When my dead dog came scratching on my door of course I let him in. Stephen King be damned, I love my dog.

When it happened I was busy crying, curled in a ball in my mom’s old chair, the floor around me littered with soggy wads of toilet paper. The chair was perfect for crying in. It was huge with wide soft arms that curled around like a grandma’s lap.

Not that my grandma had a lap like that. My only living grandmother was thin and active and lived in Vancouver. The last time I’d seen her was at my parents’ funeral. She stayed for only two days because she said she had an important charity auction to attend.

But I wasn’t crying about my parents’ deaths or about my grandmother either. I was crying for my dog. My heart, my head and my belly all hurt and my throat hurt too from crying so much but I couldn’t stop. It felt good in a way like finally going to the bathroom when you’ve been constipated for a long time.

I was bawling so hard it was a while before I noticed the familiar and strange noise coming from the kitchen door.

“Scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch.”

It was familiar because it was the same sound my dog always made when he wanted to be let in. And it was strange because the day before, I buried my dog.

I stopped crying to listen. I listened for a long time but the scratching didn’t stop. It continued persistent and regular the way Hubey always scratched because he knew I’d have to open the door sooner or later and he was willing to keep scratching until I did.

“Scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch…”

I couldn’t concentrate on crying as long as the scratching kept up so I finally blew my nose, walked to the front door and opened it.

Hubey looked fine. He grinned sheepishly at me and wagged his tail the way he always did when he’d done something he knew I’d be angry at him for, like rolling around in a disgusting smelly carcass or chasing the neighbour’s sheep that’d finally got him killed.

I was so happy to see him I hugged him. His once silky red fur was matted with dried blood and mud so I gave him a bath. He was filthy all right but I didn’t scold him. My dog always liked his bath so it went pretty well. I filled the old claw-foot tub with warm water, rolled my pajama legs to the thighs and climbed in with him. When I poured clean water over his head with an ice-cream bucket he licked my face. I noticed that he didn’t lap the bath water as he usually did.

I scrubbed out the dirt and blood with foaming suds from my favourite shampoo. He didn’t flinch when I washed the wound that killed him, an ugly shotgun blast that slid under the left side of his ribcage from the rear and tore his insides up. Even the vet looked pale when I took him down to the Seven-Day Animal Clinic the previous morning. The vet said he died instantly.

Obviously he was wrong.

When Hubey was as clean as I could get him, I rinsed him with a warm shower, wrapped him in my big green bath-blanket and carried him over to his usual spot by the woodstove in the living room. While I toweled his coat dry he licked my face again. I noticed now how cold and dry his tongue was.

When he poked his nose into my ear, I said, “Your nose is cold, Hubey, that means you’re healthy!” Then I laughed like an idiot. Hubey always got excited when I laughed. He wriggled and wagged his tail hard.

I could see that being dead hadn’t changed him much. His eyes still watched every move I made though they weren’t shiny brown like they used to be. They were cloudy like blind dog eyes but I could tell that he saw as well as ever. Hubey was still a beautiful dog if you ignored the cloudy eyes and the ugly wound in his side.

Then I phoned my best friend Martha from work. She was Hubey’s friend, too; she helped me bury him. I thought she would be happy to hear the good news–but I was wrong.

“Colly, stop jerking yourself around!” she yelled. “You know your dog is dead and I know your dog is dead. I know this is hard for you but you’ve just got to accept it!” She went on like that for a while and then she calmed down. “Listen, honey, I’m sorry, I really don’t have time to talk now. Pete, you know, the bartender with the buns, he’s gonna be here to pick me up in about a minute and a half and I’m not even dressed yet. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?

“Hang tight, Colly. Promise you won’t go off the deep end on me. Promise!”  

“Oh Martha, relax,” I said. “I just called to let you know everything is perfectly all right. It’s not a big deal. I’m fine, don’t worry. I’m great.”

Martha hung up. I could tell she was still upset and I was sorry I had called her. I kept forgetting how old she was. Old people always had to make things complicated. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody anymore so I unplugged the phone.

That night I let Hubey sleep with me. He smelled fresh and clean from his bath. I was so excited I could hardly sleep. I kept hugging him just to hear his tail thumping on the bed, the same sound my heart was making in my chest. Hubey had been my best friend in the world since I was nine. Since my parents died I needed him more than ever. His coming back like this was a pure miracle and I wasn’t about to question it. It was almost enough to make me believe in God.

The next morning was Saturday so I didn’t have to go to work. I gave Hubey his favourite kibble for breakfast but he didn’t eat a bite. He sniffed at it then sat beside me to watch me eat my eggs ‘n toast.

His not eating worried me. Before Hubey was killed he had a good appetite. After breakfast I drove him to the Seven-Day Animal Clinic. Though he seemed pretty healthy otherwise, I thought it was a good idea to have him checked out. Who knew what being buried for so long might have done to his body?

The vet, Doctor Frick, was a tall red-faced bald guy with a thin fringe of slicked-down dark hair. He wore thick rimless glasses that made his eyes look bulgy. We had been taking Hubey to the same vet since he was a puppy. When I was younger I called him Doctor Frog. My mom thought that was cute and it became our family’s nickname for him.

When Doctor Frog saw us his bulgy eyes widened and his mouth stretched out in a wide thin line making him look more like a frog than ever. He had to be surprised to see Hubey because the last time he saw my dog, he was dead.  

At first the vet didn’t say anything. He did vet things, thumped Hubey, listened to his chest and peered into his eyes, ears and mouth with a little light. Finally he poked and prodded at the wound that killed Hubey which was dry and purplish-black. When he put his instruments away I saw that his hands were shaking. He stared at the wall over my head and said in a stiff voice, “Miss Fraser, this dog is dead.”

“Well, maybe he was dead,” I said, “but he isn’t dead now. See? He moves, he wags his tail, he licks my hand.” I didn’t say how cold his tongue was. “He even chased a stick for me this morning. How could he be dead?”

I thought I was being logical but the vet became very upset. His veins swelled up and stuck out the sides of his neck and his eyes bulged so much I imagined them popping right out of his head, hanging out of their sockets like dangly-eyeball glasses. When I giggled at this image he clenched both his fists and shook them at me. Thinking he was going to hit me, I moved nearer the door.

He shouted, “He’s not breathing! He has no heartbeat! His major internal organs, including his heart, are torn to shreds! I don’t know how you rigged up this sick, morbid, juvenile trick, young lady, but this dog IS DEAD! Now get out and take this–this meat with you before I call the police!” His face was purple and his veins throbbed alarmingly. I didn’t want poor Doctor Frog to die of a heart attack so I left.

Hubey followed me. Of course he did.  

When we got back out to my car, Hubey jumped into his usual place in the front passenger seat. He looked up at me quizzically with his tongue hanging out. That’s when I noticed that the vet was right. My dog wasn’t breathing.

I stroked his head and ruffled his ears. “Oh boy, Hubey. Oh boy,” I sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”   

The question of Hubey’s being dead or not hadn’t occurred to me before but because of the doctor’s hysterical attitude I started to get a little nervous about it. I thought exercise would do him good so I took him for a long run alongside my bike. When we finished I looked at him expectantly, but he just licked my hand dryly and sat there and his sides never moved at all.

