“I beg your pardon?” Selma said. She wasn’t indignant but instead seemed moved and a little incredulous. My father started to explain how important it was for him to externalize his pain as Dr. Maschke recommended.

“Hang on a minute,” Selma said. “So the dog is the pain. Have I got that right?”

“Exactly,” my father said, relieved. “The dog is a metaphor, so to speak, a metaphor for the pain.”

“A standard poodle-sized pain,” Selma said.

The dog raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were very gentle, very black, very wet, and very big. Suddenly I knew we’d all been waiting for him, especially Martin.

“You can leave him with Palm during your consulting hours,” Selma suggested.

“Are you insane?” my father asked.

I looked at the dog. It was very clear that he’d be useless as a hunting dog. Palm only had hunting dogs. He kept them on chains in the yard; the chains stretched taut and held the dogs back as they lunged at me, barking, whenever I came to get Martin.

“He’d be a useless hunting dog,” I said.

And Selma said, “That’s exactly the point,” because she believed she wouldn’t have to worry about the deer as much if Palm had a gentle and therefore completely useless dog at his side.

I said, “Palm has no time for dogs that aren’t aggressive.”

There were many things Palm had no time for; actually, he had no time for anything besides high-proof hunting dogs and high-proof alcohol, certainly not for his own son, because Martin wasn’t high-proof enough for him. Selma knew that. Everyone did.

Because Selma was so old, she knew Palm from another life, from life before Martin and me. Selma had told me that before he’d started drinking, Palm was exceptionally well informed about the world and its sources of light. He knew everything about the moon’s elliptical orbit and its relation to the sun. A hunter, he believed, should know how the world is illuminated.

“Can we keep him, please?” I asked.

The deer reappeared in the meadow. This was unusual. Normally it was enough for Selma to slam the garage door once. She stood up and walked over to the garage. This time she slammed the door twice in a row and the deer disappeared.

Selma sat back down next to us.

“What should we call him?” she asked. “Did Dr. Maschke offer an opinion?”

“Pain,” my father suggested. “Pain is a possibility.”