Creature Discomforts

conceded, “you knew his sister Candace a lot better, back in the old days. That Border collie of hers, Finn, used to beat you and Vinnie on a regular basis. Candace hasn’t been around here for years, not since she came down with that chronic whatever-it-is. She still shows in Canada. Matter of fact, one of her dogs was in the last issue of Front and Finish. Young Border collie. Now that I think of it, that’s a breed you ought to consider.” And he was off again, this time on a sermon about Border collies in relation to the mental and moral benefits of what he called “a little healthy competition.” By this he meant, I soon deduced, placing consistently in the ribbons at the top levels of dog obedience, a sport at which I’d evidently excelled before switching from golden retrievers to Alaskan malamutes. Eventually, he said, looking hurt, “Some reason you haven’t asked about Mandy?”
    Because I have no idea who Mandy is? And find myself inexplicably unable to tell you so?
    “No reason at all,” I assured him. “How is Mandy?”
    “In season!” Buck was triumphant. You’d’ve thought that Mandy, whoever she was, had invented the estrous cycle. “Speaking of Mandy, you remembered not to mention the rest of the pack to the lilies of the field. Not that I’d ever ask you to tell a lie, Holly.”
    “The lilies...?”
    “That’s what I call them. The yellow-bellied pacifist granola nephew and his wife.” He quoted, “ ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.’ ”
    “Quint and Effie,” I translated. “But Effie does spin, doesn’t she? She’s a weaver. And a potter. I met them last night, at Gabrielle’s clambake. And in fact, I just—”
    “Sponges, the pair of them.” With yet another abrupt switch of metaphor, he said, “Parasitic tofu. Not that Gabrielle sees it that way. For a sophisticated woman, Gabrielle is remarkably naive. If you don’t keep your eye on her, she lets herself be used by people.” He then cited a canine example. “Take Molly. It’s a manipulative breed. Too cute for its own good. But that one’s conned Gabrielle more than most. Never walks on her own four paws if Gabrielle’s there to carry her. Picky eater. Spoiled rotten. Same goes for the nephew and the wife. Spoiled rotten.” He paused to survey his new attire yet again. “So, is the old man going to pass muster with them?”
    “Yes,” I said, “but given what you think of them, I don’t know why you care. Besides, it’s not your clothes they’re worried about. It’s your bumper sticker. Effie feels that violence is not to be taken in jest.”
    “Who the hell said it was?” Buck was outraged.
    “You, according to Effie. ‘Shoot a developer’?”
    “Nothing wrong with keeping Maine green,” Buck countered.
    With that, he bade prolonged goodbyes to Rowdy and Kimi, and then opened the door of his van. Prominently mounted on a rack inside was a deer rifle. He climbed in, slammed the door, waved cheerfully to me, and drove off toward Gabrielle’s.
    My father had, of course, failed to notice that there was anything wrong with me. I had to wonder what, if anything, I’d have had to be missing to make my father take note. An arm? A leg? The power of speech?
    The answer: a dog. If Rowdy or Kimi had been missing, he’d have noticed the absence right away.
     

Chapter Twenty-one
     
    MY FATHER ,” I told the dogs, “may have been Gabrielle Beamon’s rescuer, but he’s obviously not going to be mine. Have you ever in your lives seen one human being more blatantly uninterested in another? Was I supposed to confide in someone who doesn’t even say hello to me? Was I supposed to trust a person who has known me for my entire life and fails to notice that all of a sudden there is something horribly wrong with me?”
    As if to demonstrate their radical difference from my father, Rowdy and Kimi eyed me with delighted fascination. We were now indoors, where I’d made myself a cup of sweet, milky tea and treated each dog to a chunk of cheese. Thus the rapt attention. As an aside, let me mention that it’s a damn shame that food training doesn’t work as well on parents as it does on dogs.
    “But you know what?” I continued. “The difference is still there. Food or no food, it’s still real. When you found me freezing to death out on the miserable rock, you noticed me! You were glad to see me! And even though I didn’t have a clue who you