Where We Belong (38 page)

“Did you ever have kids?” I asked her.

She looked at me in an odd way, and I wondered if it had been a rude question. If I’d been wrong to ask.

“I have no children. No. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I just thought you’d be a good mother.”

Before she could even answer, we were in the kitchen, with Paul, and then Rachel and I didn’t get to talk anymore, because then it wasn’t about the two of us in any way.

My mom got home from work at the usual time. About two-thirty. I made sure I was there to meet her and talk to her.

“What?” she said. “The dog died. Didn’t he?”

“She. She, Mom. You knew that dog for years. How can you not get that she was a she?”

“I’m sorry. Where’s Sophie?”

“Right where she always is. On the dog bed at Paul’s. And right now, Rigby is there, too. But in an hour or so, a place that does cremation is going to send two big guys over to pick her up.”

“And then Sophie’s going to freak.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. And Rachel is here, so if Sophie freaks, we’re going to have to clear out.”

“And go where?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here.”

“Not exactly camping weather.”

“We could go to a motel. You said we had a lot of money saved.”

“The money is not the issue, kiddo. How can we go to a motel if Sophie is freaking out?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know what we’re going to do. But brace yourself. Because we’re about to have to figure it out.”

My mom kept looking out the window. Peering around the edge of the curtain, the way she’d done the day Paul moved away from the old place.

It made me nervous this time, too.

“They’re here,” she said.

I went to the window and looked out on the snowy scene. The snow had started up in flurries again. There was a gray van parked near the bottom of the back stairs, but I couldn’t read what it said on the side, because it was too covered with snow and that dirty sleet that gets thrown up from your tires when you drive on a barely plowed road.

I realized I didn’t want to see what came next. So I sat down on the couch.

It bothered me that my mom didn’t. So after a minute, I said, “Come away from the window!” But it came out harsh. So I followed it up with, “Please.”

She came and sat on the couch with me, looking like a puppy who’s just been smacked on the rump.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just nervous.”

“You’re not crossing anything.”

“I think it’s going to take more than crossed fingers to save us now.”

I heard the thunk of the van door slamming, and then the engine started up. I ran to the window and watched it inch down the driveway, back wheels losing traction and spinning now and then.

Then I paced for a minute or two.

Until my mom said, “Now who’s driving who crazy?”

“Sorry.”

I sat back down on the couch.

“She’s not freaking out,” my mom said.

“She’s not.”

“Why do you think she’s not?”

“I have no idea.”

“I would think she’d have freaked out when the dog died,” she said.

“She was happy when the dog died.”

“How is that possible?”

“My theory? It’s just a theory. I could totally be wrong. But I’ve decided to believe it means wherever Rigby is now, she’s happy. Even if I’m wrong, and it’s not true, I’m going to keep believing that. Because that’s what I choose to think.”

I waited for close to two hours. Because I really didn’t want to go knock on their door. Maybe he was talking to her, right then. Telling her how he felt. Or maybe he was crying, and she was holding him. I had no idea what was going on in there. I only knew I didn’t want to interrupt it.

But there was an obvious loose thread hanging, because they still had Sophie. And I had no idea if that was okay.

“I’d better go see what’s what,” I said to my mom.

I bundled up warm and walked all the way down the slippery, snowy driveway, because I didn’t want to knock on the back door, because the back room was Rachel’s guestroom. I slipped twice and fell on my butt on the steep part of the driveway, but I kept going.

I walked up the front stairs, which was easy, because the tree tunnel had kept them pretty much free of snow.

I paused. Wished like hell I didn’t have to knock.

Knocked.

Rachel answered the door.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” I said.

“It’s all right.”

“I didn’t know about Sophie. I didn’t know if I should… What about Sophie? What’s she doing? Should I be trying to get her back?”

“I’m not sure. Let me ask Paul. Come in.”

I waited in the living room, dripping snow onto the mat by the door. They had a fire going strong in the woodstove, and it was warm. In my big jacket, I felt like I was suffocating, but I didn’t figure I’d be there long.

Then she came back and said, “She’s just lying on the dog bed. She’s not causing any trouble. Paul says she can stay until she has to go to school.”

“It’s Christmas vacation. She doesn’t have to go to school until January.”

“Oh. Hold on.”

I sweated by the fire for another minute or two. I wasn’t sure why Paul wasn’t coming out and talking to me himself. If I had to guess, I think he might have been more okay with crying in front of her than me. Which I guess seemed right to me, since they’d been friends for more than fifty years, and he loved her.

She came back and said, “Paul says fine.”

“Okay.”

“She’s being very well-behaved.”

“I’m not sure why, but good.”

“She’s acting like the dog is still here.”

“Pretending, maybe.”

“Or maybe the dog is still here in some way she can feel.”

I didn’t answer, because I couldn’t. Because I had no idea what I thought about that.

“Well, you know where to find me if there’s a problem.”

I turned to go.

“Don’t you want to go out the back way in this bad weather?”

“Okay.”

“Why didn’t you come to the back door?”

“Because it’s your guestroom. I didn’t want to disturb your privacy.”

She smiled with only one corner of her mouth. A lot like the way Paul sometimes did.

“No wonder he likes you so much,” she said.

In the morning, I woke up and started to jump out of bed. Force of habit. I was going to go help Paul get Rigby out to pee. I was already half sitting up, swinging the blankets off, when I remembered.

I lay back down and covered up, and tried to understand the idea that there was no Rigby anymore, not anywhere in the world. That she’d gone from existing to not existing. I knew all about it in my head. But, in my gut, it didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

When my father died, I’d spent months doing the same thing.

Now here’s the weird part. It had been ten years since my father got killed, and I realized I still hadn’t made any progress with that. Oh, I was used to it. It didn’t surprise me or anything, and I accepted that it would always be that way. But in my gut, going from existing to not existing still didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

I just didn’t get the whole dying thing. I wondered if everybody felt that way or just me.

On the second full night after Rigby died, we heard a little rustling noise on the landing outside the apartment door. I was in bed, and so was my mom. I wasn’t asleep, though. I didn’t know about her.

Until she said, “Did you hear that? What is that?”

“I don’t know. Wild animal, maybe?”

I waited, but she didn’t answer.

So I said, “I should go look.”

“No, don’t. It could be dangerous.”

“I’ll put the chain on and peek out.”

I got up, a little cold in just my pajamas and bare feet, and locked the safety chain and then opened the door just a crack. Sophie was waiting on all fours on the landing, her teeth chattering. Wearing the clothes I’d put her in that morning, but no coat. She must have gone out through the doggie door, and Paul and Rachel must not have known she was gone.

I closed the door and undid the chain, then opened up wide, letting a blast of cold air in. Sophie wandered in and took up a spot on the rug, right where she used to lie with Rigby.

“Huh,” my mom said.

I sort of expected her to say more. But, really, I’m not sure what more there was to say.

I rubbed Sophie’s little hands between mine until they warmed up, took off her sneakers and her pink socks, and rubbed her feet. Then I covered her up with a spare blanket and left her there to sleep.