Gaits of Heaven

turned up, and the group decided to go to a movie. Although everyone urged Caprice to go along, she declined by saying that she’d had a rough week and wanted to go to bed early. It had been a terrible week, of course, so no one leaned on her to change her mind. When Steve and I left, the household was peaceful: India was in her crate, Tracker was in my office, Rowdy and Kimi were in the living room with the door closed, and both Sammy and Lady were in Caprice’s room. We started to remind Caprice about who could and could not be loose with whom, but she rattled off the rules practically word for word. “And if Sammy starts to act wild, he goes to his crate,” she finished.
    “Sammy always wants to be a good boy,” I said. “But he doesn’t always succeed. Right, Sammy?” His eyes had a glint that concerned me a bit. “Remember! He’s a big puppy. Don’t trust him! He gets into things.”
    “I’m used to Dolfo,” Caprice reminded me. “Compared to Dolfo, Sammy is an angel. And he’s so sweet.”
    In response, Sammy curved himself around Caprice and leaned gently against her. Then he stretched his neck, raised his big, gorgeous head, and gazed lovingly at her.
    “If he has a fit of flying around and bouncing off the walls, put him in his crate,” I said. “No matter how cute he is.” I paused. “Where is Pink Piggy?”
    Sammy replied by dashing under a table and emerging with the battered toy in his mouth. He gave it three firm squeezes, thus producing three distinct squeaks.
    “We’ll take all the dogs out when we get home,” Steve said. “They should be fine until then.”
    We had a so-so dinner at a restaurant in Inman Square. Our friends had to get up early the next day and didn’t want dessert or coffee, so Steve and I stopped at Christina’s and bought ice cream to take with us. Despite the hideously cold winters in Greater Boston, everyone here eats a lot of ice cream all year round, and everyone has an opinion about the major contenders for Best of Breed. When I’m judging, Christina’s wins.
    We got home at about ten, and since the weather was now dry, we decided to take the dogs out to the yard and to have our coffee and dessert there. As I was making coffee and dishing out white chocolate ice cream, Steve let India out and, after her, Rowdy and Kimi. His optimism about harmony in the pack didn’t extend to foolhardiness: he trusted Kimi to behave herself with India only if the two were supervised. Consequently, he stayed outside. When the coffee was ready, I put our mugs, bowls of ice cream, spoons, and napkins on a tray. (Short on household items? Get married! We now have everything, including, for the first time, items without depictions of dogs.) As I was carrying out the tray, Lady came prancing into the kitchen and followed me to the yard. The big question—the fateful one, the crucial one, the one that should have been paramount and obvious—did, of course, occur to me: where’s Sammy? I have no excuse for failing to answer it. I should immediately have gone back inside to look for him. What’s more, Steve should have asked himself or me exactly the same question and should have seen to it that one of us acted on it. India and Lady were Steve’s dogs, Rowdy was mine, and Kimi belonged to Leah and me. But Sammy was our dog, Steve’s and mine, sired by Rowdy, bought by Steve, and, since our wedding, owned by both of us: my co-ownership had been Steve’s wedding gift to me. I had a ring, too, but as the wedding ceremony itself says, a ring is a token , and what’s a token, really? A trifle, an arbitrary sign, an object that’s a mere nothing by comparison with what it represents. Sammy, in contrast, was no bauble or trinket or symbol of love given and received; Sammy was love itself.
    But as I set the tray on our wedding-present picnic table, the familiar voice of Kevin Dennehy called from the gate to the driveway: “Hey, Holly? Steve?”
    With a six-pack of Budweiser in one of his big hands, Kevin entered the yard and was immediately surrounded by dogs. “Any thirsty boys here?” he asked. “Dry throats, huh? Hey, Rowdy, she still keeping you on the wagon?“
    “Permanently,” I said.
    “Hey, don’t yell at me. I didn’t teach him that trick,” Kevin said. “Did I, big boy? It came natural to you. Like singing. Some people are born being able to carry a tune like a songbird, and some aren’t. Knowing how to chug beer’s just like that. A God-given