After a couple of nights lying awake with Hubey so still and quiet beside me I lost my nerve. In the middle of the night Sunday I got up and put him back in his old sleeping place in the laundry room on the pile of blankets beside the washing machine.

Hubey didn’t mind; he just licked my hand.

Then I noticed that his cold dry tongue was leaving little soft bits on my skin. I burst into tears. Hugging him tight, I cried and cried and wished I were the dead one instead of him. Hubey was the best dog ever. His being dead was all my fault. I felt so bad for him that I didn’t even mind the way he was beginning to smell. I stayed curled up with my dog in the laundry room for a long time before I went back to bed.  

Monday morning I dreaded going to work because of Martha. I wished I hadn’t called her. She would tease me and she’d tell other people, too. That’s just the way she was. She was my best friend and she had a good heart but she could never keep anything to herself and she never took anything seriously for very long either.

Hubey ignored his breakfast again. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since returning from the grave. Because of the increasingly noticeable smell I didn’t want to leave Hubey in the house. I tied him up in the back yard with plenty of food and water in case he decided to eat. Then I left.

When I got to work, I saw Martha standing by the coffee machine, pretend-flirting with a couple of the guys, Jerry Jackson (I called him Jerry Jerk-off) and a new guy I didn’t know. I walked over, poured myself a coffee and stirred cream and sugar into it, trying to be nonchalant.

“Hey, Colly,” Jerry snickered, “how’s the dead dog?”

I gave him my best nasty glare. “Jerk,” I muttered under my breath. I hated him. He was always sidling up to me making lewd suggestions and ‘accidentally’ touching me. I was too timid to report him but I didn’t try to be nice to him either. I fumed at Martha for telling him of all people but then I’d never told her about his behavior toward me. She would have wanted me to raise a big stink, report him and get him fired, and I just couldn’t.

Then the new guy said something lame about “101 Uses For a Dead Dog.” He laughed a little then stopped when I didn’t respond. He wasn’t trying to be mean, I guessed, just trying to go along with the gag but I was horribly shy around men I didn’t know. I quirked my lips in a fake smile but I could feel the flush rising in my cheeks. It didn’t help that he was only a little older than me and cut too.

Martha rescued me. “Jeez, can it, you guys,” she snapped. “Have a little sensitivity, wouldja? Collie’s dog just died fer chrissakes!” The new guy blushed and looked mortified while Jerry just looked cowed. Martha can be intimidating. Mumbling apologies, they both slunk away with their tails between their legs. The new guy looked back at me like he wanted to say something more but he didn’t.

“Hiya Colly,” Martha squeezed my shoulder. She wrinkled her nose and whispered in my ear, “Whatzat, new perfume? ‘Eau de Dead Dog’?” I flushed again. I had showered that morning but I’d hugged Hubey on the way out. Seeing my expression, Martha was instantly contrite. “Shit, now I’m doing it, aren’t I? I’m sorry, baby; I can be a bitch, hey? I got all the sensitivity of a bear shitting in a china shop.”

I smiled. I could never stay mad at Martha. “Forget it,” I said. “How you doing?”

She tossed her red curls. Martha’s the only woman I’ve seen who could actually toss her head like the women in torrid romance novels. She liked to make her curly hair bounce.

“Hey, I’m all four aces, you know me. What I want to know is what’s up with you?” Voice softening, she did her best to look inside me with sharp, knowing green eyes. “I know you’ve been broke-up about your dog, honeybun. Ever since that weird phone call Friday night, I’ve been worried about you. I tried calling you a few times over the weekend, but there was never any answer. Tell me true now, are you okay?”

I shrugged awkwardly. “Oh yeah–sorry about that, Martha. I just wanted some peace and quiet, so I unplugged the phone. I must have forgot to plug it back in.”

I smiled in a way I hoped was reassuring. “I’m okay, really. I had a couple bad days, but I’m better now.

“And, hey,” I added hastily, “forget that goofy stuff I said about Hubey coming back, okay? That was so dumb, I’m sorry.” She nodded but still looked sharply at me, trying to read me. Martha thinks she’s my mother sometimes because she’s so much older than I am. She’s thirty-two and I’m seventeen. Most of the time though, I didn’t notice the difference in our ages.

Then it was nine o’clock, time to start work. I squeezed Martha’s hand and went over to sit at my desk. My job is pretty boring. All I do is type numbers into the computer but I’m good at it. Martha says that I get into the Zen of it in a big way. I don’t exactly know what that means but I like not having to think.

By the end of a day of not thinking I clean forgot about Hubey so on an impulse I invited Martha to come home with me for dinner. She said, “Not tonight, sweets, I got a hot date. How about tomorrow?”

I said, “Sounds great. Spaghetti okay?”

“Yummy!” She smacked her lips. Martha liked to eat more than anybody I knew. I couldn’t figure out how she kept so skinny.

“Okay, see ya tomorrow,” I said. “Have fun, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Yeah sure, right!” She winked at me. “No way I can do both those things!” I was halfway home before I remembered Hubey. I groaned. What was I going to do with him?

When I got home I found my dog still sitting in the same place I’d left him. I greeted him as I walked around the house. He wagged his tail and trotted over to lick my hand. I jerked my hand reflexively away from him and then I felt like a traitor.

“Sorry, Hube,” I whispered, and to make up for my squeamishness I hugged him. He was starting to feel squishy and soft and I thought I felt things moving around inside him. I made myself look closer at the spot where the shotgun blast had taken him, where I saw several fat, grayish-white maggots writhing deep in the wound.

I nearly fainted. When I could breathe I wailed, “Hubey, you’re dead, you’re dead, don’t you get it? What are you doing here? Why did you come back?!”

Hubey just thumped his tail on the ground and licked my hand leaving bits of himself behind. I gagged and wiped my hand hard on the grass. He was as eager and attentive as ever. My heart broke. Poor dumb loyal dog. How could I expect him to understand?

My closest neighbours had young kids who often played around here and I worried that they might have seen Hubey. Their dad Pete was the one who shot Hubey when he caught him chasing his sheep once too often. Pete warned me over and over but I never took him seriously.

The night it happened Pete carried Hubey’s limp body all the way home. Tears made white tracks down his dirty face as he laid my dog gently on the front porch and arranged his legs. He stood there for a moment without looking at me and moved his mouth a couple times but nothing came out.

Finally he rasped, “Collie, I–I’m just so damn sorry–I can’t tell you…”

His voice broke. He hesitantly touched my shoulder and then he turned away and walked home fast with his head down.

I felt sorry for Pete. I knew he never meant to kill Hubey, just scare him. My dad used to tease Pete about his terrible marksmanship back when they hunted together. But I couldn’t make him feel better. All this went through my head for a long minute, abstract and slow like a math problem. Then I woke up to the fact that my dog was bleeding at my feet.

At first I refused to believe Hubey was dead. I rushed him to the vet, and when he told me my dog was dead I fell to pieces in his office. I had to call Martha to come and help me get home. Together we buried him in the poplar grove north of my house.

I blamed myself for not keeping Hubey tied up. I seldom had the heart to tie him because he hated it so much. I tried keeping him fenced in the backyard but he just dug his way under. Now that he was dead Hubey didn’t seem to mind being tied up so much.

