Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys

Author:Helen Humphreys
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

two

jamie

It’s fifteen steps from the back door to the fridge. If I pull the fridge door back against the hinge, it will open without a sound. The bread wrapper will crinkle. Yogurt makes that suction scoop when you pull the foil top off. The cheese drawer sticks on its runners. Peanut butter will be all right. I can twist the plastic cap off slowly and it won’t make any noise. I can stand here at the fridge and shove my fingers into the jar instead of risking the rustle of the cutlery drawer.

It was easier when the dog was here. I didn’t go out so much then, but if I was out, he would wait for me by the back door, stand with me here, our noses inside the fridge. Dogs can be very quiet. If I was eating peanut butter, I would smear some of it on the top of his nose and he would spend ages licking it off. I liked to watch him do that.

Alice says the dogs are probably doing fine without us in the woods, but I don’t believe her. She says things to protect me, and some days I’m glad of this, but some days it just makes me mad. I’m pretty sure that Alice has had some bad stuff happen in her life and so I don’t like her to know that I’m mad at her. People who have had a lot of bad things need a lot of good things to balance everything out, and I know Alice is trying to make good things happen, to live as though good things are happening. But I don’t believe this either.

I can’t say anything because Alice wouldn’t listen to me. She doesn’t pay me as much attention as she pays the wolf woman. That’s how it is. There’s always someone you listen to the most. There’s always someone you believe above all others.

I used to be like that with my father. I liked it when he told me things. I liked listening to him. But he’s been gone for so long now I can’t remember any of that stuff any more. I can’t even really remember what he looked like or what his shirt smelled like when he carried me up against his shoulder. And I am so pissed at him for leaving that I wouldn’t even be glad to see him if he did come back.

I’m not mad at Scout. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t leave on purpose.

The peanut butter lid sticks a little, but I ease it off slowly. The light from the fridge makes a small puddle of brightness by my feet. I wish I could drink it up. I wish I could still feel that feeling I used to have when I was little because it was like that, it was like I’d swallowed light and could glow from the inside.

There’s a small squelching noise behind me. I stiffen, my hand frozen above the peanut butter jar, but it’s only my mother.

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