel looked a bit relieved. “No. No, I don't.”

“Good. Because if you're after my millions, well, you're too late. You know, you could have a couple of million dollars saved up, but if you last long enough, it won't be enough. No sense in worrying about it. At my age, what do I need? Right?”

Hazel nodded in agreement. “You are right about that.”

“So who are you? A daughter of somebody here, checking up to see if this place is taking good care of them? Scoping out the place to see if you should send your parents here?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Hazel replied, already taking a liking to the cantankerous old woman. “I wanted to know…well, it's sort of a long story.”

Gretna snorted. “It can't be too long. I don't have that much time left.” She remained serious for a second, then laughed. “Sit down. If it's a long story, that is. I'll get a crick in my neck if I have to look up at you while you tell it.”

Hazel pulled up a chair.

Gretna leaned close and whispered, “You don't have any cigarettes, do you? The cabdriver was supposed to stop at the 7-Eleven, but he forgot. Well, I forgot too. And it's too far to walk. And they don't sell them here. No one is supposed to smoke. A smoke-free facility, the signs say. But I know a couple of those old codgers up on the fifth floor that smoke, leaning out their windows. I'd ask them, but they can't hear and I'd have to shout and then everyone would know and they'd probably try and toss me out of this place for subversion or something.”

“Sorry,” Hazel replied. “I don't smoke.”

“Rats.”

“But…I guess if you wanted me to, I could go to the store and get you some.”

“Well, that would be swell,” Gretna replied. “Now that we've settled that, tell me your story. The long story. I got all afternoon.”

Hazel had practiced what she was going to say a hundred times on her trip across the country, but now that she was called to remember what it was that she planned on saying, and how to phrase it, and how not to sound like a lunatic, all of that rehearsal simply slipped out of her mind.

“I'm Hazel Jamison,” she started, her words hesitant. “I'm from Portland.”

“Maine?”

“No, the other one. Oregon.”

“Hippies and liberals, right?”

Hazel nodded. “Sort of. There does seem to be a lot of them out there.”

“Why is that? The rain, maybe?” Gretna asked.

For an old woman, she is really sharp
.

“I don't know. Maybe the old saying, ‘birds of a feather,' you know.”

“Makes sense. Go on,” Gretna said.

“Well, it is a long story…but I guess I can get right to the point.”

She reached into her purse and extracted the decades-old photo, now tucked into its protective plastic sleeve. She held it out toward the old woman.

“Do you know this person?” she asked. “The soldier, I mean?”

Gretna's eyes widened, not just from surprise, but also in order to stare at the picture. She looked up from the photo and stared hard at Hazel.

“Is that woman your mother?”

“She is. She passed away a while ago.”

“Sorry to hear that. She must have been young.”

“Sixty-three.”

“That's young. You look just like her.”

Gretna turned back to the picture. Neither of them said anything for a long moment.

“Do you know him?” Hazel finally asked, softly, almost under her breath, as if fearing what the answer might be.

“Yes. I know him.”

Hazel began to take breaths again. She had been holding her breath for a while.

“He's my son. Wilson Steele. He was in Vietnam, you know.”

“I do. Well, I don't, I didn't, but I assumed that. From his uniform. I had some hints, some help along the way to here.”

“Was this taken in Portland?”

Hazel nodded. “I'm pretty sure it was. I don't think my mother ever left the area. Not even on vacation.”