Evil Breeding by Susan Conant

from the elegant trash barrels, Jocelyn was arranging six or eight neatly sealed cardboard boxes and a sad collection of paraphernalia for invalids. A cane, an aluminum walker, and a wheelchair documented the late Mrs. Motherway’s loss of mobility. One of the items was, I thought, a contraption designed to prevent falls in the bathtub. Another had adapted a toilet for her use. There seemed to me something obscene about exposing these private accoutrements to the clear sun of the May afternoon. It was almost as if the woman herself lay naked in public, her intimate vulnerability callously exhibited to revolted strangers.
    With no preliminary greeting, unless you count the barking of the kenneled dogs, Jocelyn said, “They’re going to some veterans’ organization. You can’t just throw them out. It wouldn’t be right. They cost more than you might think. Someone else should get some use out of them.” The rationalization seemed directed more to herself than to me. Her eyes were bloodshot, and even more than on my previous visit, she was bent with the burden of shouldering unwanted height. She wore what looked like a man’s white dress shirt with a dowdy gray skirt, athletic socks, and running shoes. As before, a wide elastic band bound her hair to the nape of her neck.
    “Yes,” I said. “I guess you can’t just throw them out.”
    As if I were a critical and reluctant representative of the charity to which the items were being donated, Jocelyn added, “They’ve been disinfected. Not that Christina had anything contagious. She had Alzheimer’s. Senile dementia.”
    “I was very sorry to hear about her. I gathered she’d been sick for a long time.”
    “Yes and no.” The sharp tone surprised me. “Oh well, I’d better tell him you’re here.”
    I trailed after Jocelyn to the front door, which she opened with one of the keys on a ring she pulled from a pocket of the dreary gray skirt. She entered ahead of me. As she did, the black shepherd rose from his rug and growled at her. If he’d directed the behavior at me, the intruder, I’d have found it unacceptable. Dogs don’t have to wag their tails, sing
woo-woo-woos
, throw themselves at the feet of visitors, and rollover for tummy rubs the way Rowdy and Kimi do. But in my view, they damned well do have to mind their manners: If they don’t have something pleasant to say, they should keep their mouths shut. But this fellow was committing a far worse breach of etiquette than making a visitor feel unwelcome; he was publicly expressing aggression toward a member of his own household.
    Dutifully minding my own business, namely, dog behavior, I told Jocelyn, “There’s no reason you should have to put up with that. It’s intolerable! He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”
    You’d have thought I’d growled at her, too. She cringed. Then she repeated what she’d said on my previous visit: “He’s not my dog.” She paused. “And he has his good points. He’s not a
bad
dog.”
    The subject of our discussion was once again lying on his rug. I was willing to bet that if I tried to take the rug from him, I’d lose an arm. If he’d been my dog, that rug would’ve immediately gone into one of the fancy trash barrels. I’d also have removed anything else he deemed his possession and not mine. “Has he ever bitten you?” I asked forcefully.
    She hesitated.
    “He’s put his teeth on you,” I guessed, “but he hasn’t broken the skin.”
    Jocelyn nodded. As she was about to speak, Mr. Motherway appeared at the top of the stairs. Viewed from below, he looked even taller than he was. In advanced age, he was a handsome man. “About the dog,” I murmured to Jocelyn. “I can help.”
    She looked skeptical.
    “Jocelyn,” said Mr. Motherway, when he’d descended the stairs, “we’ll be in my office.” Opening a door off the hall, he gestured to me to enter first. I did. The room had a brick fireplace, walls painted in an odd shade of pale