That night I sat up late with Hubey outside under the stars. I asked him what it was like to be dead. I asked him if he’d seen my mom and pop there someplace and if they were okay. I asked him if they ever mentioned me.

Though Hubey thumped his tail whenever I spoke he never answered me. When I finally went to bed I opened all the doors and windows in the house to get rid of the lingering stench. I sprayed every room with air freshener and left slender sticks of incense burning. By morning the place smelled better. I lit more incense and left a couple of windows open a crack anyway.

To be on the safe side, this time I tied Hubey where no one could see him from the road. I left him on a short leash since he hardly seemed to move anyway.

Poor fella, he looked terrible. His fur was falling out in patches and his lower eyelids sagged down so I could see the round shape of the eyeballs curving way back into their sockets. His nose was dry and rough and it was flaking off in bits. “See you later, Hubey,” I said. I didn’t want to touch him after my shower, but I blew him a kiss.

I was a couple minutes late to work that morning. Everybody else was already in their seats by the time I slid breathlessly into mine so I started off typing at a furious pace to ward off the supervisor’s evil eye. I didn’t get to talk to Martha till coffee break. When she reminded me of our dinner date I broke out in a cold sweat. I’d forgotten all about it.

I stammered, “Um…yeah…hey, Martha, about dinner. Why don’t we go out instead? I don’t feel much like cooking tonight.”

She laughed at that idea. “Forget that, pumpkin. Anytime I have to eat in some crappy Prince George restaurant I damn well expect to get laid afterward. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll cook. I’ll even pick up groceries on the way.” She winked at me. “Wait’ll you taste my spaghetti! You’ll think you died and went to a classy Italian restaurant.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue. Trying to change Martha’s mind once it was made up was like trying to stop a runaway train. I surrendered to the inevitable.

By the time five o’clock rolled around I was exhausted. I hadn’t had much sleep.

Martha patted my shoulder when I complained. “There there dearie,” she soothed in a fakey Mom voice, “Run along home now. I’ll be there in a jiffy with scrumptious nummies in hand.” She gave me a little shove. “Go on! Mother Martha will take care of everything.”

My face managed to smile and frown at once. “Yes, Mummy Martha. Whatever,” I mumbled.

The drive home was longer than ever. I kept nodding off, drifting to the shoulder of the road and scaring myself silly, but I woke up quick when I saw the blue and white police cruiser parked in front of my house. I drove an extra five miles to the end of the road and back just to get my heart slowed down and my breathing back to normal.

By the time I pulled up behind the blue-and-white I had numbed myself into something like calm. I got out of my car, pasted on a smile and lifted my eyebrows innocently at the burly, middle-aged RCMP constable who approached me, hitching up his belt as he walked.

“Evening, Miss, uh… Fraser,” the cop said, squinting at a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. “I’m Constable Sorenson from the Prince George station. Sorry to bother you, but we got a complaint from one of the neighbours. Probably just kids’ imagination; nothing to worry about. Mind if I take a look around?”

“Oh, of course not!” I said brightly, feeling panic. “What… what exactly was the nature of the complaint, um, Constable Sorenson?”

“Well, it’s pretty off-the-wall.” He laughed genially, “Huh-huh-huh,” meaning to be fatherly and reassuring. “Something about a zombie dog–buncha B.S, I’m sure. You got a dog, Miss?”

“Uh… yeah, that is I did, but he… he died, just a few days ago.” I ducked my head and brought my hand to my eyes to hide the stark terror I was sure showed on my face.

“Aw, I’m sorry, Miss,” the officer said; then angrily, “Those rotten brats! That’s a God damned mean trick! I know what it’s like to lose a dog, myself.” His voice dropped, catching a little. “My own old Bear passed away last year, and I have to tell you, I… well, I’d give about anything to get him back, even today.”

He shook his head, and scowled down the road at my neighbours’ place. “Don’t worry, Miss Fraser,” he said, “I won’t bother you any more in your time of grief. This whole thing is just a stupid kids’ prank.” He whacked his cap hard against his thigh. “I’m going to give them and their parents what for, by God! Ignorant little buggers!”

He tipped his cap at me and settled it back in place on his head. “Have yourself a good evening now Miss Fraser,” he said. “And… my condolences, if I may.”

“Thank you, Constable Sorenson,” I murmured, still with my head down only now it was laughter I was trying to hide. When he left I was so relieved that I slumped against my car giggling helplessly. My knees felt so weak they barely supported me.

The giggling fit passed. Just then Martha pulled up in her little bucket. That’s what she called her car, her ‘little bucket’. “Hey, Colly,” she yelled, “Wait’ll you see what I got for dessert!” She struggled two bulging bags of groceries out of the back seat.

“Take one of these for me, wouldja? They’re heavy.”

I couldn’t move. When she got a little closer she said, “Jesus Crumpet, child, what is wrong with you? You look like you’ve just been run over by a ghost!”

Her mixed-up cliches always made me laugh. This time I snorted a sound that was sort of like laughter except it hurt my throat.

“I’m okay I guess,” I said, “It’s just some neighbour kids played a mean prank on me. Called the police to complain about a… a… a zombie dog!” To my horror, I started to bawl.

Martha set the groceries on the hood of my car and then put her arms around me. She pulled my head down onto her shoulder though I was a good four inches taller than her. She murmured softly, sounds I’d never heard from her before.

“There, baby, sshh; there, sweetie… yes, it’s been hard, I know, poor darling. Let it all out now.”

I cried great gulping caws that tore at my throat. I felt like such a big baby, I wanted to shrink down and curl up into Martha’s small soft bosom. “I can’t take it anymore! I can’t stand it, it’s too much,” I howled.  

“There there, baby, Martha’s here,” Martha continued to croon while I cried myself sick in her arms. When I couldn’t cry anymore I hicked, “Martha—hic—please, help me…”

Martha held me a moment longer, then she said, “Sure honey, you can count on me, you just tell me what you need. But first let’s get this stuff and you inside where it’s warm, okay?”

She picked up the grocery bags in her strong little arms and herded me toward the front door, yakking nonstop about how cold it’d gotten and how winter was right at the doorstep now that Hallowe’en was past.

I couldn’t believe it. “Martha,” I moaned. “I don’t care if it rains or snows tomorrow. How can you be shallow at a time like this?”

Dropping the grocery bags onto the porch beside the front door, Martha tossed her head at me. “Keys,” she commanded crisply. I sighed, fishing in my jacket pocket. I handed her the ring. “It’s the brass one with the square head,” I mumbled sullenly.

She unlocked the door, opened it and snapped on the light. Picking up the grocery bags, she shucked off her boots and marched me to the kitchen. “Okay, my little friend in need, here’s how it’s gonna be. You and me are going to have a nice dinner, which I shall cook, while you sip a nice glass of–ta-daaah!–!” she proclaimed, producing a bottle of fizzy pink wine with a flourish. “I meant it to drink after dinner, but you seem like you could use some now.

“Now! Here’s the deal. You don’t get to talk about your problems until after dessert. Talking about problems spoils the digestion. This will be a meal to take your mind off what ails you. After we’re both stuffed to the gills, Mother Martha will be all ears. Got that?”

“Oh god, Martha.” I slumped into one of my mom’s carved-walnut dining chairs. “I really don’t know if I can eat tonight. I didn’t mean to put you to all this trouble…”

“Silence! Martha has spoken!” Martha struck a theatrically imperious pose: one hand perched on her hip, the other pointing at the ceiling, her head flung back.

