Chapters (65)
I look out the window. It’s started to snow again.
I swallow past a big burning knot in my throat. “We have to help them, Mama.”
29
Scent Trail
Skies clear.
Birds call back and forth,
fluffing their feathers against the cold.
Baby rises from behind the book drop and
shakes the wild night from his coat.
It is morning and,
he knows,
a new day.
He sniffs the air.
He puts his nose to the ground.
There,
just there,
the faint thread of a scent trail.
He remembers the smells of the day
he found his Jewel:
The spicy smell of a truck selling tacos.
The sweet, green smell of a shop filled with flowers.
The happy scents as they passed
children playing on a school playground.
The wet musk of a river,
a river that ran right beside the place
where he and Ree found Jewel.
Baby strikes out
following his nose,
ignoring everything else—
the bleating car horns,
the voices calling to him,
the thousand other smells—
as he goes from one scent marker to another,
truck
shop
school
until finally,
the smell of the river.
Just as snow begins to fall again,
Baby walks up to the front doors of
Mercy Memorial Hospital.
He takes one step.
The doors sweep open.
The smells rush out.
Memories of this place,
of finding Jewel,
of seeing her face,
of hearing her voice say his name
over and over,
and knowing that finally, finally
everything is as it should be,
these memories
pull him inside
as surely as
a fish on a line.
Bright lights.
Sharp smells sting Baby’s nose.
Shiny floors slip under his snow-crusted paws.
Baby tries to find the scent trail
to Jewel.
Up one hall, down another.
A man pushing a mop
calls out, “Hey! What you doing here?”
Baby crouches, then hears
a ding!
He remembers that sound,
races toward it
through sliding doors
into a small room,
almost as small as the place in the park
where he and Jewel lived.
Doors close.
The room moves.
Baby whimpers.
Where is Jewel?
Doors slide open and Baby leaps out
glad to be away from the moving room.
He searches with his nose for something familiar,
for something of Jewel.
There, just there.
He remembers!
He gallops down the hall.
The scent-memory grows stronger.
Then,
“There it is!”
Voices shouting.
Hands grabbing.
Arms waving.
His heart hammers in his chest.
All the little dog wants
is to be with Jewel.
A big woman in a uniform bends over him.
slips something around his neck.
Tight. Too tight!
Baby twists and jumps and flips
like a fish caught on a line.
A blanket is thrown over his head.
Dark.
He is lifted up
into
arms that smell like dogs and fear.
Baby is carried down the hall.
He howls his heartbreak as they pass
Jewel’s room.