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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Chief bit one more person, they were going to make Ruthann kill him.\u00a0 So when he went for her face, she was flooded with fear not for herself but for him.<\/p>\n
No one ever said kill<\/i>, except her nephew, who had offered to do it for five dollars, the cost of one bullet.\u00a0 But killing\u2019s what it was.\u00a0 Not a putting down or a putting to sleep, which made it sound like you were laying a drowsy baby in its crib with a warm bottle.\u00a0 Not the stopping of being heroic, like they\u2019d said about Mom when everyone except Ruthann had voted to pull the plug, despite the chance that the next week or the next day even, there might be a cure.\u00a0 All of them had ripped that chance away from their mother, who had always tenderly bandaged every scraped knee they ever had, and had left her own bed to sleep in theirs with them when they were sick and throwing up or frightened from bad dreams.\u00a0 All of them telling Ruthann she was the one being unreasonable.<\/p>\n
No one ever listened to her.\u00a0 Everyone always acted like her ideas were foolish or ignorant or selfish, yes even selfish, like when Lucy said Ruthann only wanted to keep their mother alive — alive and suffering<\/i>, she\u2019d said — because she didn\u2019t want to have to feel the sadness of her dying.\u00a0 Ruthann should have been used to it by now, but it always surprised her when other people couldn\u2019t see things her way.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t just that they didn\u2019t agree.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t see it at all.\u00a0 She might as well have been talking Chinese.\u00a0 But just because people didn\u2019t understand her didn\u2019t mean she didn\u2019t know what she was talking about.<\/p>\n
Not that any of this passed through her mind as Chief, lips curled back over ferocious yellow teeth, leapt open-mouthed at her face.\u00a0 Her only thought was to keep him away from Lucy, who was not backing down.\u00a0 Lucy never backed down, whether against highway patrolmen or red-neck bikers or bucking horses.\u00a0 Lucy was standing in the middle of the kitchen shouting at the dog, like his snarling didn\u2019t mean anything or, more likely, because she was too drunk to take in the danger, to see how Chief was on the tipping edge of attack, only holding himself back for Ruthann\u2019s sake.\u00a0 Which was why Ruthann had to put herself between her sister and the dog.\u00a0 Chief must not be killed simply because Lucy\u2019s temper was short when she was drinking.\u00a0 It helped that Ruthann herself had been sipping white wine since ten that morning, it being Saturday and her day off.\u00a0 Benson Dermatology was open Saturday mornings, but they didn\u2019t need Ruthann to come in — she pulled the patient records for Saturday appointments before she left on Friday, and the nurses left them for her to re-file on Monday afternoon.\u00a0 She sometimes thought this wasn\u2019t fair, as she could have used the pay of extra hours, especially since they wouldn\u2019t let her go full-time.\u00a0 Not that she\u2019d welcome having to get up Saturday mornings.<\/p>\n
Ruthann had knelt down to appeal to Chief\u2019s better nature, and at that very same moment, he had lunged.\u00a0 Her face was right in his path.\u00a0 She knew, even as his teeth sank into her cheek and blood and dog spit splashed into her eyes, that he hadn\u2019t meant to hurt her.\u00a0 It was Lucy he was after, and he didn\u2019t want to hurt her, either, but only to make her shut up.\u00a0 Ruthann knew how that could be.\u00a0 She\u2019d never gone after Lucy herself.\u00a0 But she could understand the urge.\u00a0 Or maybe Chief had meant to snap the air near Ruthann\u2019s face to get her to move aside, and it was her own clumsiness that caused the accident.\u00a0 Maybe she\u2019d stumbled into his open jaws.\u00a0 She\u2019d gone into a squat quickly and wasn\u2019t that steady.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what Ruthann kept calling it — an accident — interrupting Lucy in all her repeated tellings of the the story, to her son with the five-dollar bullets, and to her ex-husband, who was also their landlord, and to their brothers and to Rhonda, her drinking buddy, who was a dog-lover but had never shown any special fondness for Chief.\u00a0 Some people just couldn\u2019t warm to an animal that didn\u2019t make a fuss over them.\u00a0 Chief was a one-person dog, and that person was Ruthann.<\/p>\n
