My Three Dogs, page 10
But Vivian would also block her access to Liam. That, too, was clear. “But I can’t let you go back there anymore, Sabrina. I’m truly sorry.”
“But he’s okay. Tell me that, at least.”
Vivian took in a deep breath, then shook her head. “I’m not allowed to say.”
Sabrina had cried enough in the past few weeks to recognize the symptoms of another meltdown. She closed her eyes and stood motionless for a moment, then nodded. “It’s not your fault, Vivian. His brother … we don’t get along. But this is childish.”
“Thanks for understanding,” Vivian replied, looking relieved.
In her car in the parking lot, Sabrina tried calling Brad. It rolled to voicemail. Then she texted.
Why won’t you let me see Liam?
There was no reply.
Brad please let me see Liam
She sat and gazed at the phone, waiting for the three little dots to indicate a reply was coming. Nothing.
Anyone watching security footage that afternoon would have seen a young blond woman in the front seat of her car, pounding her steering wheel with her fists and screaming.
When the rage and the pain and the grief were all vented, her hands ached, but her resolve had hardened.
They could not keep her from seeing Liam.
* * *
Only Archie was excited about the car ride. It was a strange vehicle, one the dogs had never been in before. They were in the back, but only Archie raced back and forth, trying to look out each side window. The other two dogs were subdued, watching Brad, who flexed and unflexed his hands on the wheel, radiating deep grief. Something bad was going on.
As far as Riggs was concerned, the logical conclusion of this day would be reuniting with Liam. Brad had almost never been in their presence without Liam, so this seemed a reasonable expectation. But it was not to be so.
Brad pulled up in front of a nondescript building along a heavily cemented area with many cars that were not moving. When Riggs was allowed out, his reaction was the same as Archie’s, to lift a leg against a well-tagged fire hydrant nearby. Once they had done that, though, they returned in concern to Brad, who was calling Luna’s name.
The Jack Russell did not want to get out of the car.
Eventually, Brad reached in and cradled Luna much the way Sabrina had held her the night before. “It’s okay, Luna,” Brad murmured. Luna heard the comforting words and her name but took nothing from it but a deepening sense of foreboding.
Riggs and Archie followed Brad through a glass door into a room that was so redolent with the smell of dogs and cats that it caused Luna’s nose to wrinkle. Archie, of course, was energized. It was a new place. New places were exciting, and new places with animal smells were doubly exciting. Riggs, though, was reacting to Luna. Her suspicious manner led him to believe that she understood something about this place not apparent to the male dogs.
Two women came out from behind a counter. “My name’s Mrs. Kepler,” greeted the smaller of the two. She had white hair, something Luna had never really noticed on a person before. Her smells, Luna noted, were of breakfast, and the friendly hand that was extended wafted a cinnamon spice.
“I’m Teme,” added the other one. “Teme Ring.” She was taller and thinner and younger than Mrs. Kepler by a significant degree. Her hair was the same color as some of the mottled patches on Riggs’s back, and she smelled like cooked vegetables.
“Who have we here?” Mrs. Kepler asked cheerfully.
16
Archie reacted to the woman’s crooning tone by throwing himself onto his stomach and crawling forward, his tail beating the floor. A faint whiff of urine came to Luna’s nose. Archie was so excited, he’d leaked a little. The humans didn’t seem to notice.
“These are my brother’s dogs,” Brad replied in a choked voice. Something about his inflection caused the other two humans to regard him warily. Brad closed his eyes momentarily. “Liam was in a car accident. A car veered onto the highway and into oncoming traffic. The other driver was killed.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. Kepler replied softly.
Brad nodded. “My brother’s in a coma. He has”—Brad hesitated— “head injuries. He’s not expected to recover.”
“I see,” Mrs. Kepler murmured.
Teme knelt and extended her hand. Archie went to her, but Riggs held back, mimicking Luna’s reticence.
“This is a surrender, then,” Mrs. Kepler speculated.
Brad nodded again. “I’ve been working a couple of years on a contract. I’m in mechanical design, and I have to go to Germany. I’ll be there for three months or longer.” He shrugged. “Could be as long as a year. Or … forever. Obviously, I can’t take the dogs with me.”
