The Dog That Whispered (24 page)

“She is very pretty.”

“Thank you.”

Gretna put her arm out and extended her hand. Hazel handed her the photograph and Gretna pulled it closer to her face, closer to her eyes, and stared at the black-and-white image.

“I don't think I have a picture of him in his uniform. I don't think he has any pictures of himself in uniform. At least none that I have ever seen. He was very young. Do you know what year this was taken?”

“I don't.”

Gretna closed her eyes, as if she was considering some monumental choice, some hard-to-fathom decision.

“You should show this to Wilson. I think maybe he would want to see it. Now. Maybe now. Enough time has passed, I would say. He doesn't talk about this time in his life very much.”

If there was a word for what Hazel was feeling, she did not know what it would be. She was nervous and excited and scared and more scared and hopeful and scared.

“Does he live nearby?”

“A few blocks away, actually. Maybe more than a few, but within five minutes.”

Reluctantly, Gretna handed the picture back to Hazel.

“You should show it to him. He's home. Maybe he needs to see this.”

“Now?”

Gretna's expression softened.

“Sure. How much time do any of us have left? Now is better than later.”

Hazel made good on her offer to buy cigarettes for Gretna.

She's obviously old. How much damage could they do now?

“Lucky Strikes. The kind without filters. I like to live dangerously,” she whispered. “Here's five dollars. I don't know what they cost these days.”

Hazel refused the money.

“No, this will be my treat. You helped me answer some questions.”

When Hazel returned, Gretna palmed the cigarettes into the pocket of her housecoat, all the while looking about furtively to see if any of the staff had noticed the transaction. They had not.

“This is his address. It was the family home. He grew up there. You remember the directions?”

“I do,” Hazel said, but she knew that the Quest's GPS would validate the rights and lefts and straight-ahead-at-the-light directions.

She put the Quest in gear, pulled out of the parking lot, and drove slowly, following the GPS—just in case.

In just a few minutes, she was on the opposite side of the street from a tidy brick home with neatly trimmed bushes and lawn, framed by a wreath of trees and foliage in the side yards.

“This looks like an old family home.”

She got her purse, made sure the photo was inside, took a deep breath…

I should study deep-breathing techniques for stress reduction
.

…and stepped out of the car, looked both ways, and walked across the street. In the larger window—the picture window—was the head of a large black dog, staring at her as she walked.

If anyone had asked Thurman why he was so rattled, so excited, so anxious, he would not have been able to tell them why—not exactly. Had Wilson been closely observant that day, he would have said that it simply appeared that Thurman had some manner of premonition, some foreboding, foreshadowing, of some upcoming event of some great import.

Thurman acted as if today was his birthday and he was totally expecting a surprise party, with people jumping out from behind the sofa, crying out, “Happy birthday!” but he did not know when exactly, so he kept imagining shadows lurking behind furniture and balloons to be delivered, out of the blue, as it were.

Once he saw the woman park her car, once he saw her exit the car and watched her begin walking toward the house, he could scarcely contain himself. He started his canine dance right there on the big soft thing in front of the window, dancing and whining and barking out repeated
Hellos
.

Then he jumped down, danced into the family room, yipping and crying and moaning and barking and muttering and whispering, and then danced back toward the front door, waiting, whining in great anticipation.

Wilson took out the bookmark, placed it on his current page, sighed, then firmly closed the book and placed it on the side table. He pushed the recliner to the upright position.

Must be the mailman. Or the UPS driver. Maybe Thurman thinks it's the pizza delivery boy
.

When the doorbell sounded, Thurman launched himself into the air, as if trying to see through the small window located at eye level in the top center of the door.

Wilson swung the door open.

A woman stood there, clutching her purse with both hands in front of her, looking like a picture one would see in a 1950s
Life
magazine. A timid woman. In modest dress, holding a sensible purse, waiting for something, something unknown. Meek and unassuming and looking just a little frightened.

Wilson looked at the woman on his front step for longer than he would look at anyone else. In the past, he never truly saw the mailman or the UPS driver or the pizza delivery boy. They appeared and then they left, almost as if they were invisible. But not this woman. He looked at her face, seeing something that he did not yet comprehend. He thought it might be too obvious, his staring, that is, so he attempted to avert his eyes, just a bit.

Thurman continued his gentle caterwauling and dancing just behind Wilson, careful not to lunge or threaten or bark as if in responding to a threat or acting out because of stranger danger. He simply was lost in celebrating this new arrival, the new omen of something unexpected.

After what seemed to be a very long silence, Wilson nodded, just a bit, almost hidden, and said, “Can I help you?”

