She's been a good dog

tripod

This tale that follows if from one of my older sisters' archives. Retold by me here for you to enjoy. It is a tangled story about our love for a little terrier dog that we both shared the company of. She was one of a kind.

Now, from my sister's perspective:

I arrived at the therapist's office a few minutes late. I was always late. I could not get motivated these past few months. My husband had been seriously ill, and they never really found out what it was.

And, now this therapy just didn't seem to be helping. Doctor Arora was nice enough. Though his Indian accent was thick and hard to understand for me at times. I was usually so timid, I never asked him to repeat himself. It just seemed rude.

I sat across from the doctor trying as usual to get comfortable in the high-back chair that never seemed to fit my body. After a few seconds of twisting my torso this way and that way, I managed a weak smile for the doctor.

His eyes were studying the papers before him. Finally, he looked up at me and smiled.

"So, how are you today?" he asked.

What I said:
"Oh, I'm a little sad. My dog died."

What the doctor heard and I didn't know it:
"Oh, I'm a little sad. My daughter died."

He said, "I'm so sorry! When did this happen?!"

"Oh, a week or so ago."

His eyes grew wide.

"How old was she?"

"We think she was eight or nine. We're not really sure."

The doctor gave me a sidelong glance that I didn't take notice to.

I sighed and tears welled up in my eyes. It seemed like I cried a lot these days. The doctor reached over and patted my hands that were folded uselessly in my lap.

"How tragic for you."

"Yes, she had lost a leg."

The doctor dropped the papers. He left them on the floor.

"Oh my! How did that happen?"

"She was hit by a car."

The doctor sat there with his mouth agape. He must be a pet lover.

"My Goodness! That is terrible!"

"Yeah, we had a time with her after that. She just kind of hobbled around the house."

The doctor made some kind of a face I couldn't decipher.

I sighed again. I thought perhaps it would be therapeutic to talk about her.

"My sister had her for a while, before she moved out of state."

"You're sister had her?"

"Yeah, they were really close. She was in my sister's care when she got hit by the car. It was a foggy fourth of July morning. The neighbors found her under their car. We don't know how long she had been laying there. Some car must have hit her and knocked her under there, they never stopped."

The doctor looked a bit ill to me, but I couldn't tell. I thought he might be getting sick, so I managed another weak smile.

"It didn't make her afraid, though. She still loved to ride in the car."

The doctor's return smile looked a bit pinched to me, but he nodded. He was letting me get all of the sorrow out. I tried to sound upbeat.

"She would dance around the best she could with that one leg gone and wait and hope to see if we would let her go with us whenever we went somewhere."

I swallowed hard remembering her little body wriggling around, but managed to continue.

"She knew when we were leaving because I would be freshening my makeup and combing my hair. She would come into the bathroom with me while I was getting ready and just look up at me with those big, soft eyes of hers. Sometimes we couldn't take her with us because we would be going someplace where they didn't allow her to go and we would have to leave her home with the cats."

The doctor seemed to shift uncomfortably in his chair. Maybe he had a hard time adjusting to these stupid chairs the same as I did.

"Where did you go that she wasn't allowed?"

"Well, places like the grocery store."

"The grocery store!?"

The doctor had such an incredulous look on his face. Perhaps things were different in India.

"I know that in some foreign countries, they allow you to take your pets in, but in the US - it isn't allowed unless they are a seeing-eye dog or something."

"Pets!?"

"Yes, my pet, dog."

"You're dog!? I thought you were speaking of your daughter!"

He seemed relieved. As if he had just figured out the mystery to a puzzle.

"Uh, no. My dog died."

The color returned to the doctor's face. He seemed more relaxed.

"Time's up!"

Thank goodness. I was spent. I never realized how emotionally draining it was to get everything out.

Coming from the speakers: Shannon by Henry Gross