Bloodlines

became reluctant, stubborn. “I don’t think Edgar would like me to part with them.”
    You do any purebred rescue? If so, you’re not surprised, are you? The papers had more sentimental value than the dog did. You’re used to it. I’ve seen people abandon the dog, but insist on keeping the collar and tags. Honest to God. Anyway, if Enid Sievers had been someone other than who she was, I’d have pressed hard for those papers. I’d read about the sale of AKC papers to puppy mills. I’d heard that papers are auctioned off. Blue money, right? AKC papers. But Enid Sievers? Never. If I’d wanted to sell or auction a dog’s papers myself, I wouldn’t have known where to begin. Enid Sievers certainly wouldn’t, either. Besides, I’d be back on Monday. I could try again. In the meantime, I asked to look at the papers. I said that I was curious about where Missy had come from, who her parents were.
    While Enid Sievers was digging the documents out of a drawer somewhere, I sat on the floor of the pantry, dug my fingers into Missy’s coat, stroked her muzzle, and talked softly to her. “You’re perfectly safe and happy here,” I said. “You’re just a little bored and lonely. And I’ll be back for you in three days. And then Betty and I will find a wonderful family for you, and you’ll go on long walks every day. And you won’t have to be alone any more. I promise. I hate to leave you, but I’ll be back. And then everything will be much, much better.” Yeah, I know. Spaying. All purebred rescue dogs are spayed or neutered before they’re placed or immediately afterward. But why worry her with details?
    Then Enid Sievers returned, and I gave Missy a big hug, shut her in the pantry, and followed her mistress back to that overstuffed, cloying living room. Enid Sievers hesitated a moment, clutching a manila folder against her bosom as if I might snatch Missy’s papers and take off, but then handed it to me. I took my old place on the love seat, put the folder on the coffee table in front of me, and opened it. I was a little surprised to find that besides the familiar white, violet-lettered AKC registration slip, the folder contained an AKC-certified four-generation pedigree, for which Edgar Sievers had paid fifteen dollars in addition to the registration fee. According to the registration slip and the pedigree, Missy was Princess Melissa Sievers, a wolf gray and white Alaskan malamute female whelped eight months earlier. The breeder’s name was Walter Simms. I’d never heard of him, and neither the registration slip nor the pedigree gave his address. I assumed that he was a Kansas farmer who’d found hogs unprofitable, or maybe chickens. Did you know that in Kansas alone, puppies are a forty-two-million-dollar-a-year business? Yeah, forty-two million. A year. According to something I read somewhere, there are more dogs in the chicken coops of Kansas than there are chickens. Jesus. My eyes reached the bottom half of the pedigree, the section that showed Missy’s maternal line. The names staggered me.
    Enid Sievers must have read my expression. “It’s very impressive, isn’t it,” she said. “There are a lot of champion dogs there. The lady at Puppy Luv explained to Edgar that Missy was really a show dog, you know. All of her dogs are.”
    Without asking Enid Sievers’s permission, I reached into my purse, pulled out a notebook and pen, and began to scrawl down the names on the pedigree. Those on Missy’s sire’s side sounded like puppy mill names to me: Sir Snowy II, Caesar the Great. But her dam? Ever hear of Icekist? Icekist is the kennel name of Lois Metzler. I knew Lois. I ran into her at shows all the time. Betty Burley knew her, too. Lois Metzler was no chicken farmer in Kansas. She was a reputable malamute breeder, and her kennel was right here in Massachusetts.
    Remember that business about spotting one of your infant relatives in the window of a shopping mall baby shop? Remember about taking that feeling and toning it down? Well, in the case of Lois Metzler, forget that. Take that feeling and let it rip until it blasts your chest open. A dog from Lois Metzler’s lines for sale in a pet shop? I would have sworn it was impossible. So, I thought, would Lois. No wonder Missy was decent looking. After all, she came from Lois’s lines.
     

6
     

     
    Sometimes I imagine myself at a meeting held in the pale yellow cinder-block assembly room of a church basement. Rows of brown-painted