The Dog
When Meghan came to, she was lying on the grass with the dog’s tongue lapping at her arm. In those foggy first few seconds, she believed it was Clancy beside her. She opened her eyes slowly and saw the dog. It wasn’t Clancy. It was a medium-size brown-and-white pup with his body low to the ground and those huge pleading eyes looking up at her.
For a few moments, everything remained fuzzy and out of focus. She felt uncertain about where she was and how she’d gotten there. She rolled to her side, leaned on her right elbow, and tried to push herself to a sitting position. A sharp pain shot through her hip, and she dropped back to the ground. She closed her eyes again.
The day was warm, hot almost, yet she shivered as she began to remember those last few moments of desperation when she’d held on to the dog, fearing the next breath would be her last and she would take him down with her. In a voice that was no more than a whisper, she said through a groan, “Thank God.” A well of tears overflowed her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
The dog moved closer. Keeping his body low, he stretched his paws and placed them on her shoulder, then cautiously eased his snout forward and began to lick the tears from her face. Instinctively Meghan wrapped her arm around him and held him close. She found a measure of comfort in having the thump of his small heart next to her own.
As several minutes ticked by, she remembered the blinding rain and the rush of water at her back, but she couldn’t remember the actual moment of climbing out of the lake. It was something she’d most likely never remember, and perhaps it was better that way.
The last drizzle of rain finally disappeared and left behind a gray sky with a few dark clouds hanging low. Meghan remained there until the throbbing in her hip was bearable, then she pushed herself to a sitting position. The dog scrambled into her lap and went back to licking her arm.
Gradually a sense of steadiness came back to her. Her hip ached, and her legs felt as if she’d run a 10K race, but she was alive, and the dog was alive. It was a lot to be thankful for. She affectionately rubbed his ears, and he leaned into her touch.
“Poor baby,” she said softly. Again she wondered how it came to be that he was out there in the middle of the lake.
Now with the rain gone, she could see across to the other side of the lake. She looked up and down the shoreline, but no one was standing there. No owner calling for a lost puppy or looking to pull him from the water.
The dog was affectionate and sweet; surely he belonged to somebody. She ran her hand around his neck looking for a collar or tag, but there was none.
“You must belong to somebody,” she said, “but whom?”
The more Meghan looked at the pup, the more he reminded her of Clancy. He wasn’t Clancy, she knew, but his mannerisms and the way he curled himself into her lap were exactly like Clancy. The two dogs were about the same size, but this pup had paws too big for his body. He was still young and would most likely grow to be the size of a shepherd or golden retriever.
They sat there for a long while, her stroking the dog and lovingly plucking bits of leaf and twig from his fur, him licking at her hand, arm, leg—anything he could reach. When Meghan stood and began looking around for her sandals, he was right behind her.
She had climbed out of the lake in a different spot than where she’d gone in, and it took a good fifteen minutes before she found her shoes. The journal she’d been writing in was nowhere to be seen. As she sat to pull on her sandals, the dog cozied up beside her and licked her leg.
Meghan smiled. “Since you don’t seem to have an owner anywhere around, do you want to come home with me?”
The dog wiggled his rear end, looked up at her with those heartrending eyes, and gave a soft whimper. To her ear it had the sound of “Please.”
She bent down and ruffled the soft fur on the underside of his snout. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
He cocked his head and barked, his tail swishing back and forth happily. There was something about the way he looked at her with such direct eye contact; she could almost swear he understood what she was saying.
“You are so stinkin’ cute,” she said, laughing. “I just know a sweetie like you belongs to somebody, so we’ve got to at least try and find your owner.”
Keeping his eyes fixed on her face, he gave another pitiful whine.
When Meghan called him Sox, it was nothing more than a description of his looks. Despite the dirty lake water clinging to his fur, she saw three completely white paws and a fourth fringed with white. He looked as if he were wearing sweat socks, the kind she wore for a run or a workout at the gym. That fourth paw had the look of a sock without much elasticity, like it had slipped down.
When she said, “Let’s go, Sox,” he followed along.
Apparently he was okay with the temporary name.
Calling him Sox meant she hadn’t given him a real name. If she gave him a real name, it would signify she was going to keep him. As much as she wanted to, he wasn’t hers to keep. She reminded herself this was short-term. He was hers for today, but after that . . .
As they started toward the road, she looked down at the dog and laughed.
