Alice takes the last book off the cart and studies it. Merle’s Door. She tucks it under her arm; she’ll take this one about an author’s observations of life with his free-ranging dog home to read. She’s already zipped through Marley & Me and is grateful that the dog she found isn’t a giant slobbery Lab, but a well-mannered, dignified Shetland sheepdog. She’s pored through the one book in the library about the breed and now she knows that Buddy is a blue merle and that blue eyes are common. She has confirmation of what she already knows: This is one smart breed of dog. One that likes to have a job.

She thinks that Sally is right: It might be fun to do something with him like obedience or therapy training. “I’ll think about it. Might be fun.”

When she couldn’t get pregnant, Alice read every book on the topic. When she found herself a late-in-life expectant mother, she scoured every book on pregnancy. By the time Stacy was six months old, Alice didn’t have the time or energy to read. After it happened, well-meaning friends foisted memoirs and essay books on her, books meant to explain the inexplicable, to make it comprehensible and maybe even acceptable. They sat piled like unused bricks on the coffee table, where she would occasionally run a dust cloth over their covers. She returned them, one by one, never saying that she hadn’t read them.

Chapter 29

29

Ed drives past the cemetery gates; from their road, it’s not possible to get to the main route in Moodyville without passing this way. As he does every single time they do this, Buddy arches his neck, swivels his ears, and points his nose at the place where Alice first saw him. His mouth opens and his tongue lolls out; he pants, short intakes of breath, not like he’s hot or has been running, more like a vocalization. A question: Huh? Huh?

Usually, Ed speeds up at this point, pressing the accelerator to kick the old Cutlass awake, but today he pulls to a stop across from the cemetery driveway. Buddy jumps from front seat to back, a blur of silver and white. He climbs over Ed and presses his front feet against the driver’s side window. His excitement is obvious, and Ed can’t fathom what is causing it. He opens his door and the dog leaps out, the leash whipping after him and out of Ed’s reach. Thank God there are no oncoming cars. If anything happened to this dog … Ed cannot finish that thought. This is a bad idea and he regrets whatever impulse made him stop.