“Obviously,” Teme replied supportively.
“It’s so sudden. There’s no one else who can take them on such short notice.” Brad nodded then, a quick gesture to indicate he understood his own words, even if they hadn’t convinced him he was making the right decision. He brought in a deep breath. “Am I doing the right thing? Should I not go? Everything is happening so damn quickly, there’s no time to even think.”
Mrs. Kepler’s smile was sad. “I can tell you want to do the right thing for your brother’s dogs, and we will find them new homes where they’ll be happy, I promise. Obviously, we’re not a boarding facility. We can’t just keep them here while waiting for your plans to settle—that would be cruel, under the circumstances—but we will do our best, and I am sure they’ll be fine. We do understand what you’re going through,” Mrs. Kepler finished.
The sadness inside Brad was remarkably similar to the sharp pain in Sabrina. Riggs raised his head, regarding Brad, and for the first time contemplated that perhaps something was significantly wrong with Liam. Perhaps the reason why Liam had not come home was what lay behind Sabrina’s sadness and now Brad’s. Riggs couldn’t fathom what that could be, though. He looked to Luna, always quicker, always smarter, to see if she had any reaction, but she was gazing up at Mrs. Kepler with a solemn expression.
Riggs, Luna, and now Archie belonged with Liam. There wasn’t much about the world that Riggs understood, but he understood that much. Yet here they were, without him.
A man wandered out of a back room, moving carefully. He said his name was Noah Reed. Brad called him Mr. Reed, so that’s how Luna thought of him. Mr. Reed put down very gentle hands that smelled delightfully of meaty food. Luna could not help but sniff them, and then, with a resignation that Riggs both saw and felt, Luna allowed herself to be scooped up by this old man, who moved slowly and nonthreateningly and wore a steady smile on his face. His face wrinkled as he grinned, and above the wrinkles were wisps of hair the same color as Mrs. Kepler’s. “What is your name?” he asked the little Jack Russell.
“That’s Luna,” Brad volunteered.
“Luna.” The man’s soft brown eyes regarded the dog in his arms. “I will take good care of you, Luna. We’ll find you a good home. People love Jack Russell terriers.”
When the man opened the door and carried Luna through it, Riggs alerted, and the glance he exchanged with the Jack Russell was full of alarm. This separation of the pack was not something expected or welcome. It felt dangerous. Riggs snapped his gaze to Teme and Mrs. Kepler. They seemed nice, but they had taken Luna away, or at least participated in Luna’s removal. Riggs took a careful, unnoticed step back. He turned and looked at the glass door through which they’d come. The shadows were growing long in the parking lot, seeming almost to beckon the little Aussie. If someone came to that door and opened it, Riggs resolved to break through to freedom. He pictured doing it, felt the afternoon sun on his back, the cement under his pads as he ran and found Liam and ended this horrible ordeal.
Brad stood and wrote things down with a pen, filling out forms while Teme took a loop of rope and slipped it over Archie’s willing head. The only moment of hesitation was at that same door, where Archie suddenly turned back to glance at Riggs.
Riggs knew what Archie was wondering. Was this the last time they would see each other? Were they now all going into some mysterious new part of life where the pack was separated?
Brad dropped to his knees and held Riggs’s face in his hands and stared into his eyes. “I’m so sorry, buddy. Sometimes these things just happen in life. I wish I could tell you it’s all going to be better, but I think it’s not. I think it’s going to be worse for a while, but you’ll find a home. You’ll learn to love the new people. I know, though…” His voice roughened, and he wiped hastily at his eyes. “I know you’ll never forget Liam, and you shouldn’t. He was … He is a very good man.”
Riggs had felt these goodbye feelings from other people enough in his life to appreciate that Brad was going away. To find Liam and bring him here? It didn’t appear so.
Riggs glanced back at the glass door. If Brad left, he would clearly have to open that door. But, Riggs realized, dashing through it to freedom would mean abandoning the other members of his pack.
Brad stood back up. “Thank you,” he told Mrs. Kepler. “I so appreciate it.”
