“Are you okay?”

Funny how so many people have asked me that question in one form or another in the past twenty-four hours. I look at my companion, who is gathering up her Coke cans and bundles of presents for the grandkids. We’re at the Springfield station, her stop.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You enjoy your family.”

She looks at me for a long moment. Her chubby face doesn’t hide the fact that she has beautiful eyes. I expect that it was those eyes that drew her husband to her, those eyes that have kept him despite the baby weight that didn’t disappear, but settled in; despite the years of caring for children, caring for his house, settling for a life lived in terms of vacations to Canada and First Communions. “You, too.”

She struggles to make her way down the narrow bus aisle. I can see a woman who must be her daughter, a little kid clasped by one hand. Simultaneously, they both open their arms to the woman as she lumbers down the bus steps.

Yeah, I’ll be enjoying my family all right.

* * *

The points of the compass are not nominal values, but instinctive. Standing on the verge of the highway, he raises his muzzle to the air, orients himself, and begins to walk. Cars bullet past him, flattening his coat by the force of their passing. He keeps to a westerly course but moves into the protection of the tree line, keeping up a businesslike trot despite the ache in his ribs. This takes him under the highway and into a culvert that has only a sluggish trickle of water running through it. Inside the culvert is the scent of ground animal, possum or raccoon. Mack is fiercely thirsty and laps gratefully at the shallow stream as if he could lap it dry.

As he emerges from the culvert, Mack pauses, listens. Justine must be somewhere. He heard her voice. He’s not ignorant enough to believe that she was trapped in the cell, but he has a vague idea that if he could hear her voice, she can’t be far off. If he wanders too far, she won’t find him. Even so, he keeps moving, instinct telling him that she won’t find him here in this wild place.

The highway is a distant susurration; the slow passing of cars on a back road is closer. One at a time, slow enough that he can discern the sound of their radios, smell the waft of cigarette smoke exhaled through cracked windows, the voices of couples arguing late at night.

Justine will expect him to wait for her someplace. He needs to find that place. In their life together, she often tells him down-stay, leaving him waiting outside doors, or gates, or on sidewalks. He needs to find a place where Justine might ask him to down-stay. And then wait for her.

Part 2

9

Alice spots the dog first.

She mentions to Edward that she noticed this furry little dog sitting quietly between the twin painted brick pillars of the cemetery. “I thought about stopping.” Alice Parmalee pulls a can of tuna out of the carrier bag, studies it for a moment. “I sort of wish I had. I hope he doesn’t get hit by a car.”