It had been two days since Lulu came to him out of the woods. He had brought her inside immediately and locked the door. She was uneasy the whole time, nervous, pacing around and barking at the slightest sound. He fed her deli meat all day in an attempt to calm her down, but all it did was give her diarrhea that, in his condition, Emery was only able to handle by sitting down on the floor to clean. When he was finished, he took a shower and shaved his long, gray beard. He hadn’t seen himself like this in ages. His face had been aging in secret behind the hair, and he shrugged at the revelation.

“Well, then,” Emery said, scooping the hair up out of his bathroom sink with a paper towel.

When he came outside, Lulu didn’t recognize him, and barked at him for nearly a minute before she felt comfortable enough with him just standing there to come and sniff at his outstretched hand. When she settled down, Emery headed for his truck and made his way to the gas station to buy some dog food. After two days, Lulu still hadn’t settled down, and fixated her agitation by scratching at the front door.

Now, when Emery did let her outside, he started putting her on a leash. She didn’t like it, especially since it wasn’t that long, and she typically liked to go to the bathroom out back farther in the fields. So Emery had to shuffle along with her for two odd minutes each time while she dragged him out away from the house to take a dump. After doing her business, she then became fixated on the woods to the south, trying to drag Emery toward them.

“Easy, girl, easy,” Emery said.

It took all his strength to drag her back into the house each time. He would be wheezing for minutes after sitting down in his recliner. His back would feel on fire.

“I guess you need your exercise, girl,” Emery said to Lulu.

Lulu looked back for a second before looking forward again to scratch at the door.

“Just give me a week, okay,” Emery said to Lulu.

Emery shuffled up, grasped his walker, hobbled over to his desktop computer, opened up a web browser and searched for “physical therpy.”

4

4

THE ROOM NO ONE CAN SEE INTO

THE TREES OF IRON COUNTY

By Edi Markham

Page 56

I didn’t know how to feel about it. A person carries things with them in life, guilty feelings for others and themselves, burdens and fears, all these little gray shadows cast over their hearts. The hardest ones to explain are the ones that don’t seem to have a source. Implicit guilt, or implicit self-hatred. I’ve tried explaining this to what few friends I’ve had and either people don’t get it or are Catholic.