“We look like a couple of drowned rats, don’t we, Sox?”
The dog responded by vigorously shaking his body. A spray of water went flying and doused her again.
Her hair was dripping down her back, her clothes were soaked, and with every step, she could feel the wetness of her sandals squishing between her toes. Yet none of those things seemed to matter. At the moment Meghan had a feeling of contentment that had been missing for a long time. It was a warmth that settled into her chest and gave a jauntiness to her step, even though her legs still ached.
On the walk home, she again reminded herself that this dog wasn’t Clancy and in truth she had no right to him. But in the back of her mind, there was a small voice arguing You saved his life, so now he’s yours.
By the time they arrived back at the house, Meghan and the dog were both still trailing muddy lake water, so she circled around to the back and came in through the kitchen. Tracy heard the door open and came from the Snip ’N’ Save office.
“Hey, Meghan, wait until you hear what I’ve found out!” She stopped, eyed Meghan, and asked, “What happened? You’re soaked!”
“A storm came up and—”
“Storm?” Tracy spotted the dog and bent to pet him. “Aw, isn’t he a cute little rascal. Where’d you get him?”
“Rescued him from the lake,” Meghan said. “I was getting ready to leave, and this huge storm rolled in.”
“Strange. We didn’t have a drop of rain here.”
“Good grief, it was like a hurricane blowing through. I don’t know how you could have missed it.”
The dog shook his body again, and a spray of muddy water splattered across the kitchen floor.
“Uh-oh. Mama just cleaned up in here. She’s gonna have a fit about this mess.”
The dog went down on his belly and lowered his head as if he were ashamed.
“If she has a fit, then she has a fit,” Meghan said. “Too bad.”
Tracy laughed. “After all these years, don’t tell me you’ve decided to take a turn at being the rebellious daughter!”
Meghan gave a sheepish grin. “Afraid not. It’s just that I feel very protective of this dog. He reminds me of Clancy.”
Tracy scrunched her nose and frowned. “He doesn’t look at all like Clancy.”
“It’s not the way he looks,” Meghan replied. “It’s something more. I think what happened back at the lake created a bond between us and—”
“What actually happened at the lake?”
Meghan recounted how she’d seen the dog and gone in after it. When she told of the blinding raindrops and the desperation she’d felt, fearing she wasn’t going to make it back to the shore, Tracy’s face went white.
“Good Lord, Meghan, you could have been killed!”
“But I wasn’t, which leads me to believe I was there because fate wanted me there to rescue Sox.”
“Are you serious?” Tracy rolled her eyes and gave an exasperated huff. “You’ve spent too much time writing stories. Now you’re starting to believe them.”
“That’s not true. Those things have nothing to do with each other. Fate isn’t controlled by wishes. It just is what it is, and it happens whether you want it to or not.”
Tracy twitched her mouth to the side with a look of skepticism. “What if the dog was fated to drown, and you interfered by saving him? Isn’t that the same as controlling fate?”
Meghan hesitated a moment. She didn’t have a comeback. The only thing she could do was tell what was in her heart.
“Think whatever you want,” she said, “but I know I was meant to save this dog. I know it, and I believe he knows it, too. We were as good as dead, and then when I opened my eyes we were on the shore. He was right there beside me, just as Clancy would have been, and I could see the gratitude on his face.”
“Gratitude on his face?” Tracy repeated laughingly.
She didn’t necessarily believe such a thing possible, yet she had to admit there was a certain something about the way the dog stayed alongside Meghan. He didn’t wander or go sniffing around the kitchen the way she’d expect a stray to do.
“So I guess you’re planning to keep him,” she said.
“I’d like to, but . . . ” Meghan gave a soulful sigh.
The thought of giving up the dog felt like a sharp-edged rock dropped into her chest, but remembering the heartbreak she’d felt when Clancy disappeared, she knew it was something she had to do. She squatted and affectionately rubbed the spot behind his ears.
“You understand, don’t you, Sox? I have to try to find your owner, because they probably love you the way I loved Clancy.”
Looking up at Tracy, Meghan said, “Tomorrow I’ll take a picture of him and run a found-dog ad in the Snip ’N’ Save. Everybody in town reads it.”
“And if no one claims him?” Tracy replied.
A smile slid across Meghan’s face. “Then he was meant to be mine.”
The dog shimmied up against her leg, and she continued to rub his ears.
Tracy laughed again. “I think he’s already yours.”