She was the one who had found him wandering on a lonely back road, skinny and shivering, too far from any house to belong anywhere nearby.\u00a0 Not that Ruthann would have looked for Chief\u2019s owner even if she\u2019d found him in the middle of a neighborhood of close-set houses.\u00a0 Anyone who\u2019d let a dog get into the condition Chief was in didn\u2019t deserve to have him.\u00a0 It took Ruthann an hour to talk him into getting into her car.\u00a0 He was that suspicious and scared.\u00a0 It was a way of being that he never lost, even after he\u2019d been living with Ruthann and Lucy for many months and had grown fat and handsome, looking like he had some Chow in him, though Lucy always frowned and rolled her eyes when Ruthann claimed that, like Ruthann had said something impossible.\u00a0 Just look at that curled tail<\/i>, Ruthann would argue, and those dreaming eyes.\u00a0 <\/i>Other people said Chief\u2019s eyes were more wolfish than doggy, the eyes of a vicious hunter, maybe a wounded hunter.\u00a0 It made visitors nervous to see how he\u2019d slink under the dining room table when they came in, and how he\u2019d watch them without stopping, even if they stayed for hours, not lying down but keeping on his feet like he wanted to be ready, turning his body if they moved their position so he was always facing straight towards wherever they stood or sat.\u00a0 Like Lucy\u2019s friend, Bart, who, after he\u2019d come back from Iraq, would only sit where he could face a door, even in a restaurant.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, if Ruthann cooed at Chief and the visitor wasn\u2019t too loud, Chief would come out from under the table and sit at Ruthann\u2019s feet, still watchful but not so tight.\u00a0 Ruthann considered that any visitor who Chief was willing to share the living room with like that must be a good person.\u00a0 She trusted Chief\u2019s instincts.\u00a0 She knew suspicion was often the smart move, and not just for a dog.<\/p>\n
Everything stopped as soon as Ruthann got bitten.\u00a0 Lucy stopped shouting and rushed to help Ruthann stand up, saying, omigod, omigod<\/i>, omigod<\/i> over and over.\u00a0 Chief stopped barking and retreated out of the room, like he knew he might\u2019ve just cooked his own goose.\u00a0 For the moment, Ruthann stopped worrying about him, the hot pain in her face demanding all her attention.\u00a0 Lucy wanted to take her to Emergency, but Ruthann hated waiting, and Emergency at midnight on Saturday was sure to be full of moaning old men and vomiting kids and blood.\u00a0 Besides, she had no insurance, and she didn\u2019t want to spend money on a bandaging job that Lucy could take care of just as good.\u00a0 And she didn\u2019t want some nosy doctor reporting Chief to Animal Control.\u00a0 The neighbors had called Animal Control out once already when Chief jumped the fence and was running loose.\u00a0 Everyone around here kept their dogs on leash.\u00a0 Plus there was that incident last month when a little girl a few blocks over had been attacked by a Doberman who was off-leash.\u00a0 Ruthann heard that she needed thirty stitches in her leg.\u00a0 That had got everybody even more against dogs running free, even though the development was out in the country, having been chopped out of old farm land.<\/p>\n
Everyone so strict about dogs was just one thing Ruthann didn\u2019t like about this new neighborhood where she and Lucy had moved three months ago.\u00a0 Lucy kept reminding her how they could never afford such a big house if not for her ex\u2019s giving them a break on the rent, but it didn\u2019t seem such a break to Ruthann if you considered he hadn\u2019t finished re-paneling the living room like he\u2019d said he would and other things, too, like no toilet paper holders in the bathrooms and the yard full of dead leaves and in the far corner two brown Christmas trees with sad scraps of tinsel on some branches that glittered when her headlights hit them from the driveway and kept making her think a cougar was in the yard.\u00a0 And what if the big cat had got Chief and now was waiting to make her his dessert?<\/p>\n
