Story Holes

At the edge of the lake, I pull the seeds from the speargrass and toss them at the towel, draped over our Irish Setter, Trixie. I grow impatient waiting for my aunt to return to the shore, when it will be my turn to be carried through the cool water. I am four. I cannot yet swim.

I skip ahead to 1984, when I’m 11, because for one week I have another Irish Setter, Magma. My stepfather has brought her home from the military base where he works and lets me name her. It makes things better, having a dog again, one that feels like catching silk when I give chase.

I fall back two years to October 1982 when we meet. She tells us that he cannot have dogs at his house, and I don’t know what to say. He smiles tightly, and is polite, but our first meeting will always be marked by the loss of Max. I see him, now, looking up to me from a memory, full of ticks and sand burrs.

I toss another seed of speargrass straight into the water, and follow it. I step in up to my knees. My aunt is holding my sister well above the surface, and she splashes about. I step to my thighs. I step again, but there is no step and I fall, silently.

I meet him for the second time two weeks later when they return from their honeymoon in New Orleans. She tells me that they have bad news, that Max somehow escaped from the yard. They think they found some dog remains near the train tracks. Because of the way they look at each other when they say this, in a kind of rehearsed unison, I don’t ask any questions. It’s done.

The sand burrs don’t seem to stick to Trixie. I watch through my bedroom window as another boy chases her in the backyard. Our stepfather decides a week is long enough to have a dog, so he finds another family to take her. The new family and boy take her to a farm where she’ll have more room to run. I stay in my room until they’re gone.

A foot below the surface, I stand motionless, unable to breathe, to yell, to wave my arms. Unable to swim. The water is green, and reflects light from above like the thick glass of the pitcher my grandmother uses to brew tea in the sun. I feel the water like never before, like a heavy film that’s trying to get into me, through my ears, my mouth, my nose. I wait.

She tells me that Trixie was run over last week on the farm. I smile, because I think of the pain that other boy must be feeling. I smile, because I think of my parents trying to convince me how much better life was supposed to be for her where she had so much room to run. It feels good, somehow, that she’s died and now belongs to no one. I start my counseling in a week, but I won’t mention this, because I know that everything I tell him, he tells my parents.

I answer his question, “No. She came back in time and pulled me to the surface.” He asks if I was frightened. I’m about to say no, that I found it to be the most profoundly peaceful moment I have ever experienced, but my sister has taught me the things I’m supposed to say. “Yes. I was afraid she wouldn’t find me.”

We have to be in bed by 9pm, which means in July, we sleep well before the sun has set, our friends occasionally tapping on our bedroom windows to tease us. Out of the blue, she walks in and sits on the corner of the bed. “You know that we would never abandon you, right, sweetie?” “Yes, I know.” She waits, wanting me to say more, but I’m quiet, and pull the covers higher until she leaves, unable to breathe, to yell, to wave my arms. I shut out the sounds of barking dogs, the rustling of legs running through spear grass, and the filtered light of a slowly building summer.