Why did she always have to be so selfish and pushy? I thought resentfully. Couldn’t she see I just needed to be left alone? She was exactly like my mother that way. I blinked back a sudden upwelling of angry tears.

Martha found one of my mother’s aprons tucked in a kitchen drawer and draped it over her office clothes. She always wore form-fitting, flattering things that managed to be sexy and businesslike at the same time. She tied the apron, rolled up her sleeves and flexed her hands with a flourish.

“Now sit back and watch a pro at work. By the time I’m done, you’ll be drooling just like that guy Pablo’s dog. Here,” she deftly uncorked the wine and poured me a generous tumbler-full. “Drink up, Colly. And talk to me, baby. We’re going to giggle, be silly and gossip. Not one serious word until after dinner.”

She tossed a lump of hamburger, an egg, oatmeal and goodness knows what-all into a glass mixing bowl. Her exaggerated style finally made me smile so I played along.

“Yeess, doctor,” I groaned in pretend pain. “Anything you say, doctor.” Then I took a swallow of the wine. I don’t know much about wine, being under age, but it tasted pretty good to me. I took another big swallow.

“Martha,” I accused, “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

She was already up to her wrists in raw hamburger glop, rolling it into neat little balls. “Sometimes, my darling,” she said severely as she dropped the meatballs one by one into the sizzling pan, “That’s what it takes.”

I wasn’t sure I liked this. “What do you mean, ‘that’s what it takes?’” I demanded. I had no high opinion of drinking or drunks in general.

She shook her forefinger at me. It was dripping with a gross mess of raw meat, egg, oatmeal and her secret mixture of spices. “Uh-uh-uhh,” she chided. “You’re trying to draw me into a serious discussion now. Well, it won’t work! Getting drunk is its own excuse. Ask me no questions and I’ll lie to you anyway! Seriously now, go on, drink up. There’s more where that came from.”

She noticed my obstinate expression and softened.

“Hey, Colly, don’t worry, I’m not trying to turn you into an alcoholic or anything. In some situations–not many, I’ll admit–getting a wee bit swozzled is only the smart thing to do. In the official handbook of acceptable excuses for getting drunk, you’ll find ‘My Dog Died’ listed in the all-time top ten. So relax.”

She went back to meatball rolling and sang at the top of her lungs, “Bottle a wine, fruit a the vine, when you gonna let me get so-ber….”

I laughed, surprising myself. I sipped at my wine, watching Martha for a while and then I got restless. It was boring watching her have all the fun.

“Um…” I hesitated. “D’you need help with anything?”

“Absolutely! I thought you’d never ask!” She handed me a knife and set me to work chopping onions and garlic. “There! If that doesn’t take your mind off what you were crying about, nothing will!” 

I blinked as the stinging fumes made my eyes water. “Ohh, really,” I said, trying to sound meek and sarcastic at the same time.

After a moment Martha glanced sidelong at me through her lashes. Right away I knew she was going to mention a guy. “So-o, Colleen,” she inquired coyly, “Tell me, what do you think of Sam?” 

“Who’s Sam?” I gasped. I wiped my runny eyes with the back of my sleeve, but it didn’t help. 

“Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that adorable new guy I was talking to yesterday,” she purred. “Remember, with Jerry at the coffee machine?”

“Ohh, him….” I remembered, all right. “Come on, Martha, isn’t he a little young?”

Now I struggled to skin the little papery peels off the garlic. I enjoyed this about as much as chopping onions.

“Not for me, silly girl!” Martha’s laughter bubbled like the wine in my glass. “It’s you he likes! In fact, he asked me last week whether or not you had a boyfriend!”

My face got hot and I chopped faster, shortening my left index fingernail in the process. “What did you tell him?” I asked. I poked through the chopped-up garlic for the bit of fingernail but I didn’t find it.

“Now remember,” she temporized, “this was before your dog died. For god’s sake, don’t take it the wrong way–I was joking, okay?–I told him, the only boyfriend you had was your dog.”

Tears ran from my eyes in earnest now. I never had a boyfriend or even a date. My parents thought I was too young. Then after they died, well, I had Hubey, I didn’t need anybody else. Martha was right on the money as usual, damn her.

“And… what did he say then?” I mumbled.  

“Oh, he just said you were the prettiest girl he’d seen in a dog’s age,” she said in a breezy offhanded way. She got out my little ancient hand blender and munched up some herbs and stuff for salad dressing.  

 ”Martha, he did not!”

I hated being so shy. It was stupid. I could feel my cheeks flaming. Sam was cute. And I thought I had noticed him noticing me. I finished chopping and then I let my hands cross over my chest and curl around my shoulders, hugging myself.  

 ”He sure did,” she assured me. “And he’s a darling, let me tell you! If it weren’t for my full social calendar, I might give him a go myself.”

Martha scooped my chopped-up onions and garlic into the sizzling mess in the pan, and stirred in tomato and a lot of other things. I was so shocked I hardly notice what she was doing.

 ”Martha!” I protested, “He’s got to be at least ten years younger than you are!”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I felt ashamed of them. Martha might be sensitive about her age. Lots of older women were. But it didn’t fizz on her a bit.

“Hey, that’s not a big deal,” she winked. “I’ve still got all the parts I started with, in all the same places. I’ve got experience, too. Some cubs appreciate that in a woman, let me tell you.

“Oh, don’t worry, Colly,” she soothed, “I’ll keep my evil hooks out of him. He might be just what the doctor ordered, for you.” She stressed the last two words. “Oh hey, chop up those tomatoes, that cucumber and that red onion there, wouldja babes? Wait’ll you taste my dressing for Greek salad!”

While I obeyed she stirred and tasted her sauce. It smelled fabulous. I felt saliva starting to run in my mouth–just like Pavlov’s dog. I realized I was actually getting hungry.

Then Martha filled my biggest saucepan with water and lit the flame under it. “Okay. Now while the sauce simmers and the water boils we get to sit down with the rest of this wine.” She peeked up into the cupboard where all my mom’s dishes and things were kept.

“Ooh, Colly, you dog, you’ve been holding out on me! Look at this gorgeous stemware! Perfect!” She plucked two delicately fluted wineglasses from my mom’s collection and filled them both with sparkling wine. They were pretty, all right.  

I pointed at the glass in front of me. “But, I’m not done this drink yet,” I protested. 

“No problemo.” She picked up the half-full tumbler of wine and drained it in a couple of gulps. “There! Momma fix.” She cocked her head comically. I had to laugh. The more I knew Martha the more she annoyed me and the better I liked her. Just like Hubey. 

To match the stemware I set the table nice the way Mom used to. I hadn’t done that since the accident. I laid out her best silver, the bone china dinnerware from the china cabinet, the Irish linen tablecloth with matching napkins, everything. I even lit the white candles that had been gathering gust in their silver candleholders on the windowsill. I hoped Mom wouldn’t mind.

 As Martha predicted, dinner was delicious. By the time I licked the last drop of vanilla Haagen-Dasz strawberry sundae from my spoon I was stuffed. Martha kept firm control of the conversation. We dissected the love lives of everyone at work and laid out our plans for the future, rosy in the glow of the wine we’d drunk. Pink before dinner, red during.  