It was obvious that Hazel had lost the power of speech for that same moment; she seemed relieved that they both stared and did not speak. But now a question had been asked, and she was required to answer.

“I'm Hazel Jamison,” she said. Then paused a long moment. “I saw…I met…your mother. She suggested…she said you would be home. I don't…want to be intruding…I mean, I don't want to intrude—that's it. I can come back later.”

She actually took a half-step in retreat.

At that, Thurman doubled and redoubled his efforts to gain her attention and to prevent her from leaving.

Wilson was forced to turn around and glare at the dog.

“Thurman? Do you mind? We're trying to talk here and you're making this woman very nervous.”

Thurman almost fell to the floor upon hearing that he might be the cause of her leaving.

Not go. Not go. Not go
.

He growled and whispered other things, but in a tangle of syntax that even Wilson could not follow.

Wilson turned back to the woman who stood on his front step.

“I'm sorry. Thurman sometimes gets overexuberant. Sorry that he frightened you.”

Hazel held up one hand as if she were wiping a blackboard clean of chalk.

“No. No. I like dogs. I'm not frightened. Not at all.”

Thurman stood a little taller and growled out his hello.

“Mr. Steele, I'm Hazel Jamison. I saw your mother a few minutes ago. It's a long story, but I have a picture of my mother and…well, you're in the picture as well. Your mother said it was you. I found her through a Google search. The photo, it must have been before I was born. And I was wondering if you could shed some light on it for me.”

Wilson was slow to respond.

“You're from where?”

“Portland. Portland, Oregon. Not the one in Maine.”

Wilson's vision unfocused for a moment, then he spoke, softly, so quietly that Hazel had to lean closer to hear him.

“Portland. I was…I spent some time there—years and years ago.”

“Oh.”

“There was a VA hospital. Is it still there?”

Hazel shrugged.

“I don't know. It might be.”

Silence again, except for Thurman, who continued his clattering dance in the foyer, but without the growling and barks.

“Could I see the picture?” Wilson asked.

Hazel seemed to snap out of a very short-lived fugue state, and opened her purse, with both hands, and pulled the picture and plastic protective sheet out into the sunlight.

Wilson took the photo, Thurman standing behind him leaning to one side so he could see it as well. They both remained quiet and still.

“It was the year I got out of the Army,” Wilson finally said.

“It was?” Hazel asked.

“I would be out of the Army…in the fall. This was during the summer of that year.”

Wilson felt a coil of sweat form on his back between his shoulder blades. His stomach lurched and his heart rate began to increase. He blinked several times, and then blinked again.

It was obvious that Hazel had a hundred questions to ask, but she settled on just one—perhaps the one most pivotal to why she had made this cross-country journey in the first place.

“Were you married to her? She wrote on the back of the picture, ‘Our Wedding.'”

Wilson flipped the picture over. He tried his best to maintain his composure, but if one looked closely, one would see a slight tremor in his right hand, and a twitch in the muscles around his eyes—nothing writ large or obvious, but present nonetheless.

He shook his head slowly. His jaw tightened and then loosened.

“I don't know why she would have written that,” he replied.

Thurman growled, his mumbling bark louder, and apparently a little agitated.

“I was there,” Wilson replied, his tone flat, unemotional, almost practiced. “I don't know why she would have written that. I was a guest.”

Thurman appeared to grow more restless, pacing back and forth in the narrow entryway, growling, his nails clicking a staccato rhythm.

Hazel drew in a large breath, as if attempting to maintain her composure as well.

“Then do you know who it was that she married? She never told me a name. In fact, I never knew that she had been married. She never told me about it. I just thought she was a single parent. I'm not looking for anything…you know…to get anything out of this. It's been so long. I just wanted a name.”

Wilson swallowed several times, blinking, still looking at the photograph.

“I'm…I'm sorry. It was just another soldier I met at the hospital. I don't…I mean, it has been a long time. I don't think I remember his name. I wasn't…friends with him. Just an acquaintance. From the hospital. He asked if I wanted to go to his wedding. I said yes. I went. That's all there was to it. I simply spent an afternoon at a wedding of two people I did not know. I was happy to go because it got me out of the hospital for a while.”

Wilson's words seemed fast and unfocused and off target, somehow. Thurman bounced up and down, bringing his front legs into the air and then dropping down again, barking and mumbling and growling.

Wilson turned again.

“Thurman, stop it!” he shouted. “I mean it. Or else you get put out back.”

Thurman appeared stunned, and he slowly backed up three steps, yet still growling and mumbling and regarding Wilson defiantly.