Mrs. Kepler put a loop around Riggs’s neck, which he accepted with despondence. There were no other choices available.
“These dogs will be fine,” she reassured Brad. “You can tell they’ve been raised with love. That’s so important.”
Riggs turned away from Brad and, without protest, kept the leash limp as he followed Mrs. Kepler through the same door that had claimed Archie and Luna. He registered the abrupt change—a change in noise level, in the overwhelming smells of canines, of the air becoming moist and warm from the panting of all the dogs. As he tracked the woman down the center of the aisle, he ignored as best as he could the reactions of the caged dogs on either side of him: the ones who charged the gates, the ones who lay sullen and scared, the ones who paced and ignored him in return.
He knew where he was being taken because he spotted Archie and Luna in their own pens, with an empty kennel between them. Archie leaped and twirled, excited to be reunited with Riggs, while Luna solemnly gazed with what felt like silent reproach.
“There you go, Riggs,” Mrs. Kepler invited soothingly, the gate open. Riggs padded in, the concrete cool underfoot, and took note of the clean-smelling bed in the back and the bowl of fresh water.
Archie was celebrating their arrival at this alien place, barking back at the vocalizations and putting his paws up on the cage walls, but Riggs and Luna retreated to their respective beds and curled up, intimidated and subdued.
Riggs could only hope that Liam would know how to find them.
* * *
Swedish Medical Center was a hospital, not a secret, high-security facility. While it was true Vivian and her peers appeared formidable as they maintained sentry duty at the reception desk, Sabrina had spotted a service elevator down the hallway from Liam’s room.
Sabrina put her plan into action a few days after Brad banished her from the place, summoning up her nerve and finding her way to that service elevator on a lower floor. It was a simple matter to push the button directly below the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign and wait for the empty elevator to yawn open and whisk her up to Liam’s floor. Alarms did not ring, and she was not met with a hail of gunfire.
Her heart was beating loudly because she felt like a burglar, but there was no one in the hallway to challenge her. She reminded herself that she was doing nothing wrong—it was Brad who was wrong, Brad who was doing this. He had no right to keep her from Liam, and she would visit every day if she wanted!
Steeled with resolve, she padded swiftly to Liam’s room, pausing automatically to take a surgical mask from the bin in the hallway and slip it on. As she did so, she glanced through the small window, and what she saw felt like a physical gut punch, her breath leaving her lungs in a gasp.
Liam lay face up in his bed as usual. Most of his lower body was hidden by the window frame, but his head was in clear view.
It was covered with a sheet.
Sabrina gripped the window frame to keep from collapsing. She focused on his chest, willing it to rise and fall, knowing it was futile, knowing that there was only one known cause of such stillness.
Her sobs hacked at her insides, so painful it was as if she were breaking in half. She reached up and yanked the mask away from her mouth, pulling in choked breaths, trying to breathe past the agony.
The person who appeared at her elbow was a stranger, garbed in nurse blue, brown eyes warm with sympathy. “Hello?” he murmured to Sabrina. He lifted a hand as if to touch her. He was young, his name tag said Garcia, and he seemed unsure.
Sabrina was too stricken to talk.
“Did you know him?”
Sabrina nodded. The man’s face was soft and caring. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he murmured. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She mutely shook her head. No. There was nothing anyone could ever do.
She knew she was being rude, but without saying anything, she pushed herself away from the wall, staggering as if on a boat at sea, somehow finding the strength to pass by reception. Vivian was not there, no one was there, so no one saw Sabrina fall into the elevator and collapse in the corner, hoarsely screaming in anguish.
17
Luna, Archie, and Riggs understood that, at least for now, they lived in cages, separated from one another, and that Mr. Reed would take them out into the yard a few times a day and would put them back in approximately the same pens. Luna was now in the middle, so Riggs could touch her nose with his. Archie on the other side would do the same, and when they were not outside together, that was how Riggs could keep track of Archie’s mood as well as his sister dog’s. Luna curled up on her bed as if guarding it from intruders and would only deign to get out of it to squat in the corner near the drain, or to eat the food and drink the water that was set inside their cages. Mostly it was Teme and Mr. Reed who came around to take care of them. Riggs found himself liking both of them even though they were not Liam.