“Me,” Martha stated, in the ponderous tone of someone who has eaten and drunk too much, “I’m going to marry a rich man. Yep. That’s why I take such good care of myself.” She waved her arm in a grand gesture to indicate her body. “I invest money in these looks, sweetie: health clubs and skin creams and beauty products and clothes. My dear old mom always used to say, ‘Baby, you wanta marry a million dollars, you gotta look like a million dollars.’ And I do, don’tcha think?” she hiccuped. 

I pretended to eye her critically. “Yeah, Martha, you look great. You look like a million dollars and fifty-three cents.” I giggled. “But,” I pronounced, “That’s not what I want. I want to do something important.” I wriggled up straighter in my chair and loosened the zipper of my pants. “I want to be remembered for myself, for what I do, not because of whatever jerk I happen to marry.

“In fact,” I declared grandly, liberated by wine, “I don’t think I’ll bother getting married at all. Why share the glory?”

 ”Hey, more power to you, kid.” Martha leaned across the table to pat my hand and knocked over one of the crystal wineglasses. I squawked and grabbed at it, sending it rolling into the edge of my plate where it stopped short with a pure ringing sound. Martha picked it up and set it upright on its base again. She heaved a sigh.

“You’ll grow out of it. Unfortunately. This world ain’t such an easy ride, y’know.”  

There was a moment of silence. Then Martha snapped her fingers. “Hey, that reminds me, Colly. We’re all done eating. The dishes can wait. You want to tell me about your problem now? I’m listening.”  

“Oh, right, I… yeah. That is, um,” I hemmed and hawed, trying to think of a way to explain the impossible. I was interrupted by a deep terrible groaning, between a moan and a howl, from just outside the window. It sounded close. It sounded like– 

“Hubey!” I shrieked.

“Jesus H. Pizza, what the fuck was that?” Martha screamed at the same time.

“It’s Hubey,” I whimpered. “He’s back.”

She jerked like I’d poked her with a cattle prod. “What do you mean he’s BACK!” she shouted, nearly falling from her chair. “He’s DEAD! I helped you bury him, remember? He’s dead!” She crossed herself reflexively with her right hand.  

For some reason that made me smile. Martha was always embarrassed by her Catholic lapses. “Hey, I didn’t know you were Catholic, Mart,” I said.

It worked. She stopped shouting. “I’m not,” she muttered distractedly. She shoved the offending hand behind her back.

The moaning howl came again, only louder. Martha moaned too. “Oh god, Colleen, it sounds like a damned soul in torment out there! Just what the hell is going on around here, tell me please?”   

My head felt heavy. I gripped my forehead tight with my left hand. I badly wanted to go to sleep. I raised my head slowly, drawing my fingers down over my face and peeking out between my fingers. Martha looked panicky.

Finally I sucked in a deep breath and said, “Well, I guess you’ll have to come out and see.” I jumped up, grabbed my flashlight from the telephone table and threw on a jacket and a pair of slippers. Martha didn’t move.

“Well, come on!” I crooked my finger at her impatiently. She slowly got up and followed me.   

It was dark out. I didn’t have a back yard light; the bulb had burned out months ago and I hadn’t got around to changing it. I was still confounded by all the little things my pop used to do.   

I wondered about the sounds we’d heard. Poor guy, I thought, he must be lonely. I never left him alone outside this long before he was dead.

“Hubey?” I called softly, picking my way down the steep steps off the back porch. I had tied him at the bottom of the steps, to the lowest post.

I gasped when I saw him. “Oh my god, Hubey, what’s happened to you?” There were great gaping holes in his coat, exposing chewed-up flesh. Something had been eating him. One of his eyes had been pecked out. When he saw me he wagged his tail feebly and pushed his nose into my hand. His stink gagged me.

 ”Oh, Christ on a bicycle, Colleen, what have we got here,” Martha said in a flat, harsh voice. She was finally down the stairs and beside me. When she had a good look at Hubey, she threw up behind my mother’s rosebush. “Good compost,” she coughed.

“Oh god, oh god,” she kept repeating, once she had recovered enough to look at Hubey again.   

I started to bawl and couldn’t stop. I babbled between sobs to Hubey how terrible I felt for abandoning my poor sweet doggie to be chewed on by scavengers but I couldn’t keep him in the house, could I? I cradled Hubey’s pitiful head in my lap and tearfully confessed my remorse to him for a long time.   

Martha was quiet, listening to me cry and apologize to Hubey. She sat on the porch steps some distance from the smell and watched us. Finally she said, “Lordie kid, you really are in a mess aren’t you?” 

I nodded helplessly, still crying. 

“D’you suppose he’s in pain?” she asked. 

I stopped crying and thought about it. “I don’t think he feels pain. But he’s not… happy. This is wrong, Martha, he shouldn’t be here. What could make a thing like this happen?” I leaked fresh tears. 

“I dunno, Colly.” Martha picked a bit of strawberry pulp from between her front teeth with a lethal-looking fingernail. “Weird shit happens. I could tell you stories… ah, never mind. So how did you feel when he first showed up like that?”

“I was happy!” I gulped. “I was just so happy to see him, I didn’t care! And he wasn’t like this then; he was… almost like he was alive.”

“Anyone else seen him?”

“I took him to the vet’s, the first morning he was back… he freaked out,” I said, smirking a little. “But he didn’t do anything; call the cops or anything like that. And oh yeah, the neighbour kids must have seen him. They called the police but they weren’t believed. The constable was here just before you got here. He said he was going to give those kids what for.”

“So he didn’t see Hubey?”

“No. Thank god. He didn’t look. He was a dog lover.”

I shuddered at the thought of the police finding out about Hubey.   

“Listen, Colly,” Martha said. “I’m not much of a believer in God or anything, you know that, but it seems to me that Hubey’s soul or spirit or whatever is trapped inside this rotting corpse. You’ve got find a way to set him free.” 

I thought about that. Did I want to let him go? Hubey was my best friend, my faithful companion, my only link with my family. Okay, he didn’t look so great and he smelled terrible, but I wasn’t sure I could stand to be without him anymore than I could before he came back.

I decided to leave it up to Hubey. 

“Hey, Hubey,” I whispered. “How about it? Do you want to go free? Go wherever good dogs go when they die?” He wagged his tail a little faster. This time I let him lick my hand. 

“Look how weak he is, Colly,” Martha pointed out. “He can barely wag his tail. Looks pretty obvious what his answer’s gotta be.”

 I didn’t respond for a moment. Something had flickered in Hubey’s good eye just for an instant when I asked him the question. A flare of entreaty, of hope maybe. I knew what his answer had been.

“You’re right, Mart.” I took a deep breath and felt calmer. “He wants to go.”

“Okay. Good. That’s settled then. Now, how do we do this?”

She stood and paced restlessly back and forth on the flagstone walk I’d helped my pop lay two summers ago. I bitched and complained the whole time until Pop finally sent me in the house and finished the job himself.

Martha was still talking. “Maybe we should get a priest to, like, exorcise him or something,” she said.

 ”Are you serious?” I looked sideways at her. I’d never even met a priest in my life. My parents had been atheists. My pop used to make bitter jokes about priests and what they did to little altar boys and young girls in the confessional.  

