Gaits of Heaven

calling an ambulance.”
    By then, Dolfo and I had reached the bottom of the stairs. I’d survived Dolfo’s descent by clinging to the banister and considered myself lucky not to need the ambulance I’d already called and that Ted was unnecessarily summoning on his cell phone. Pausing to get both hands on Dolfo’s lead, I heard a door bang in the upper hallway. Once again, Wyeth began to holler at Caprice. It seemed to me that when the police arrived, they’d be justified in assuming that the emergency consisted of the kind of domestic disturbance that cops hate. My cop friend and next-door neighbor, Kevin Dennehy, for example, was practically phobic about the sight of a domestic partner armed with a cast-iron frying pan, mainly because he was convinced that the weapon was inevitably going to be smashed down on his own head.
    What drove me out of the Brainard-Greens’ house wasn’t a sense of vulnerability to physical violence. Rather, the physical and emotional atmosphere of the place felt so toxic that I simply had to escape from the urine-scented air, the angry voices, and the ugly sense of contamination. I took the nearest exit, which was the front door and, by reining in Dolfo and forcing him to remain at my left side, managed to make it safely down the steps and reach the sidewalk, where I was surprised and relieved to see someone I knew and liked, a woman named Barbara Leibowitz. Barbara and her husband, George McBane, had taken their dog, Portia, through the beginners’ course at the club the previous fall, and Steve and I had sat with them at a fund-raising dinner for the MSPCA a few months earlier. Although Barbara and George were both psychiatrists, they had a tendency remarkable in the helping professions to talk about matters other than mental health. Barbara was a tall, striking woman with brown-black skin and black hair in elaborate cornrows. Leibowitz was, she’d told me, the name of her adoptive parents, who were white, and she’d kept it when she’d married
    George, all of whose grandparents had been born in Ireland. Maybe I should mention that this isn’t a story about Barbara’s search for her roots. I don’t know what they were or whether she had any interest in them. The interest of hers I knew about was animal welfare. Besides attending MSPCA events, she helped organize them and was known as a generous supporter of animal welfare groups. Her dog, Portia, who was with her in front of the Greens’ house, had come from the MSPCA shelter in Jamaica Plain. Portia’s roots did interest Barbara, who guessed that the little dog was half West Highland white terrier and half Heinz 57. In any case, Portia was entirely adorable. She had a pale, wiry coat, intelligent, snapping eyes, and a delightful habit of cocking her head when someone spoke her name.
    Barbara greeted me warmly and said, “I was so glad when Eumie told me you were helping with Dolfo! It’s about time someone did, and 'Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner’ and all that, but if you have any success with Dolfo, maybe you could tackle the son while you’re at it.” She gestured to a big yellow house next door to the Greens’. “That’s our house, so we have something of a personal interest.”
    I had no idea what Barbara meant in saying with regard to Wyeth that to understand all was to forgive all. In ordinary circumstances, I’d probably have asked her, but as it was, I told her about Eumie’s death and the imminent arrival of cruisers and medical vehicles.
    “Are the children there?” she asked.
    “Yes. Unfortunately. It’s a horrible scene. I was the one who found Eumie. She was in bed. She apparently took an accidental overdose of something. If I’d known that the children were there, I’d have closed the bedroom door and kept them out, but it never occurred to me, and Caprice came in. It was terrible. She was screaming and screaming, and the son must’ve been asleep, and he came in and started yelling at her for waking him up. And Ted somehow has this crazy idea that Eumie may still be alive, and for God’s sake, rigor has set in. Dolfo jumped on the bed and... it was more than I could take. I’ve called nine-one-one. They should be here any second. I am so glad to see you. I feel as if you’re restoring my sanity.”
    “At the best of times, Ted and Eumie can be a little disorienting, and this sounds like the worst of times. Maybe we can get the children out of there. Not that they’re little