Mr. Reed moved so slowly down the hallway with the food that often a cry of frustration would emerge from Riggs’s lips. Archie, on the other side of Luna, would yip and twist excitedly, not that any of their noises could be heard over the constant squalling of dogs in distress. Some of the animals here were as heartbroken as Luna, but whereas she took it all in silently, others were far more vocal. The barking and crying was ceaseless, and all the dogs were tense and afraid.
Riggs found himself thinking of Luna’s daily assault on the basket of stuffed toys. What had always seemed a provocation now, on reflection, was an endearing ritual. When he lay in his bed, his eyes squeezed shut, the memory he summoned to block out all the barking was Luna’s energetic attacks on her stuffed animals.
Within two days of having arrived, a man came to meet Archie. Archie greeted him as if they had known each other the dog’s whole life. There was lots of petting and bowing and licking. Riggs watched this warily, while Luna could not even be bothered to open her eyes. It seemed that the man was here just to see Archie and not the rest of the pack.
Mrs. Kepler stood next to him and talked about Archie. “He’s obviously a Labradoodle. We think maybe eight months old. He’s been chipped with the former owner’s information, but we believe, we’ve been told anyway, that his owner was killed in a car accident, so we’re looking to find them new homes. Best would be someone who could take all three of them.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” The man chuckled. “But this little guy is so cute. Let me check with my cousin. I live with her temporarily, but if she’s good with it, I’m good with it.”
Mrs. Kepler nodded patiently. “That’s nice. We’ve had several other people interested. You’re the first to physically come in, but I have to say we’re looking for a permanent solution. If you think you’re going to move, perhaps it would be best to get that done first and then come back in.”
“Sure, but if there’s other people interested,” the man objected mildly. He frowned, calculating, not wanting to lose the deal, then shrugged in resignation.
He was nothing like Liam, Riggs decided. His hair was longer, he was much thinner, and he smelled dry, not like the pungent fragrances that came off Liam’s hands but rather with a bland, crisp odor that Riggs associated with paper. The man departed, but another family came, this one with three little girls and a man and a woman. They visited Archie as well. They also stopped and poked their fingers through the cage at Riggs. Riggs glowered at them, and they withdrew their fingers.
Riggs tracked Luna’s sullen mood. She watched everything happening as if it had nothing to do with her, and Riggs thought he understood why. She was waiting for Sabrina or Liam or both. Nobody else was going to cajole her off her bed and over to the cage door.
Riggs tried to understand what was happening through her eyes. Luna always understood situations faster than Riggs did. For Riggs, this place was an unwelcome, even catastrophic, change, and something needed to be done to have everything go back to the ordered and understood nature of their lives before the night that Liam didn’t come home. For Luna, there seemed to be another grim purpose afoot, some deliberate plan to keep them away from their people. Riggs decided he would just do what Luna did, so he’d lie on his bed and watch as the flow of people loved and kissed Archie.
Mr. Reed always gestured toward Luna and Riggs. “There’s a lot of interest in this pup, but these three dogs came in together. I think we would give preference to anyone who wanted to take all of them.”
No one said yes to this.
* * *
Brad awkwardly made his way through the protocol of carefully scrubbing his hands and then putting on foot covers, a gown, rubber gloves, a mask, and a hat. This new place was far more scrupulous than even the ICU at the hospital. Thus attired, he was allowed entry into the stark yellow room to be with his brother.
Liam lay face up, inert on the pillow, his jaws covered with a mask, tubes in his arms, and low beeps and hummings filling the room with a sterile background sound. At first, Brad stood against the blinds as if being held captive, his shadow stretching across the room and onto Liam. His arms folded, unable to or unwilling to approach his comatose brother, Brad remained completely silent for a while, working to overcome his tortured feelings of loss and grief. Several times, he braced himself, like a person getting ready to leap off the high dive, and each time, he blinked and shook his head, wanting to retreat, to escape. But there was no retreat, there was no escape.