 ”Sure.”

I could tell Martha had her mind made up.

“An exorcism should work for a soul trapped in a body, just as well as for a demon or whatever. Tell you what,” she went on, “I’ll go call my parish priest, Father Dogheny, and tell him the story. See what he says.”

 ”Your parish priest, Martha?”

 ”From when I was a kid. He’s a good guy. If he’s still alive. Be right back.”

She was gone. Here we go, I thought, the runaway train. Just leave it to Mother Martha. I felt obscurely guilty to be so relieved to have all the decisions taken out of my hands.

 I stayed with Hubey. I was sort of used to his smell now and I wanted to give him whatever comfort I could while I could. I stroked the rough fur, once so silky-soft and shining.

Oh Hubey, I mourned, you were so beautiful… look what death has done to you! Clumps of dog hair came out in my hands. Maggots writhed in his wounds. But still his tail thumped gently on the ground when I stroked his head; still he loved me.  

When Martha returned she said acidly, “He’s still alive all right. Just as crusty as ever too. He didn’t exactly believe me but he said he’d come. I’ve gotta go pick him up, alright? He doesn’t drive. Are you two going to be okay alone together for a while?”  

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said quietly, “we’ll be fine.”

“Good. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

In a moment I heard her car engine roar to life. She needed a new muffler. Then the sound was just a fading echo. 

I shook my head and marveled at Martha’s matter-of-factness. Nothing fazed her for long. For the second time that night I noticed how much like my mom she was.

I felt suddenly hurtingly angry at Mom for giving up so easy. Death couldn’t be so tough. Just look at Hubey. My throat squeezed tight and choked me for a moment. I wondered if she liked being dead better than being with me. I was wrenchingly certain of it, and then the moment passed and I realized how unfair that was to her. Not everyone could be like Hubey, not even Mom.

Hubey was special, even Mom knew that. She’d loved Hubey as much as I did; maybe even more. She spent time with him, trained him and took him for walks in the freezing cold when I was a lazy kid who didn’t want to miss my favourite TV shows. And when Hubey and me romped together, Mom often joined us. I’d always loved my dog but it wasn’t till my folks were gone that I appreciated him. It wasn’t till then that I needed him.

 I sat with Hubey in the dark for a long time thinking about my mom and about Hubey when he was alive, thinking about the good times we had together. I thought about my pop too. I wished things could’ve been different between us. But it was too late. The only one of my family I got a second chance with was Hubey.

 I didn’t hear Martha’s bucket pull up, loud as it was. She had to call me three times before I even noticed. Then it was like coming out from being under water. “I’m here,” I said.

“Thank God, I thought you died too!” Martha clattered down the stairs.

The priest had a flashlight with him. I was disappointed to see he was wearing jeans and a thick cable-knit sweater under an ordinary red plaid work jacket just like all the men around here wore. I guess I was expecting a cape and miter or something. I remembered with a pang that Pete had been wearing a jacket just like that when he brought Hubey home to me dead. 

Martha introduced us. “Hi, um, Father,” I said awkwardly. I wasn’t sure how to talk to a priest. “This is Hubey.”

I could tell that when Father Dogheny first saw Hubey, all he saw was a dead dog. He must have thought I was just a crazy mixed-up kid. Then when I whispered, “Say hi to the Father, Hubey,” Hubey’s tail thumped and his one cloudy eye rolled round to look up at him. The old guy nearly jumped out of his jeans.  

With his left hand he pulled a polka-dotted handkerchief out of his pants pocket and mopped his forehead, and then stuffed the handkerchief back into his jeans. “Merciful God,” he muttered. He examined Hubey closely in the flashlight beam. He didn’t flinch at anything he saw, not the maggots or the poked-out eye, once his first shock had passed. The smell didn’t seem to bother him much either. I had to hand it to the old man. He had what my pop would call intestinal fortitude.  

Then he crossed himself and without any explanation or preamble started droning a bunch of sing-songy words that I guessed must be Latin. He clutched a fancy white leather Bible in one hand and made funny waving motions with the other. Some of the words he kept repeating stuck in my head–’patrick‘ and ‘felis’ and ‘domino’.

I started to get bored and amused myself by trying to guess what the words meant. ‘Patrick‘ was probably St. Patrick, I thought, and ‘felis’ meant cat, maybe that was where the saying ‘holy cats’ came from. ‘Domino‘ was a toughie. I didn’t think it meant the flat tiles with the spots on them. But maybe they used to have some sort of religious meaning.

Meanwhile Hubey was still swishing his tail, looking up at Father Dogheny with his good eye. Then I noticed his eye was sort of lighting up now, glowing under the cloudy surface. The more the priest droned on the more his eye glowed until it looked like a lit frosted yellow Christmas bulb.   

Finally Father Dogheny knelt and sprinkled holy water over my dog. He prayed some more then just sat awhile watching the slow wave of Hubey’s tail and the soft glow of his good eye. When the priest turned to look at me I saw his eyes were wet. It was then I noticed that it seemed lighter out now, even without the priest’s flashlight. He’d turned it off.

I looked over at Martha. She was crying too, kneeling with her hands clasped in front of her like a praying child. I looked down at my dog. Where my hands touched the fur on Hubey’s head, I could make out little bits of light like the phosphorescent sparkles in the ocean. No, it was more like the light in those fiber-optic lamps you see in cheesy gift shops: subtle, chasing itself around between the tips of my fingers. Those weird bits of light were mixing around in Hubey’s coat too, I saw.

 I stroked his fur. It was silky and soft just as it had been when he lived. He licked my hand and his tongue was warm and wet. “Ohh, Hubey,” I whispered. I hugged him gently. “Hubey, you are so beautiful, you are the most beautiful dog in the world, dead or alive.”  His breath was warm on my hand. “Are you coming back to me, Hubey?” I wondered.

Then I knew. “Oh, Hubey, no, please don’t leave me!” I wanted to cry.

But I didn’t.

He stood slowly. He was magnificent. Both his eyes were whole now and glowing like lamps. His flanks were healed, his coat gleamed like satin. Then he licked my face and I knew it was for the last time. His breath smelled like fresh flowers and spices. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

When I opened them, his glowing amber eyes were looking straight into mine. In that moment I heard a voice, just the way I imagined Hubey might sound if he were a man, deep and soft and resonant.  

The voice said something like, “You are beloved. Everything is possible. This is not the last time.” I think the voice said other things too but that’s all I could remember afterward. 

He turned away from me and looked into Father Dogheny’s eyes. The priest took a deep breath and I could see his face clearing, like sunrise or a nice change in the weather. He looked young and happy and astonished, like a baby does when it sees something wonderful.

Then Hubey looked at Martha. Something passed between them, a flash of bluish light. She gasped and cried out. She was lit up, glowing almost as bright as Hubey. She grinned like her face would split. Tears poured down her face.

“Thank you, Hubey,” I heard her whisper. “Thank you, you devil dog, you.”

Hubey paced into the yard. His tail wagged faster. He was getting restless. He turned and grinned at me, panting with his tongue lolloping. I knew that look.

“You want me to throw a stick for you, boy?” I said.

Hubey barked joyfully. I realized it was the first sound he’d made since he came back except for the moaning. He jumped and slobbered on me and tore around the yard like a puppy. He was still glowing with that eerie light.

