What the Dog Knows

by Spartacus Lawrence

---

The familiar buzz of my cell phone indicates that a message has come through.

I’m sitting in a conference. The presenter is discussing the different generations and what each brings to the current workforce. I’ve heard this speech before at nearly every other conference I’ve been to. Half-tuned in and half counting the minutes to our next break, I excuse myself and exit to the lobby. It’s empty save for a few stragglers taking phone calls or working on laptops.

I glance down and see a new message from my stepdaughter, Monica. My mother has been living with our family since last year. No one has been keen on this setup. My husband, Mark, is the most vocal, and the rest of us shy away but are in quiet agreement. Her message reads: Your mother is on the phone with someone inviting them to our house while we’re away on vacation. She’s also telling them that the dog pulled her down in the street.

I sigh. Another complaint about my mother. I love her. I’m also so tired.

I respond that I’ll talk to her when I get home. We’ve asked her not to take the dog for walks. He’s stronger than she can manage, but she insists. This is not the first time. I’m not sure what I can say that I haven’t already said, but I’ll come up with something.

The family has suspicions about the things my mother says. There are inconsistencies — in what we’ve started calling, privately, her stories. I don’t fully believe what she’s telling whoever is on the other end of that phone. But I’ve also stopped saying that out loud.

Monica and I exchange texts for several more minutes. I let her vent and accept what she’s telling me without pushback.

I put my phone away and start back toward the conference room. Inside, the presenter is still talking about generations — which ones communicate, which ones clash, which ones quietly absorb the weight of those on either side of them. I think about that for a moment longer than I mean to.

Before I reach the door, my ringtone goes off. Mark’s tone. Monica must have called him too. I step back and answer.

“Hello.”

“We need to talk about your mother.”

“Monica already told me. I’ll talk to her about the dog when I get home.”

“I don’t want her taking him out. She can’t handle him.”

“Stop. Mark. I will talk to her.”

A pause. The tension doesn’t leave his voice, but he lets it go — for now. I know this conversation isn’t finished. It’s never finished. It just gets set down and picked back up, set down and picked back up, like something neither of us knows how to put away for good.

I finally go back inside. The presenter has moved on. I find my seat and stare at the screen without reading it.

---

The remainder of the day progresses as planned without interruption. Lunch with colleagues. Expo with vendors. Plenty of swag. And more speeches following the midday break.

On the drive home, the opportunity to think exists. Normally I listen to an audiobook and focus on driving. But today has a different agenda. I forgo the audiobook and recall the conversations with Monica and Mark. Both are frustrated with Mom in ways I understand but cannot fully share. My stomach is full of unease. It’s grumbling, not from hunger, but from stress.

Mark and Monica often comment that I have the patience in the house. Whenever something uncomfortable comes up, I’m tasked with handling it. Apparently, my persona is that I can say no when it’s needed and I can navigate a difficult conversation with finesse. That may be true.

I already know how the conversation will go. I’ll say my piece. She’ll look at me with those eyes — somehow guilty and defiant at the same time — and we’ll agree on something neither of us believes. We’re good at that.

It’s heavy and I have not even started lifting it yet.

---

As I pull up to the house, I sit in my car a moment longer, take a deep breath and then turn the car off. I place my hand on my bag and freeze. I know the change that exists on the other side of the door. I know the warm Spring breeze stops at the threshold. And most of all, I know that dog — the one pressed against the glass panel by the door, waiting for me to come home.

I pull myself together and climb from the driver’s seat, shut the door and gather what confidence I have left and head toward the front door.

Ranger greets me as I enter. I rub behind his ears and manage a smile. He’s my shadow and follows me through the house. He’s a good boy, but he gets excited when we come across other dogs on walks. He wants to connect and play. I can easily see how he could pull Mom down. But the blame is not his.

I walk down the hallway to the open kitchen. Monica is talking to Mom with remarkable calm, navigating her defense and avoidance without raising her voice. Mom stands between the refrigerator and the counter where her ingredients lay, making a sandwich. When she responds to Monica her hands stop. She clasps them in front of her, downward around her waist. I’ve seen those hands before. They mean she’s holding something in that she has no intention of letting out.

I catch Monica’s eye and give her a small nod. She wraps up what she’s saying, squeezes my arm on her way past and disappears down the hall.

Now it’s just the two of us.

I say what I came home to say. I keep it simple and calm the way I rehearsed it in the car. Ranger doesn’t need to be walked by her. We have it covered. It’s not a burden. It’s just how things are going to work.

Mom listens without expression. She gives me the standard response about the front door — that when he lays there she assumes he needs to go out. I explain again that he does that regardless. That it doesn’t mean what she thinks it means.

She looks at me for a moment. Then she unclasps her hands and reaches for the bread.

“If that’s what works best for everyone, then that’s what we’ll do.”

She resumes making her sandwich. Back to the refrigerator. Back to the counter. Back to the stillness she never really left.

I stand there a moment longer than I need to. Waiting for something I can’t name. A crack. A flinch. Anything.

It doesn’t come.

I leave the kitchen the same way I entered it — without resolution, and somehow emptier for having gotten exactly what I came for.

---

An hour later, Mark comes home from work. I overhear him and Monica talking in the living room. I tense as I approach them, Ranger circling around me. Before I make it the full way into the living room, Mark sees me. He’s pointing to the stairs, an indication that his comments are about my mother. Her room is on the second floor.

