Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

chops?”
    “It wasn’t as bad as last time. Only two passengers asked if she was a Seeing Eye dog. I was reading both times.”
    I laughed.
    “What did you tell them?”
    “After last time, trying to explain. It’s too...” He sighed. “I told them yes, she was.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “I did. This one guy, he looks at her, he looks at me, he looks at the book, he says, ‘So you’re the trainer, and you’re transporting her?’ I told him, ‘Right.’ It made it easier all around. Look, Rach, it’s the only reason people know that a big dog can be in the cabin. They just want a little reassurance that they understand the world, that it’s not chaotic, as they fear, but orderly and safe.”
    “Good luck on that,” I said. “So when’s your gig?”
    “It starts Monday. I’m doing five sessions. If they need a few more, there’ll be time to add a few before I leave.“
    „What’s the deal?”
    “Training staff at a residential treatment center for disabled adolescents. They want to get a live-in.”
    Like Lady, I thought. “There was a resident dog at Harbor View, Chip. She went missing a couple of weeks before Dietrich got killed.”
    “And they weren’t able to find her?”
    “No, I’m working on that, too. But she’s still missing.”
    “I miss you,” he whispered. “I want to come home.”
    I held onto the phone for a while after he’d hung up, then looked back at Harry’s picture, his weedy eyebrows, potato nose, Dumbo ears, big, fat lips—mean lips, I thought. A prune of a face, not a looker, this Harry Dietrich.
    I started reading the obituary again.
    “Harry Knowlton Dietrich, 74, died yesterday of head injuries incurred when he was hit by a bicycle on West Street as he was leaving Harbor View, the small, private residential treatment center he cofounded with Eli Kagan, the psychiatrist who had treated Dietrich’s younger sister, Betsy. Ms. Dietrich suffered from autism and died in 1957 at the age of twenty-two, two years before Harbor View first opened its doors.
    “ ‘We are deeply shocked over the untimely death of Harry Dietrich, who gave of himself so generously to this population as well as other neglected and needy causes,’ ” Kagan was quoted as saying. “ ‘Harbor View will operate as always,’ he added, ‘continuing to offer care and shelter to people with special needs, the fulfillment of Harry Dietrich’s vision and his passion.’ ”
    There would be a private funeral, the article said. It didn’t say where or when. It also mentioned that Mr. Dietrich was survived by a sister-in-law, Arlene Poole of Manhattan, a niece, and a nephew.
    Dashiell had come up on the couch to sleep, his head leaning against my leg. I leaned down and put my cheek on his back, listening to him sigh in his sleep as I did so. I closed my eyes, thinking about Charlotte in her red gloves and earmuffs, following Dashiell down the stairs. There’d been a dark line on the wall opposite the banister, starting on the top floor and going all the way down to the lobby, about two feet from the ground, a grease mark from a puli’s coat, Lady rubbing against the wall, the way so many dogs do, as she ran up and down the stairs, visiting her charges, making sure everyone was taken care of every day.
    Harry Dietrich was not the only one who would be missed at Harbor View.
    Then all I could think about was Chip, how far away he sounded.
    I hadn’t asked where he was—maybe at the new house, waiting for the boys to get ready?
    I hadn’t asked about Ellen either, if she liked it there, that hot, dry place that had no seasons, if she liked it that Chip had come to visit, if she were listening on the other side of the door, if that’s why he had sounded so far away, almost like a stranger. Until the end, when he’d whispered.
    Then I thought about waking up to the smell of pancakes, neither dog in bed, Chip standing in the doorway with the tray of food, a vase of flowers from the garden on it, how he’d put the tray down on the nightstand, how it sat there untouched while we made love, how after he and Betty had left for the airport I’d taken the cold pancakes out into the garden and put the plate down for Dashiell, watching him wolf them down without chewing, wondering if, given the way he ate, he tasted anything, or if all that begging, all that desire, was just about the pleasure of not being hungry.

Chapter 7
    Fax Me, Okay?

    Tuesday morning, after reading the paper, I walked