It is suddenly too much like being a mother. Alice gets to the end of their street and has to pull off the road. It is too familiar, this going to a lesson, not quite déjà vu, but something so close to old habit that she tastes the past on her tongue. The smell of a September Saturday afternoon, something in the way the light hits the road, and Alice is transported back to the years when she spent more time in her van, this minivan, than she did in her kitchen. The dog sneezes, and the ghost of another passenger sits behind her.

Alice reaches back and strokes the dog’s head. It’s a dog, a silent companion, not a child back there. They are going to a dog class, to learn how to make sick people feel better and old people happy. “Come on up.” Alice pats the passenger seat. Buddy hops into it. Maybe they should invest in a dog seat belt. She puts the car in gear and pulls away from the stop sign.

Alice tries not to blame Ed anymore. She’s been advised by grief counselors that blame is destructive and no one can be blamed for what happened. Still, once in a while, when memory and the scent of September air remind her of the abrupt cessation of being a mom, the mother of a living child, Alice blames Ed.

*   *   *

Alice emanates unhappiness and Buddy/Mack whines softly in response. In the minivan, they are divided by the center console, so he is unable to rest his head in her lap, which was a technique that always proved successful with Justine when the low scent of unhappiness radiated from her. Sometimes this would happen after she tossed her cell down hard; sometimes it would happen in the middle of the night, when he would work his way up from the end of the bed to press himself against her until her arm would go over his body and she would draw him close to her.

Alice, because she still forbids him to climb on the bed she shares with Ed, has not yet snuggled him close, but Buddy/Mack knows that if she would, she’d feel better. He’s watched them as they sleep, two people with the space of a foot between them. Whenever one of them touches the other, there is a grunt or a snort and they move apart. Buddy/Mack thinks that that space between them in the bed would be just about perfect, exactly the right dimension for him to slip his body in and become the final link in the chain.

Squirrel!

Buddy/Mack sees the little rodent dash across the road in front of them. Alice slows, avoids contact. Let me get him for you! But Alice keeps driving, oblivious to the skilled hunter in the seat beside her. He vocalizes, not a bark, but a complaint that Alice is a lousy partner.