I found a piece of kindling from the woodpile. I balanced it in my hand for a moment then I hucked it as far as I could. The damn thing went straighter than an arrow up into the sky. It didn’t curve down at all as far as I could tell. Hubey went tearing after it, leaped into the air and followed the stick. I watched until his bright form had dwindled to become just another star.

 

 All the strength drained from my limbs. I felt weak and sick. I dashed the still-running tears from my face. I felt twisted, angry and disappointed. Something was wrong. I’d done something wrong, but I didn’t know what. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end.  

Beside me Father Dogheny and Martha stood, staring raptly into the sky. “Wow,” Martha breathed. They were both still grinning.  

I turned and stumbled into the house. I went straight to bed and slept for ten hours. I got up for a little while and then zonked out again for another eighteen. Martha covered for me at work. I had some sick time coming anyway. I don’t remember any dreams from then. And the weeks after that were pretty hazy.

 

That was six months ago. Since the thing happened with Hubey, lots has changed. I got a puppy, for one thing. I named him “Twoby”, short for “Hubey Two”. He’s the same breed as Hubey, Irish setter, and he kind of reminds me of Hubey. It’s not the same but then Hubey is a tough act to follow.  

 Father Dogheny and I are friends now. I visit him every week. I’m not exactly religious or anything but I know there’s more to the world than I ever thought about before. Father Dogheny and I talk a lot about different stuff. About souls and my parents’ deaths and God sometimes, though the Father doesn’t push the idea on me.  

 Father Dogheny does have this sort of obsession about what happened though. He believes Hubey was sent here to heal us, all three of us. He had lost his faith, that’s what he said, and was only going through the motions till Hubey came along. Now he has his faith back and it was my dead dog that did it.  

 You should see him. Father Dogheny I mean. He glows too, that old man, especially when he preaches or ministers to the poor or does something priestly like that. He’s pretty beautiful. I never thought I would ever think that about an old man like him but I do. I think maybe he is a saint or something now.   

For me, if the Father is right, I know that Hubey’s message was about lots more than just my dead dog. It was about my parents’ love for me and my inability to grieve for them and my fear of being all alone in the world. It was about lots of stuff. I’m not so scared to sleep alone anymore. Sometimes I hear the thumping of Hubey’s tail on my bed just as I’m drifting off to sleep.

 I just wish I believed the Father. I wish I felt healed.  

 I have a boyfriend now, sort of a boyfriend. We date anyhow. It’s Sam, the cute new guy in accounting. I guess Martha was right about him liking me. He’s okay. I like him but I’m not in love or anything. It seems like nothing can fill that empty hole Hubey left in my heart. 

And Martha? It turns out she had a little girl. Well not exactly a little girl anymore; she’s about my age. Martha was forced to give her baby up for adoption when she was just fifteen and she was torn up about it inside ever since. She wasn’t even allowed to look at her baby before they took her away. She said she cried herself to sleep about it every night for years and still cried more nights than she didn’t. It’s amazing what people can keep hid inside themselves without even their friends suspecting.   

What Martha saw in Hubey’s eyes then was an image of her little girl raised by a good family, growing up strong and happy and beautiful. Shortly after that happened Martha started a search for her daughter. And you know what? It turns out her daughter started looking for her around the same time. So now they’re together. The daughter’s name is Stephanie. She looks just like Martha.  

 Of course Martha doesn’t have as much time for me as she used to but I don’t mind too much so long as she’s happy. She’s stopped looking for a rich man to take care of her. Would you believe it? She’s becoming a feminist. She’s got a lot of good stuff going for her, my friend Martha. And now she knows it.

 My life didn’t exactly get perfect. I still have the same job and it’s as boring as ever. I seem to mostly go through the motions of living. But there are some good things. I have Father Dogheny now and Sam and Twoby and I know Martha is there if I ever really need her. I’ve cried for my parents and I’d never done that before. I always had Hubey to comfort me. Now he’s really gone I feel sad, hurt and angry and I miss him. I miss him a lot.  

 I like to think about the way he looked last time I saw him, racing off to the bright stars, shining like a star himself. I like to think that’s where he is still, bounding around creation, chasing sticks the angels throw for him. This was no place for a dog like Hubey. He had no freedom to move around here, what with fences and sheep and shotguns. I just wish I could go with him somehow.  

 I dream about him a lot lately. It’s always the same dream; more of a nightmare, actually. In the dream, Hubey and I are walking together on a sandy deserted lakeshore. Hubey brings me a stick and drops it on the ground in front of me. Then he waits poised in front of me, begging me with his eyes to throw it for him. I pick up the stick but as soon as I do the scenery shifts and slides around on top of itself like billions of little rubik’s cubes all rearranging themselves. I stand there holding the stick and I feel the ground sucking out from under my feet and I see little spaces opening up in the sky. I get disoriented and panicky and I flail my hands and drop the stick.

 Every time I wake up knowing I should’ve just thrown the damn stick and the hell with it. Every night when I go to sleep I vow that next time I have the dream I’ll throw the stick, but then I dream and it happens again exactly the same way.  

Both Martha and Father Dogheny explained to me after the thing happened with Hubey last fall that we’d all had some sort of dreamlike experience, like a shared vision. They’re both convinced that the whole thing happened on some kind of nonphysical plane, like a mini mass hallucination.

They concede that it was real on what Father Dogheny calls ’spiritual levels of reality’ but they don’t believe Hubey actually rose from his grave and came back to me in the flesh. They think he was some sort of divine symbol.  

 But I know better. I’m the one who touched him. I slept with him. I hugged him and he licked me with his dead tongue. Hubey wasn’t a ghost or a representative from God or a transformational experience either. Hubey was real. Himself. And I can’t see that it meant anything except what it looks like: my dead dog, too full of heart and love to give in to the grave. 

I’ve seen proof, though I haven’t shared it with anyone. The maggots in his wounds were real. When I got up that next day I went out back to the place where Hubey had been lying. I found maggots. Lots of them crawling on the blankets I had folded for him to lie on.

I stared at them. My brain felt like wet cement that wouldn’t set. Then I went back to bed and I stayed away from the back porch till everything was good and covered with snow.

 Then early this spring when the ground had thawed enough to dig in, I took a shovel and a garden fork and walked out to the woods where Martha and I had buried Hubey deep to protect him from scavengers. I looked for the marker I’d planted by Hubey’s grave.

I found it next to the big oak tree right where I remembered placing it. I’d carved the marker myself with a utility knife. I’d even painted flowers around the carved words; bright yellow dandelions, some with feathery silver seeds flying away in the painted breeze. The marker said, “Here Lies Hubey, Best Beloved Friend, I Miss You, ‘Til We Meet Again”.   

When I saw the marker with its weirdly prophetic message, something tore loose in my chest. For the first time since Hubey chased the stick I’d thrown him off to the stars, I cried for him. It wasn’t bust-loose bawling, and it wasn’t a gentle flow of tears, either.

It hurt. It was all the dried-up seeds of my grief being crushed and pressed, squeezing out a few stingy drops of stinging brine, hardly enough to spill out the edges of my eyes. My chest shook but I couldn’t make any sound. I felt like I’d been dead inside a long time and now the corpse in me wanted to wake up.

But maybe it had been dead too long.