Ruthann had never put a leash or collar on any dog she\u2019d owned.\u00a0 She knew they didn\u2019t like it.\u00a0 She\u2019d always had fenced-in yards for them because she couldn\u2019t walk them.\u00a0 Shep, who died last year, had never learned to take stairs either, so in their old place, Ruthann had had to carry him up and down the steps from the house to the yard whenever he had to do his business, no matter if it was raining or icy cold or dark.\u00a0 Lucy said it was Ruthann at fault, not the dogs, that Ruthann was too lazy to train them.\u00a0 Lucy said it was Ruthann\u2019s fault, too, that she had to stand between Shep and Jocko every night while they ate to keep them from fighting if one finished first and wanted the other\u2019s food.\u00a0 Over the years, she\u2019d needed stitches in her legs a few times from standing between the dogs like that and one of them biting her by mistake.\u00a0 Now, with Chief her only dog, Ruthann didn\u2019t have to do that any more.\u00a0 But she\u2019d never needed thirty stitches, like that little girl.\u00a0 Her dogs would never do her that bad.<\/p>\n
When Ruthann\u2019s husband, Dave, was in the hospice for his lung cancer, they had let her bring Shep and Jocko in to visit him.\u00a0 They hadn\u2019t wanted to at first because it would be a big bending of the rules, but Ruthann kept asking every day, sometimes more than once in a day when different staff came and went.\u00a0 She kept promising that the dogs would be quiet in the room and would slip in and out the back door where no one could notice.\u00a0 You won\u2019t even know they\u2019re here<\/i>, she\u2019d said.\u00a0 They miss Dave, they need to see him.\u00a0 <\/i>The dogs couldn\u2019t understand where he\u2019d disappeared to and why Ruthann was away so much, too.\u00a0 The hospice people finally said yes when Ruthann told them it would cheer up Dave to see the dogs.\u00a0 Because the hospice people all thought Dave was dying.<\/p>\n
Ruthann had been sure Dave would pull through.\u00a0 He\u2019s healthy as a horse<\/i>, she kept telling everyone, healthy as a horse<\/i>.\u00a0 He worked construction and was never sick.\u00a0 Only smoker\u2019s cough.\u00a0 But Ruthann and Lucy had that, too.\u00a0 Dave was strong and healthy as a horse, Ruthann had insisted to the doctor when they tried to get him on that experimental drug.\u00a0 He went into the hospice the next week.<\/p>\n
The dogs ended up going three or four times to the hospice.\u00a0 Probably Chief wouldn\u2019t have been welcome back after one visit.\u00a0 So it was a good thing Ruthann didn\u2019t have Chief then.<\/p>\n
Shep was hit especially hard when Dave passed.\u00a0 He carried Dave\u2019s terrycloth bathrobe belt around in his mouth for weeks afterwards.\u00a0 Ruthann was sure the animal had died of a broken heart.\u00a0 Lucy said it didn\u2019t hurt that the collie was old and arthritic and half-blind.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t control his bladder any more either, though he usually managed to drag himself to a far corner of the kitchen linoleum first.\u00a0 Much as Ruthann loved Shep, she couldn\u2019t stand it when he peed on the floor.\u00a0 Shame, shame<\/i>, she\u2019d yell at him.\u00a0 Then she\u2019d wash down the whole floor with bleach, no matter what the hour, nor how much her back might be acting up, sometimes the countertops, too, for good measure.\u00a0 Jocko would keep her company while she cleaned, following close at her heels, wearing a worried look like maybe he was going to get bawled out next.\u00a0 And, truth to tell, after tripping over him two or three times, she would end up snapping at him go to bed, go to your bed<\/i>, using her sternest voice and making that hissing sound he hated to chase him off.<\/p>\n
