I turned to head back to the house when I stopped short. The dog from that afternoon was sitting at the edge of our driveway, where gravel met pavement. I looked up the street, to see if there was an owner coming, leash and plastic bag in hand. The streets of Lake Phoenix were safe enough, and usually deserted enough, that people walked their dogs off the leash. The only time I’d heard about this being a problem was when the Morrisons were walking their mean poodle one night and encountered a bear, no doubt on a bearbox trash bender. Mr. and Mrs. Morrison had beat a hasty retreat, but their poodle, on the other hand—who, in addition to being mean was also apparently not too bright—seemed to think the bear was just a big dog and trotted over to say hello. At some point, the dog figured out that this was a terrible idea, and ran away, unscathed. After that, I never saw the Morrisons walking it without a leash—and a very short one, at that.
But the street tonight was quiet, no late-night walkers looking for their slightly irregular canine. I took another step, and the dog didn’t get up and move, or even stiffen. Instead, its tail thumped harder, like I was just the person it had been waiting to see. I saw that the collar was a faded blue, which meant it was most likely a boy, and that there was writing on his tag. So he had a home, he just was choosing to avoid it. At that moment, I could relate.
Wherever the dog lived, though, he obviously lived somewhere, and that somewhere, despite what he seemed to think, was not our driveway. I walked around him, and headed back to the house, figuring that the dog would be able to take care of himself. I’d gone only a few steps when I heard a faint jingling sound behind me. I turned back and saw the dog following me. He froze in his tracks, then sat hastily, as though I wouldn’t notice that he had moved. Feeling like I was in a bizarre game of Red Light, Green Light, I pointed back at the road. “No,” I said as firmly as possible, trying to remember all the lessons from Top Dog. “Go.”
He lowered one ear, tilting his head, and looked at me with what almost looked like a hopeful expression as his tail thumped on the ground. But he didn’t leave.
As I looked closer, I could see that he looked a little mangy, some of his fur matted. But I figured that made sense—if his owners had been really on the ball, they probably wouldn’t be letting their dog wander around at night on his own.
“Go,” I said again, even more firmly this time. “Now.” I kept making eye contact, like the show always advised. The dog just looked at me for a second, then his other ear dropped and he seemed to sigh. But he did stand up—which actually didn’t change much, heightwise, since his legs were a little short for his body. He gave me one more long look, but I tried not to show any signs of wavering. And after a moment more, he turned and started slowly down the driveway.
The dog walked to the end of the gravel, paused, then turned left and headed down the street. And even though I’d intended to go right in, I watched the dog getting smaller and smaller, hearing the jingle of his tag growing fainter, until he finally rounded the curve in the road and disappeared from view.
Chapter six
THE NEXT MORNING, I WOKE WITH A START. I BLINKED AS I LOOKED around the room, for a second not remembering where I was. Then my eyes fell on the penguin on my dresser, and it all came back to me. I groaned and rolled over again, but even as I closed my eyes, I could tell that I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep.
I sat up and squinted out at the sunlight that was streaming in through my window. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day, for all the good that was going to do me. I got out of bed, and after looking at the penguin for a moment, I stuffed it on the top shelf of my closet and shut the door, so it wouldn’t be the first thing I saw when I woke up every morning.
I headed down the hall, throwing my hair up into a messy pony-tail as I went, noticing that the house was incredibly quiet. I glanced at the microwave clock when I reached the kitchen and realized why—it was eight a.m. In the not-so-distant past, my father would have been up for hours by now. He would have brewed a pot of coffee and would be halfway through answering that morning’s e-mails, already settling down to work. The sight of the empty coffeemaker was enough to remind me that things had changed. That the normal I somehow kept expecting things to revert to was not going to come back again. I might have made a pot myself, but I had no idea how to make coffee—that had always been my dad’s responsibility, along with remembering important information.
Not really wanting to hang out alone in a silent house, I headed outside. I would usually have gone to the dock, but after my encounter with Henry the day before, I wasn’t sure I was going out to the dock ever again. So instead, I stepped into my flip-flops and walked down the driveway, figuring that maybe by the time I got back from my walk, other members of my family might be awake, and then we could…
I paused in the middle of the driveway, realizing that I didn’t know how to complete that sentence. I had no idea what I was going to do this summer, except witness the end of my world as I’d always known it. The thought was enough to propel me forward, as though I could somehow leave it behind me, along with the house and its silent coffeemaker.
I deliberately turned and started walking in the opposite direction of Henry’s house, and noticed for the first time that we appeared to have new neighbors there as well. At any rate, there was a Prius in the driveway and a sign I didn’t recognize that read CUT TO: SUMMER.
Dockside Terrace, our street, was empty this early in the morning, except for a sleepy-looking man walking an energetic golden retriever. As I walked, I found myself noticing the signs in front of all the houses, and realizing how many of them I remembered. Almost all of the houses in Lake Phoenix had names, not numbers. But our house had never had a sign, since we could never reach a consensus about a name. We used to take a vote every summer, but nothing had ever seemed to quite fit.
I’d been walking for maybe twenty minutes when I decided to head back. It was starting to get hotter out, and the more joggers and dog-walkers who appeared, all waving cheerfully to me, the more aware I was that I had literally just rolled out of bed, and wasn’t wearing a bra. I was turning around when I noticed a gap in the woods that ran alongside the road. My memory was a little foggy on the details, but I was fairly certain that there was a path through here that ran almost directly back to my house.
I paused on the threshold of the woods before stepping into the gap. As soon as I did, it was like I had entered a different world. It was quieter and darker, with the sunlight filtering down to the ground in shafts and dappling the leaves of the trees. I hadn’t been in the woods in years, and as I started to follow the trail, I realized how familiar it all was, the beads of dew on the moss, the smell of the pine trees, the snap of twigs and leaves underneath my flip-flops. It was the same feeling as going back into the house had been—the realization that just because you’d left something behind didn’t mean that it had gone anywhere. And as I walked, I found, to my surprise, that I had missed it.