The Nose Knows (8 page)

“Martha, please take a deep breath and just listen for a moment. You’re stuck in distorted thinking. You want your life to change. Since you cannot change Stanley, you think you must get Stanley out of your life. Right now, that’s the only way you can envision your life changing—to not have Stanley in it. Now, without Stanley, your life will certainly be different. But you’ve made an assumption here that could have serious consequences. You have assumed your life would be
better
without Stanley. You think since you were fearless before Stanley, you can again be fearless without Stanley. In truth, your life might just be a whole lot
harder
without him. Consider this; you could learn to be fearless
with
Stanley.”

“I seriously doubt that, Doc. He’d never let me.”

Martha Bittner needed to see beyond her own thinking. Mom didn’t need our help for this one. Whether or not Martha was able to take the next step was entirely up to Martha.

“Martha, how long have you been seeing me?”

“Oh, about three months ”

“And do you trust I’ll tell you the truth?”

“Sure, you have so far.”

“Martha, you’ve worked very hard at accepting that you cannot change Stanley, correct?”

“Correct.”

Mom took a deep breath. She spoke slowly putting emphasis on each word. “Martha, if you accept you can’t change Stanley—then
why
do you think
Stanley
changed you?
”

Martha opened her mouth but said nothing. Her brow furrowed. Her eyes squinted and her nose wrinkled as she pondered the question. Her breathing was revving up. Mom offered her some help.

“Martha, just take a deep breath and listen. If you can’t change Stanley, then you must accept that Stanley didn’t change you. I now ask you—
who
was responsible for the changes that happened in you?”

Martha’s sigh was so long, it sounded as if she’d completely emptied her lungs. In a tiny whisper, she said, “I guess . . . you are telling me that
I
was the one responsible for the changes in me. . . . Me?”

Martha Bittner had just given birth to a brand new thought. Her aggression melted. We sensed Mom’s spirit lighten.

Martha’s whisper grew louder. “Are you saying Stanley didn’t make me hopeless? I did it to myself?”

“That’s right, Martha. You were the one who made a choice to stop being fearless. You allowed hopelessness to overtake you. You chose not to defend your feelings, your thinking, or your dreams. You gave up and decided they weren’t worth defending. Maybe you just didn’t know how to defend them. Maybe it all seemed too hard.”

“I did this to myself? I had other choices?” I could hear Martha rocking back and forth in her chair. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t have to let Stanley make all the decisions. I
did
have other choices. I didn’t think I did, but I really did. Oh, my goodness . . . I did this to myself. . . .”

Mom stayed quiet. Not I, though. The moment was too big for me to keep my opinion to myself. I softly whined.

“Hey, Fearless, Martha finally let Stanley off the hook.”

Fearless didn’t open his eyes. He appeared to be asleep. My guess was he was trying to hang onto a good catnap dream, but then his whiskers swept upward. A cat’s cheer can be very, very quiet.

T
he next day Mom made a decision. She was going to go downtown and try to use the office. It had been over three months since she’d returned to seeing patients, yet she’d never left home. Today she decided that was about to change. Melanie’s sessions were conducted from the downtown office. Mom decided it was the perfect time to make herself use the other office.

She didn’t sleep well the night before, and it took twice as long for us to all get our breakfast. Mom was distracted and unable to focus. Her scent showed fear, and she was talking loudly to herself.

“Hannah, you can do this. It’s just Melanie, for heaven sake. She can be stubborn and rebellious, but she’s not dangerous. You know that. You’ll be fine. Spunky will be there. You can do this. Hannah Richards, you will do this! Hannah, just pull yourself together. . . .”

Geez, she was beginning to babble. I knew why it was so hard to do what she was about to do. As she droned on, I thought back to the events that had occurred eleven years ago. I’d heard Mom talk about it so often it was as if I’d been there myself.

Eleven years ago she’d left the house to go to her office, just as she did every weekday. Back then, I didn’t go with her. Mom didn’t think it was proper for a professional to take a dog to the office. Besides, I was still young, just over a year old. But even at just a year I was all terrier, and if I’d been with her I’m sure things would’ve been different. Dad was also at work. Later that evening, Dad came home as usual. Mom did not. He waited. He called her office and her cell phone. He got no answer. Over the next hour he tried again several times. Still no answer. He called the police.

Earlier that day one of Mom’s clients, Mr. Cart-wright, had arrived for his regular appointment. He was sweating and disheveled, and his eyes were darting everywhere. He was acting terrified and frantic. When she reached for the phone to alert the doorman, Mr. Cartwright pulled a gun from under his coat. He told Mom to back away from the phone and sit down. She did. Mr. Cartwright said the voices wouldn’t leave him alone. They were telling him they both had to die. Mom sat very still. Every time the telephone or her cell phone rang, Mr. Cartwright insisted that she ignore it.

Mom said later that she knew something was wrong as soon as he walked into the room. She said she’d known Mr. Cartwright for over a year and he’d always acted in a kind and gentle manner. She didn’t know what had caused this break from reality. She said her only hope was to try and reach the man she knew was on the other side of those voices. She thought back over everything Mr. Cartwright had ever told her. She sought the one thing that might have greater power over him than the voices. She actually remembered two things, his two twelve-year-old children. Mom knew Mr. Cartwright loved those kids. She kept reminding him of that fact. For ten long hours, she quietly reminded him, while he held her hostage.