Hubey’s grave had been dug into. Or out of. The hole was filled in with winter debris. I dug through it anyway. I dug deep and sifted through the lumps of soil with the garden fork. There was no mistaking it. His bones were gone.

That night I had the dream for the first time. Now those damned dreams are eating at me.

A few days ago, about nine months after the day my dead dog came scratching at my door, something gave way inside me. I knew I had to do something. I didn’t have any real plan. I just did one thing at a time. First I called Sam and asked him if he would take care of Twoby for me for a few days. He said sure. I told him I was going away for a while.  

 Then I called my uncle, who is also my boss, and told him I’d like to take my vacation time right away. He said he’d take care of it. I don’t ask him for much. Then I called Martha to let her know I was going on vacation but she didn’t have time to talk. She had a class.

 I gathered together the camping equipment stored in the spare room and sorted through it for the stuff I thought I’d need. I packed the small dome tent, a sleeping bag, a flashlight and a couple sets of spare batteries, the camp stove, the cooler and some cooking gear. I made sure I had enough food for at least a week. I didn’t know how long I’d be.

Finally I packed the stick I’d spent the months since spring carving out of a sturdy piece of kindling. It was pretty intricate. I’d carved a running dog stretched out the whole length of the stick. His front feet were buried in carved stars, and his rear feet were buried in a formless piece of wood. The grave I guess.  I didn’t know what it was for when I carved it. I still wasn’t sure but I wanted to bring it.  

My family had done a lot of camping. We had a favourite lake that it seemed nobody else knew about. Whenever we camped there we never saw any other people. That was where I was going. It was a beautiful lake with a stretch of sandy beach just like the lake in my dream.

 I loaded everything in the back of my car and headed for the bush. It wasn’t accessible by car so I walked in about a mile. It took two trips to bring all my gear.

 My second trip in, I nearly ran into a bear. I froze and watched him snuffling in the hollow of a rotten log. He lifted his head, looked around at me and then returned to his snuffling. When he was done he ambled off into the bushes by the side of the trail without giving me a second look. I was raised not to be scared of bears but not to mess with them either. So I waited half an hour or so to give him a chance to get well away before I continued.  

 I set up my tent on the shady end of the beach, and then hung some food–the stuff that didn’t go in the cooler–in a net sack from a high branch of a nearby fir tree so the bears wouldn’t get at it. My pop taught me that.  My pop’s old aluminum rowboat was still where he’d left it, two summers ago. He kept it at the lake because it was too hard to carry it in and out.

 When I had everything stowed I took the stick with me and walked down the beach to watch the water. The lake was small and round and reflected the trees and hills on the other side. The day was clear and sunny and just starting to get warm. A pair of loons out on the water made clear warbling noises. A fish jumped not far from shore–a big one. I don’t know if this little lake has a name, but we always called it the Fish Lake because the fishing is always so good here.   

I sat on a big rock in the sun facing the water. I took my shirt off and basked in the peaceful light. I held the stick with both hands loosely in my lap. This time of year the bush is humming with mosquitoes and blackflies. I sat in the midst of a buzzing cloud of bugs. Either they didn’t bite me or I didn’t notice.  

 Across the lake a moose was munching weeds. A hawk soared high overhead. A whiskeyjack landed in the branch of a nearby jackpine and raucously scolded me for not having left anything edible lying about. I just sat waiting. I felt good; warm and soft and thoughtless.

I watched the life of the lake–the loons, the moose, the birds–but I didn’t ooh and aah or really notice them much. They were part of the whole thing like the mosquitoes and blackflies and dragonflies. I felt I’d come home and I belonged to the same whole thing they belonged to.   

The day passed like that. I didn’t move not even to pee. I didn’t have to. I felt the sun move across the sky, the angle of its warmth shifting around my bare torso. Sometimes I caught sounds, echoes of my mother’s high laughter and my father’s, deeper, blending with hers like notes in a chord. Other times I smelled whiffs of frying fish and my mother’s special bannock fried in bacon fat. I never looked up. I knew these were ghosts of all the pasts I had lived here with my family.

 Sometimes I glimpsed a girl-child, awkward in her growing body, splashing in the water with a puppy. The puppy looked a lot like Twoby.  

 The day drew to a close and the sun set. As the air grew chill I put my shirt back on. I stood and stretched. I was stiff but not as stiff as I ought to have been.

 I had forgotten to bring a hatchet with me but there was plenty of deadfall around and lots of little twigs to use for kindling. I lit a tiny fire on the lakeshore the way my pop taught me, building it with bits of moss dead leaves and twigs, and then erecting a small pyramid of slightly larger twigs around it, feeding it as it caught slow and steady.

I collected a big pile of wood to last me the night then spread my sleeping bag on the sand beside the fire. I didn’t bother eating. I wasn’t hungry. I went to the lake and scooped up some water in my closed palms, drank sparingly, then went back to the fire to sit.

For no particular reason except that it was what my family always used to do around the campfire, I started to sing. It had been a couple years since I’d sung anything. I sang “The Whistling Gypsy” and “The Wanderer,” the one with the chorus that goes, “Val-de-ree, val-de-rah, val-de-ree, val-de-ra-ha-HA-HA”. I sang all the silly campfire songs I knew, the ones where you make up verses as you go along like “Down by the Bay” and “You Can’t Get to Heaven”.   

Then I started to sing songs my mother used to sing usually after everybody else had gone to bed. She used to stay up half the night when we camped, singing to the moon, she said. My pop and I would go to sleep early so we could get up at dawn and catch the fish when they were biting. I loved falling asleep listening to her sing like that. My mother had a beautiful voice. I don’t know how long I sang, but when I looked up the crescent moon was rising.

Then I saw the star. As soon as I saw it I got goose-bumps. I knew it was Hubey. Don’t ask me how I knew, because for the longest time it looked like any ordinary star. I stared at it, glued my eyes to it and willed the thing to become my dog. As I watched, the star seemed to dance, to writhe and swirl in rhythmic patterns against the blue-black sky. “Here, Hube,” I whispered. “Come on, boy.”

 Then he came bounding back just the way he’d gone, trailing a bright comet-tail of phosphorescence. I watched him come, beyond excitement, disbelief or any reaction at all. I just watched. He was so small and running so fast. He must have had a long way to go. As he got closer I saw his eyes, shining like miniature stars themselves.  

When he landed he sent up a shower of sand all over me. “Hubey!” I squealed. The spell was broken. Here was my dog back from the stars, just the same only brighter. I ran to him and hugged him. He slobbered and licked my face. I laughed and rolled around on the sand with him and then we ran down the beach and back together.

Hubey raced around exploring my campsite. He inspected the tent and sniffed at a spot under the fir tree where I’d peed when I brought in the first load of gear, and then he snuffled around the fire and found my stick, which I’d dropped in the excitement of greeting my dog.

He picked the stick up and brought it to me. He dropped it at my feet. And then he looked at me expectantly.  I stared at it like it had turned into a snake or a scorpion right before my eyes. Then I burst into sudden laughter. I laughed and laughed. I knew what I had to do next, what I’d failed to do that night so many months ago.   

I picked up the stick, and shook it under Hubey’s nose. “See this stick, Hube?” I commanded. “Fetch it!”

 Then I threw the stick as far as I could out over the water toward the crescent moon.

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