Lucy was much more patient about Shep\u2019s peeing problem, telling Ruthann not to yell at him, he couldn\u2019t help it.\u00a0 Lucy could be so mean sometimes, sniping at Ruthann over nothing, sometimes hollering shut up <\/i>or worse, but she had a kind heart, even if she didn\u2019t always let it show.\u00a0 Their brothers said Ruthann should be glad Lucy put up with her and her fussy habits and constant complaining and crazy-ass way of thinking.\u00a0 But they did admit that Ruthann had some putting up to do with Lucy, too.\u00a0 Lucy liked to go out to bars and dance halls and was was a lively, noisy drinker even at home, while Ruthann preferred staying quiet on the Barca-lounger.\u00a0 They argued a lot, about small things mostly, but they had each other\u2019s backs, come hell or high water.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never abandon Ruthann<\/i>, Lucy had said to more than one person.\u00a0 Ruthann knew it was true.\u00a0 And she knew Lucy wouldn\u2019t like to be without her anyway, but neither of them ever said so.<\/p>\n
When Ruthann went in to work on the Monday after the Saturday she got bitten, of course everyone asked why she had the big bandage on her face.\u00a0 But better they see the bandage, she\u2019d thought, than the ugly, swollen, discolored wound beneath it.\u00a0 She told them it was a dog bite but not how bad it was, brushing away their horrified seeking after more information with it\u2019s not anything, it was just a silly accident.<\/i>\u00a0 And really, it wasn\u2019t as bad as it looked.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t even hurt any more, just itched some, plus the top edge of the bandage blocked out part of her vision, which was a nuisance when she was reading names on file folders or punching in a phone number to give someone an appointment reminder.\u00a0 One of the nurses told Dr. Benson, though, and he insisted on looking at Ruthann\u2019s cheek.\u00a0 He shook his head when he saw it, and put in a couple shots of lidocaine and stitched it up, and he scolded her that she should have gone to Emergency right away when it happened.\u00a0 He gave her a tetanus shot, too, and some antibiotics that he had free samples of.\u00a0 She thought he might send her home to rest, and he did say she could go if she wanted, but his wife, who was the office manager, reminded Ruthann she wouldn\u2019t get paid for any hours she wasn\u2019t there.\u00a0 She would\u2019ve gone anyway except she still owed Lucy for last month\u2019s utilities, and the groomer wasn\u2019t going to let her bring Chief in again until she paid that back bill.\u00a0 But if only she had gone home that day.\u00a0 Then she could have stopped what happened to Chief.\u00a0 Though Lucy would only have done it on another day.\u00a0 She was that set on it.<\/p>\n
Ruthann screamed when Lucy told her.\u00a0 Screamed and screamed no, no<\/i> and then sat down on the couch and cried and cried, and Lucy had sat beside her and put her arms around her, and Ruthann had leaned against her.\u00a0 Honey, honey, <\/i>Lucy kept saying, you know it had to be done, and you know you couldn\u2019t do it, hon.<\/i>\u00a0 When Ruthann calmed down, Lucy told her all about it.\u00a0 How her ex had paid for a special mobile unit to come to the house.\u00a0 How Lucy had held Chief on her lap as he died.\u00a0 How it had been quiet and smooth and he hadn\u2019t even whimpered, only lifting up his head once to look into Lucy\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 Ruthann was sure that when he did that, he must have been looking for her and wondering why she wasn\u2019t there in his hour of need, but she didn\u2019t say that to Lucy because Lucy already felt bad enough about it.<\/p>\n
