The air in this living room is stifling, close. The windows are closed against the mild September day. Suddenly, I can’t breathe in here. I bolt out of the front door and stand on the chipped front step, sucking in breath after breath. I can’t make myself go back in there. I have come all this way, and sacrificed the being I love best next to my absent son—for what? To be revisited by every bad memory I’ve worked so hard to grow beyond? This is a haunted house, and I don’t have to be here.

Chapter 19

19

I have no place to go, so I sit on the front steps and wish that I smoked, so that it would look at least like I’m outside for a purpose. I pick at the weeds that are growing at the base of the steps. Ugly, unwanted things, more green than the summer-burned grass. Hardy fools. Thinking that they are welcome.

I can call Candy and see if she’ll buy me a plane ticket home. I know that she will, but I also know that she’ll try and talk me out of leaving. I guess I haven’t been as honest with her as I might have been. She just thinks that our family suffered the normal range of conflict. She thinks, like good people do, that a tearful and heartfelt make-up session will occur before my father’s last breath and I will feel better, or relieved or something, so that this trip will help “heal” me. I know. I’ve seen her pull that Oprah shit on other friends.

But even if I call Candy and convince her that staying is a bad idea, I still don’t have Mack. How can I leave without knowing where he is, without finding him? Even as I think this, I know that each hour that goes by lessens my chances of locating my dog. I still have no idea where he is. Any thin hope that I had squirreled away against the worst thoughts is gone. Artie isn’t driving west now with my Mack alongside, riding shotgun. The unanswerable question is, Where did he abandon my dog? Ohio? Pennsylvania? New York? Massachusetts? How long would he have kept the dog with him before ditching him?

Did he at least leave Mack somewhere that a kind person might find him?

Did my impulsive ride on the back of Mitch’s Harley take me away from Mack? Was he simply waiting for me by the exit? I feel that burn in my eyes, the hollow ache in my throat, and squeeze my eyes shut.

“I didn’t realize how much you cared.” Paul Rose, Jr., casts a broad shadow over me; the sudden shade makes me shiver.

“I don’t. Not really.” The urge to cry vanishes, replaced by the leaden taste of old anger.