For all that I knew, my young mother had allowed these strangers to exploit her. She may have clipped the old man’s gnarly toenails, she may have massaged the old man’s flaccid body. Certainly she’d have said yes if he’d asked her to do extra work for him without the cleaning service being any the wiser. Off the books.

Thinking these things. Dragging the vacuum cleaner from room to room while in another part of the apartment the lonely little French bulldog was barking. Here I am! Feed me! Free me! Love me!

Each Thursday the forlorn sound of the little dog barking tore at my heart. Yet I could not allow Brindle to run free as I worked, he would cause too much commotion. Nor did Metti allow him in most of the rooms for he had a mischievous habit of dribbling urine.

The little bulldog was someone else’s responsibility, not mine. I wanted to think so.

When at last I opened the door to the sparely furnished, carpetless small room in which he was kept Brindle blinked at me in astonishment as if for a magical moment he’d convinced himself that I was not a stranger but his beloved mistress, who seemed to have abandoned him; then the frantic barking began again. I was hurt that Brindle didn’t seem to recognize me from the previous week. Or wouldn’t forgive me for being the wrong person.

Each week, I had to win the little dog’s trust another time. Each week, the little dog’s tremulous affection, that seemed scarcely distinguishable from terror.

How strange, this breed of dog! A miniature bulldog, scarcely as large as a cat, with a very short, compressed face, bizarrely flattened pug nose, enormous wide-set shining eyes that bulged in their sockets. Deep-chested, short-legged, dwarfish. His coat was stiff-haired, brown mingled with white. Yet there was something elegant about the dog, so unlike the coarse-haired mongrels of my childhood who were free to roam the neighborhood and were never “walked” on leashes.

You had to laugh at Brindle, he took himself so seriously. No idea of his small size though when he tried to run, he sometimes tripped and fell. To me he displayed bared teeth, raised hackles. Panting, and growling deep in his throat. Sharp toenails that clattered against the hardwood floor as he slid and skidded about trying to gain traction and rush at my legs. I wondered—was this miniature animal going to attack me? Bite me? Hadn’t I been the one to take him on a walk the previous week when the master hadn’t had time for him?

“Brindle, no. I am your friend.”

He’d overturned his water bowl. He’d devoured all his dry food. A puddle on the tile floor—urine. Quickly I cleaned up the puddle, mopped and cleaned the floor before Metti arrived and was furious.