Lucy said Ruthann could get a new dog, that it should be a rescue dog, so she\u2019d know it was one that really needed a home and someone devoted like Ruthann to love it.\u00a0 Ruthann was thinking she\u2019d like a chihuahua so it could sit on her lap and sleep in her bed without getting in the way when she rolled over.\u00a0 She\u2019d heard, though, that chihuahuas were hard to housebreak, not because they were stupid but because they were stubborn.\u00a0 Ruthann didn\u2019t like the idea of another dog that peed on the floor, but she kind of liked the idea of a dog that would stand up for itself and do things in its own time, a dog with some self-respect.\u00a0 That was what Chief had, though nobody but her could see it.\u00a0 To everyone else, Chief was too nervous and a little bit crazy.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t trust him.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t relax around him.\u00a0 Except that Ruthann never felt more relaxed than when she was watching an old movie on t-v with Chief\u2019s head resting on her knee and a glass of white wine and ice cubes on the table beside her chair.<\/p>\n
Not even Lucy, who lived with Chief, had understood that he wasn\u2019t crazy, but just sensitive.\u00a0 But Lucy did understand Ruthann.\u00a0 She was right that Ruthann couldn\u2019t have been there while Chief died, no matter how peacefully.\u00a0 So Ruthann could forgive her for doing it in secret.\u00a0 And hadn\u2019t Ruthann herself put Chief\u2019s life in danger on that night last year she was so drunk and downhearted that she put him in the car and set out to drive into traffic on Route 32 and end it all?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t that have been a much worse death for him than a quick injection and a slow fading away on Lucy\u2019s lap?\u00a0 Ruthann took Chief with her that night because she hadn\u2019t wanted to leave him behind to miss her like Shep had missed Dave.<\/p>\n
Of course, Chief ended up having to miss her anyway when she was in the county jail for six months for driving into that traffic.\u00a0 It was only for DUI.\u00a0 They thought she\u2019d missed the STOP sign.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t know she had sat there for 20 minutes watching for headlights coming over the hill, waiting until there were three cars and not just one coming her way.\u00a0 It was very late at night and not many people out.<\/p>\n
Ruthann regretted it the minute the cars collided.\u00a0 The noise of it was horrible — crumpling metal and shattering glass and screeching brakes and a loud yelp from Chief.\u00a0 Everyone walked away from the accident, thank God.\u00a0 But what if, she wondered later, what if she\u2019d killed someone\u2019s mother?\u00a0 What if she\u2019d killed Chief?\u00a0 She still had nightmares about it.\u00a0 Which was enough punishment, she thought.\u00a0 Why, after getting out of jail, did she have to do community service, too, folding old clothes at the smelly Salvation Army, and why\u2019d she have to sit every other week in alcohol classes with a bunch of losers, and go to see that nasty, frowning probation officer who made her pee in a paper cup and who looked at her like she was a bad person?\u00a0 None of it was any good to her and not necessary anyway because she wasn\u2019t ever going to do anything like that again.\u00a0 Besides, they took her license away.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t they just leave her alone otherwise?\u00a0 As far as she could see, it was all just a way for the county to make some easy money.\u00a0 After paying for the classes and the cab to the Salvation Army and the installments on the fine, she only had pocket change left from her paychecks, not much more than a pile of coins.\u00a0 Lucy didn\u2019t even ask her for gas money when she drove her to Probation, though it was 45 minutes each way.<\/p>\n
Next week, after her appointment, she and Lucy were going to the animal shelter again, to see if they\u2019d got in a chihuahua yet.\u00a0 Or maybe some other kind of dog would just look at Ruthann in a way that would let her know he was meant to be hers.\u00a0 Lucy encouraged her to keep her mind open for that.\u00a0 Ruthann knew she had to decide soon.\u00a0 Lucy could be patient only so long, and she was already making noises about not taking Ruthann to the shelter again if she didn\u2019t pick a dog soon.\u00a0 But as strong as Lucy\u2019s opinions could be, she wouldn\u2019t stick to her threat.\u00a0 After a few weeks of saying no, she\u2019d start taking Ruthann to the shelter again.\u00a0 She had a good heart, after all.\u00a0 And she loved dogs, too.\u00a0 Not as much as Ruthann did, though. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"