The standoff lasted until the SWAT team responded to Dad’s call to the police. The police made their presence known, but did not break through the office door for fear of what might happen to Mom.

Finally, Mom’s voice won out. Mr. Cartwright did not fire his gun. Mom convinced him no one needed to die that day. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and helped him walk through the door and surrender. The police took him away. Mom walked through the same door, but she walked away from that office and everything and everyone connected to it.

It had taken her years to drag herself back to caring about patients again. Now she was actually going to go downtown and hold a session. This time I’d help her.

Mom and I arrived thirty minutes before the session. Mom said she wanted plenty of time to just get comfortable. First we went to the space she’d be using. It was exactly as she had set it up months ago. I could tell from the scents left behind that people had been in the office. But when Mom remarked that the cleaning people had done a good job, I figured it must be them that I smelled.

Mom then unlocked the door between the two offices, and we entered the office that the clients use. I tried to sort out Melanie’s scent from the other females that used this space. Hard to do since I’d never smelled any of them. It’d be easy if we’d come into this office after her session. Then the freshest scent in the room would belong to her and easy to discern. Besides, the staleness of the scents there was another problem. There was one over-powering aroma—chickens! Sure enough, one of Mom’s clients must have spent a lot of time with a whole bunch of chickens. This made no sense, because the chicken scent was mingled with a male’s scent and currently the only male client that logged in from this office was Mr. Perkins. And he was an attorney! What he had to do with chickens was beyond me.

I could’ve done more investigative work, but Mom said it was time to move back into the other office. Mom’s breathing stayed accelerated and her left leg jiggled for the entire session with Melanie. But she did it! She made it though her first session outside her home in over eleven years. Melanie didn’t seem to notice Mom’s heightened anxiety level. But then she was not sitting on Mom’s jiggling lap like I was. Mom had clung to me the entire time.

I wish I’d been on her lap eleven years ago.

A
lmost two months later, Mom and Jacob were still enjoying seeing each other at Puppy Park. However, the problem remained; Jacob was still hiding behind his wedding ring. According to Quincy, Jacob did take off the ring at home. He’d walk into the house, hang up his keys, empty his pocket change into the jar, and then slip the ring off his finger. He’d put it next to his watch and credit cards on the dresser. Quincy said there were even days when he came home from work and the ring was already in his pocket. However, whenever he was going to a social event, or to Puppy Park, he always put the ring back on.

Maybe his ring was like my favorite blanket, it made him feel safer. When Mom asked about his wife, Jacob said her name was Janice and she was a dental hygienist. When Mom asked why his wife never came to the park, Jacob told her about Janice’s allergies. According to Quincy, all that was true, except for one significant detail—Janice was no longer Jacob’s wife.

This man had some serious trust issues. We decided it was time to force the situation. We needed to get that wedding ring permanently off of Jacob’s finger. But how? Quincy had already tried knocking it off the dresser several times, but Jacob always retrieved it.

Bobby was the one who came up with our new plan. It involved dead fish.

He’d gotten the idea one night when Mom forgot to take out the garbage. Earlier that day, she’d thrown away some raw fish scraps. Bobby was well aware they were in there. He’d tried his best to communicate to Mom that his stomach would be a much better place for them. Mom heard him correctly, but she didn’t do what he wanted. “No sir, you’ve had enough for now.” The scraps went into the garbage can under the sink. Mom forgot about them.

All night, Bobby tried to get that cabinet door open. Unfortunately for him, Mom had put a baby lock on it after his last attempt. Bobby finally had to admit defeat.

The next morning, the whole kitchen stank. We all thought the aroma was wonderful. Mom did not. Bobby watched her wash the garbage can and smell it. Then she washed it again. It was not until after the third washing that she was satisfied it was clean. Then she attacked the air with the Lysol can. Thank God for the critter door. We all fled outside before we were asphyxiated! Bobby talked for days about the extraordinary lengths a human would go to get rid of that smell.

We all knew the story, but he was the one that came up with the answer to our current problem. He was proud of himself when he explained his idea to all of us. I admit, he had every right to brag. He’d come up with a simple but ingenious way to get the ring off of Jacob’s hand for good.

Every dog’s human knows how much we love to roll in stinky stuff. It drives you crazy! To us, the more stink, the greater the fun. When another critter leaves behind something that stinks, we must make every effort to put our own scent over it. It is a territorial thing that’s been going on for centuries. That’s the reason I’m compelled to pee where another dog has left his calling card. Then in the blink of an eye, that dog’s territory is now mine. Most of the time peeing will suffice. However, every now and then, a smell comes along that must be rolled in. Dead fish is one of them. It’s a dream come true.

When I told Quincy the plan, he agreed it sounded perfect. He said, “Hey, tell Bobby that he is pretty darn clever, for a cat!” Of course, when I repeated the compliment to Bobby, I left off the last three words. I’m not foolhardy.

Now we needed to find one stinky fish. We knew the big lake could provide us with what we needed. It was smelt season and the aromas wafting in from the beach were telling us that there were already a bunch of dead fish on the shore.