A Big Little Life

chest and rub behind her ears, which I sometimes did to cajole rather than to command her to follow the rules, she contorted her face as if yawning, but she made no sound. Then she thrust her head toward me, not seeking further affection, but to focus my attention as she said, “Baw.”
    Because I had not thought about Gerda’s experience in weeks, Trixie’s expressed desire surprised me. The wordwas spoken exactly as Gerda pronounced it, but when face-to-face with Trix, the meaning was far clearer than I would have thought. Perhaps that impressive clarity was because she sold the word with the tension in her body, with the expression on her face, with the outward curl of her upper lip that exaggerated the shape that the human mouth gives to the word ball , and with the intensity of her stare.
    “Baw.”
    This was not the mimicry of a parrot, words repeated but with no meaningful context. This word and the shaping of it had been thought through, and she used it precisely when it could gain for her what she wanted.
    “Baw.”
    In this remarkable moment, she tried to bridge the gulf between one who could not speak and one who could, and she succeeded in that she conveyed her meaning. This achievement was inspiriting but also sobering and even slightly sad, for it was a triumph that emphasized the impossibility of ever having another like it.
    I kissed her brow and said, “You’re right, Short Stuff. If I’ve got to edit your walk, I should never delete the part of it that you most enjoy. Let’s go hunt some tennis balls.”
    She found enough of them that morning to fill all the pockets in my jacket.

XV
water, wonder, work
    GOLDEN RETRIEVERS ARE water dogs, bred to swim into a lake and bring back the duck you shot. Because I loved Daffy and Donald since childhood, I never shot a duck, which would have felt like toonicide. Trixie had no opportunity to prove her merit as a hunter’s dog.
    Our house in Harbor Ridge had a pool, however, where we learned she was a better swimmer than her mom ordad. Prior to adopting Trix, we had seldom used the pool, but when she stood at the French doors, staring at the sun-glistered water and sighing, we couldn’t resist taking the plunge with her. Gerda, who never had the opportunity to learn to swim, decided to teach herself with the assistance of a strap-on flotation device. As Gerda paddled earnestly from one end of the pool to the other, Trix swam with her, but not at her side; instead, our golden girl continually—literally—swam circles around her mom all the way from one end of the pool to the other, as if to show how it should be done, or as if making another joke.
    Although she loved to swim, Trixie wouldn’t enter the pool until invited. Sometimes she used the steps, but usually she gathered her legs together, tensed, and launched off the coping, making a huge splash. During an hour of play, she returned to the deck ten times, rested for a few minutes, then barreled into the water again.
    We have pliable-foam pool floats coated in rubber, on which we can stretch out to tan. The second time I took Trixie to play in the water, I drew one of these floats into the pool when she climbed out to take a rest. Aboard it, lying on my back, I glanced at her. She watched me with great interest, head raised and thrust forward, intrigued to see me drifting languidly on the water without effort.
    I basked in the sun until overcome by a feeling that I was about to find myself in a Daffy Duck cartoon. When I opened my eyes, Trixie stood at the edge of the pool, legs bunched under her, grinning maniacally. “No!” Icried, but she jumped, slamming onto the float, turning it upside-down and dumping both of us into the drink.
    Surfacing, I saw her pawing frantically at the float, trying to clamber onto it, while it bobbled and turned in the water. I held it steady, forcing one side under water so her forelimbs could easily slide onto it, and then, by holding the float with one hand and giving her butt a boost with the other, I got her aboard.
    Judging by her expression, this was one of the most amazing and delightful experiences of her life. She lay with her back legs splayed, her forelimbs bent at the elbows and straight in front of her, head raised, looking around in wonder. Floating! On water! Without paddling! Genius! My dad’s a genius!
    When I towed her from one end of the pool to the other and then back again, she panted with excitement. And she made the most winsome sound,