Gaits of Heaven

told us that they practically house-train themselves.”
    “The crisis,” I said.
    “Our housekeeper quit,” he said.
    “We’re well rid of that one,” Eumie said. “She really wasn’t very nice to Dolfo. Not that she was mean. We wouldn’t have allowed that. But she just didn’t give him the affection he needs. And she complained about him. She was not a self-reflective or self-actualizing person.”
    Horrors!
    “All she ever did was kvetch,” Ted agreed. “But we have to have someone.”
    Job description: Help wanted: self-reflective, self-actualizing housekeeper willing to give affection to unhousebroken dog.
    “We lead very busy lives,” Eumie said. “We work a lot. We’re both therapists. We have patients to see."
    Rita, our tenant and friend, is a psychotherapist. Consequently, I was wary of raising a matter to which Cambridge psychotherapists pay what strikes me as pitifully little attention. The small matter was reality. “Housekeepers,” I said bravely, “aren’t going to keep cleaning up dog urine and dog feces. So, you’ve got a choice. Either you can get by without a housekeeper, or you can teach Dolfo to go outdoors. Which is it going to be?”
    A word about my courage. The Alaskan malamute is universally considered to be a challenging breed. I not only lived with Alaskan malamutes but showed them in obedience. The dogs and I didn’t get the high scores that I used to get with my golden retrievers, but we did get titles. More to the point, as does not go without saying, after repeated experiences of entering American Kennel Club obedience rings with malamutes, I was still alive, a condition I attributed more to God’s mercy in forgiving my false promises than to the behavior of the dogs. Again and again as I’d waited outside the ring, I’d vowed that if God spared me the heart attack I was about to suffer, I’d never enter a malamute in an obedience trial again. I’d lied. And been forgiven, doubtless because even God had to admire a woman with my guts. In the past few months, my ring nerves had been acting up, and I hadn’t shown a dog in any competitive event, but when it came to speaking up, I was as bold as ever.
    Ted, being a Cambridge therapist and therefore phobic about reality, evaded my question about housekeepers versus housebreaking. “I have to tell you that I am feeling disillusioned. Really, what I’m feeling is anger. When Eumie and I bid on dog training, we were told that the methods here were positive.”
    “They are.”
    “Leather straps are not positive.”
    I quoted the bumper sticker. “ 'Love is a leash.’ That’s another way to look at it.”
    “The atmosphere did not feel positive,” Eumie complained.
    “Look,” I said, “there are ways to train dogs totally off leash using completely positive methods, but a big dog-training club with group classes doesn’t lend itself to that kind of approach. Among other things, we’d have dog fights. We use lots of food and lots of praise, but we can’t take the chance of having untrained dogs or aggressive dogs starting trouble or getting themselves in trouble. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. Besides, we’d get sued.”
    “I have to say that I feel that we were misled,” Ted told me.
    As I’ve mentioned, the presence of Ted, Eumie, and Dolfo was my fault. And my responsibility. “I can’t train Dolfo for you,” I said. “But I can get you started. We can work on housebreaking. Is your yard fenced?”
    They nodded.
    “Then we can do it off leash.”
    The real reason I offered was neither guilt nor responsibility. I didn’t do it out of loyalty to the club or a desire to protect the club’s reputation. The real reason was that I hate to see a dog do bad things only because no one has taught him to be good. In other words, I’m a total sucker for dogs.
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    In my mind’s eye, I see relief on Eumie’s face as Ted steers her new SUV into the traffic on Concord Avenue. The source of the relief, which is to say, the relief I imagine Eumie to feel, is not Ted’s miraculous luck in escaping an accident: she is so used to his terrible driving that she barely notices it. If he had in fact sideswiped the little Saab he’d missed by an inch or two, her luxury truck would have kept her safe-—it is only slightly smaller than a Hummer—and if he had totaled her car, she’d have bought a new one. Because Eumie died an unnatural death on the Monday night following her brief