“She’s not to take the dog out anymore,” he says.

He spins the argument this time.

“It’s for her safety and for Ranger’s.”

Of course, always looking out for the dog. It’s a lame shielded attempt. This argument was never about the dog. We all know it. It’s just a cover for the real issue. The one that no one wants to discuss.

“Mark, we’ve already talked to her about taking Ranger out. She knows we’ll handle it going forward,” I say.

“I don’t want her taking the dog outside,” he says again.

“I heard you the first time. It’s handled.”

Silence settles between us. We remain standing, looking at each other. It feels like a sparring match to see who would break first. Family shouldn’t be a competition but it certainly feels that way lately.

The standoff is filled with tension. Monica breaks first.

“I’m going to take the dog for a walk,” she says. She grabs his leash and calls for Ranger. He jumps with excitement, tail wagging a happy dance, and races himself to the door. She secures his leash and exits with Ranger tagging along behind.

All that remains in the living room are Mark and me. Still frozen in place as if time has not advanced.

“You know how I feel about this situation,” he says.

He doesn’t look away when he says it. He doesn’t have to explain what situation means. We both know it isn’t the dog.

I hold his gaze for a moment. There are a hundred things I could say. I don’t say any of them.

“Are you going to the gym tonight?” I ask.

He exhales slowly. “Yeah. I need to burn off some steam.”

“I’ll run to the market and pick up something for dinner. I’ll see you after.”

I walk toward him and kiss him softly on the cheek. Then I turn and head to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable.

The hundred things I didn’t say follow me down the hall.

---

Later that evening, after dinner is finished and the kitchen is cleaned, Mom sits alone upstairs in our guest lounge. I climb the steps. The wood panels creak beneath me. At the top of the stairs I can see a light on. As I pass by in the hallway Mom calls out.

“Mary Beth, is that you?”

“Yes. What are you up to?”

“I’m reading. Did I tell you about this book?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. It’s a romance. Two strangers meet at a drive-in — wrong car, wrong movie, completely right moment. She retells it with the kind of detail that means she’s lived inside it. Her hands move. Her eyes brighten. For a moment I just watch her and she is not a situation. She is just my mother, who loves a good love story.

I don’t interrupt. I suspect this is why people think I am calm. I’m just a good actor.

“Mom, you enjoy reading so much. Have you signed up for the book club at the library?” I ask.

“No, I don’t know anything about it,” she says.

“Mom, that’s not true. We’ve shown you how to look that up on your tablet. Do you remember — you made notes in your notebook. Monica saved the website as a favorite so you can pull it up easily.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have any way of getting there.”

“That’s not true either. Monica helped you look up the senior bus program. You wrote the details into your notebook.”

“Mary Beth.” A tear forms at the corner of her left eye.

I’ve seen that tear before too.

“You may not believe this but I’m shy and nervous about taking the bus by myself. What if I make a mistake? How would I get home?”

I take a breath before I speak.

“That’s why we got you the phone. It’s not just to call your friends. It’s for moments exactly like that.”

“I know you don’t believe me. But the idea of doing something brand new alone scares me.”

I don’t have an answer to this. I know that new things can be scary. I take the leap myself. Sometimes everything goes well. Others — I let those exist and disappear.

I keep thinking of something I once heard about recovery. That it only works when the person wants it. The same is true with Mom. She will only break the loneliness when she’s willing to act. I cannot make friends for her. I try to explain that she may meet other women like her at book club. That maybe they could ride the bus together. But the first step is the obstacle she keeps stalling in front of.

I say good night and lean over and hug her.

By the time I reach the hallway she’s already back in her book. The meet-cute is still waiting. Everyone finds their way to each other eventually in a good romance. I’ve always envied that about fiction.

---

The living room is dark when I come downstairs. The television is off. Mark isn’t home yet. I sit in the quiet with Ranger’s head in my lap and don’t turn any lights on. The afternoon has faded but the evening hasn’t fully arrived. I just sit in the in between.

Mark comes in from the gym and finds me there. He doesn’t turn the lights on either. He crosses the room and sits on the couch opposite me. Ranger lifts his head and considers him, then settles again.

The silence is comfortable in the way that only exhausted silences can be.

“She’s not going to change,” I say.

He doesn’t answer right away. The gym has burned off whatever was left of the day’s performance. What remains is just Mark, in the dark, too tired to be anything but honest.

“I don’t know how to do this, Mary Beth.”

He doesn’t say what this is. He doesn’t have to.

I look across at him. “I saw through her tear tonight. I always have. And I still hugged her anyway.”

He holds that for a moment.

Then he crosses the room and sits beside me. Ranger lifts his head, considers the disruption, and settles again between us. The light outside has almost gone. Nobody speaks. There is nothing left to say tonight and we both know it. But we are sitting in the same direction now and that feels like something.

---

Later, in the dark of our bedroom, I listen to the house settle around us. Mark’s breathing slows beside me. Down the hall, I can hear the faint sound of a television — Mom, still awake, filling the quiet the way she always does.

Ranger pads in and circles twice before dropping at the foot of the bed with a long exhale. The dog who started all of this. Who pulled Mom down on the street. Who gave everyone in this house something to argue about that had nothing to do with what we were actually arguing about.

He doesn’t know any of that. He just knows where he belongs.

I’ve always envied that about him.