Like the night I told Benny, “Don’t feed her that; she can’t handle rich food,” as he was about to smuggle the rest of his dessert to Sonoma under the table.
“Yes, she can.”
“No, she can’t. Remember that time she threw up all over the dining room after…” Oops. “No, wait, that was some other dog.”
“What dog?” Sam asked, interested. “Because Sonoma did that-”
“No, no, some other dog. Hettie’s dog, she told me about her once. She has a big-”
“Nuh-uh, Hettie has cats.”
“Not Hettie. Did I say Hettie? Carla, the other one, she’s got some big dog who threw up in the-”
“When did she tell you this?”
“Well, not when I was asleep, obviously, ha-ha!”
“So-”
“Afterward, I guess, I mean, when else? Unless it wasn’t Carla-wait, no, it was Mrs. Speakman, the lady across from Monica. She’s got a German shepherd, Trudi, she threw up in the dining room. After she ate a-pie. She ate a pie off the-kitchen window, like in a story, and-Who wants coffee? Sam? I mean, Sam, do you want coffee?”
I wanted to tell them the truth. A dozen times I started to tell them, or at least Sam, but I’d listen to the sentence about to come out of my mouth and have second thoughts. “You’ll never guess where I really was all that time you thought I was in a coma.” Or “I know you guys think you hit Sonoma that day on Georgetown Road, but guess what, you really hit me!”
Let’s face it, even Benny wouldn’t believe me. Even if I told Sam everything that happened, things only he and the dog could possibly know, he’d find a way to rationalize it. So would I-who wouldn’t? “Oh, you’re just remembering something I told you while you were sleeping,” he’d say. He’d find an excuse, the way we do with people who’ve seen ghosts or UFOs or religious miracles. Whatever they say, somehow we always find a way to explain it.
Besides, sometimes I think it couldn’t have happened; it must’ve been a dream. People do not come back as dogs. I can’t even prove it anymore, because Benny gave me back the hoarded treasures that were going to be my ace in the hole, the secret I couldn’t have known because no one knew it except him and Sonoma. But I wasn’t fast enough. The day I came home from Hope Springs, Benny piled my coffee mug, mouse pad, and earrings on the bed. “Look, Mommy. I was saving them for you.” After I had a good cry, we had a long snuggle.
“Come up soon,” Sam says, and I say, “I will, five more minutes,” as he and Benny gather their stuff and start for the cabin. Sonoma used to follow Benny everywhere, I happen to know, when she wasn’t following Sam everywhere, but now she sticks with me. She’s my dog. Benny’s feelings weren’t hurt-he took it as a matter of course. Sam, too. The only one who had a problem with her instant devotion was me.
She splashes over and sits next to me, her rump in the water, chin on the arm of my lawn chair. “Hey, babe,” I say, gently squeezing one thick, silky ear. She’s smaller than I thought. Smaller than I felt, rather. She comes to just above my knee, perfect stroking height as she winds gracefully by. She has soft, soulful, light brown eyes. She likes to cross her legs in front when she lies down, very ladylike. We have the same color hair, tawny reddish tan, but hers is straighter. I admire her trim waistline. When I take her to the ball field in the park and let her off the leash (illegally), she chases the low-fl ying barn swallows until she’s so tired her tongue hangs out. I could watch her run forever.
Now she puts her paw on my lap for me to shake, which I do, but it’s never enough. She switches paws, I shake that one, she switches back. It’s almost a tic. “What do you want, honey?” She never answers, but sometimes I think it’s to put her arms around me. Just get closer.
She scared me at first. I was, of course, ecstatic when I heard she hadn’t drowned, but when they brought me home and the first thing she did was leap up beside me on the bed and gaze deeply into my eyes, I was, frankly, weirded out. “Who are you?” I whispered-when we were alone. “Are you me? Nod your head for yes.”
Nothing.
Since then I’ve tried lots of other ways to communicate (“Blink your eyes.” “Lift one paw.” “Wag your tail.” “Bark twice.”), but nothing’s worked. Either I haven’t found the key yet, which seems increasingly unlikely, or Sonoma is simply a dog (“simply”; not “just”). A delightful, handsome, intelligent, affectionate dog, yes, but nothing more, no one hidden or trapped inside trying to get out. Apparently.
So I don’t know what happened to me. Sometimes I imagine all dogs are, from time to time, secretly people, and there’s this global conspiracy to keep it under wraps so those of us who’ve experienced it aren’t carted off to asylums. Other times I think, well, why just dogs? Why not cats, too? Or birds? Squirrels, whales, hedgehogs? Maybe there’s constant species body-swapping going on, but nobody talks about it except in children’s books and science fiction.
Other times, I’m pretty sure I dreamed the whole thing.
One thing is true: Being a dog changed me. I’ve become a pack animal. Family’s everything-Sam and Benny not only complete me; in some bone-deep way they are me. And not just them. The whole concept of family stretches out farther, farther, planets around the sun. It includes all my friends, Delia and her family, Charlie, and Monica, Ronnie Lewis, neighbors, the community, anybody I love, even Mr. Horton-we’re all a pack. With my little, immediate pack, Sam and Benny, I still have a faint but undeniable urge to roll around on the floor, but with the secondary and tertiary members, I mostly just want to have constant goodwill and cooperation. Which, believe it or not, works out well in the real estate business. Ronnie says I’m better than I used to be and, in all modesty, that’s saying something. It turns out that honesty, reliability, transparency, and kindness not only make good retrievers; they make good house sellers, too. News to me. I thought my profession was dog-eat-dog.
“Shall we go in?”
Sonoma backs up in the water, tail wagging. She loves transitions, anything new. I was the same way. I fold my chair, tuck my phone in my pocket, the real estate contract I was reading under my arm. Put on my water sandals. It’s such a pretty day. Maybe we’ll go on a hike this afternoon-Shenandoah National Park is our backyard. “Ready?” Sonoma and I set off across the rocky shallows, and of course I’m extra alert, setting each foot down with care, wary of slipperiness. We reach the shore without mishap.
Sometimes I try to catch her off guard.
“Who saved Monica, Sonoma? Hmm? Who saved her, girl, you or me?”
Her ears twitch at her name and my questioning tone. She looks at me in happy blankness.
We start the climb to the cabin. I think of another trick.
“Hey, Sonoma! How would you like to be spayed? Huh? Do you wanna be spayed?”
I can’t believe my eyes! Her tail sags-her ears flatten.
“No?” My heart skips a beat or two. “You don’t want to be spayed?”
She shakes her head so violently, her ears sound like cards shuffling.
“Okay,” I say, shaky-voiced. “Okay, then. Don’t worry; we won’t.”
Now what? Did that just happen?
“I’m actually having the same dilemma,” I tell her as we proceed up the path. “Not getting spayed-getting pregnant. Sam and I, we’re talking about it. He’s for it, but, you know, trying to sound neutral. What do you think?”
But she’s through communicating. She’s got her nose buried in something stinky on the ferny wood floor. When she finishes smelling it, she pees on it.
So I am left, once again, to imagine what my dog thinks. It’s not as satisfying as knowing for sure, but since she’s the best of me I can never go far wrong-in ethical quandaries, tough decisions, tricky situations. I just ask myself, “What would Sonoma do?”