garden. That too was brick and solid; no holes to squeeze through, no way the puli could have gotten out this way.
There was a drawing pad on one of the tables, some colored pencils next to it. I walked over and leafed through the drawings, not knowing which of the residents had made them, since the kind of self-awareness that inspires artists to sign their work was not likely with this population.
Sitting on the bench where the pad had been left, I turned the pages back to the beginning and looked at the drawings, all meticulous renderings of exactly what the artist had seen:that one big tree across from the table. Each drawing was the same, except for one. Apparently a squirrel had scaled the wall a puli could not. But he hadn’t remained long enough for his portrait to be completed. The unfinished squirrel, washing his hands at the base of the tree, stood out in contrast to the tree, the trunk neatly colored in four shades of brown, the leaves, pale green where the sun reached them and dark green where they were in shade, each drawn perfectly, the pencils, points up, all neatly replaced in the box.
The glitches were fascinating to me and always had been, one of the many reasons I did pet therapy, for the chance to see what people who worked in homes such as this called tiny miracles, like the time a Down’s syndrome boy who was assumed to understand nothing handed Dashiell his plate of cookies when I told another child I had to leave because it was time for Dashiell to eat and he was very hungry, saying good-bye with something he could relate to.
Cora thought I was her daughter, and as she’d wisely told me, she didn’t know the time of day, but she’d remembered that Lady didn’t do tricks but came to love her.
I flipped back through the drawings once again, stopping at the incomplete squirrel. Only part of the story, like the one Venus was telling me.
I wondered what I’d hear next, the details carefully orchestrated, but for what purpose, I didn’t know.
Was she protecting someone?
And if so, who?
I held the door for Dashiell, then tried it to make sure it was locked and followed him down the hall. There were two more residents who had biscuits in their pockets, and though they probably didn’t know it, they were waiting for his visit.
CHAPTER 9
He Wants To Run
It was one of those triple-H New York summers, day after steamy day so hot, people always say, you could cook an egg on the sidewalk, a suggestion worth ignoring. If the germs didn’t get you up front, the cholesterol would surely do it over time.
When we got to the pier, Dashiell lay down, his tongue out. I was thinking that, despite the heat, after his last visit, he’d need to run. But even after finishing most of the water, he refused to move.
I thought about doing a round of t’ai chi, but practicing moves your energy and makes you hotter. So instead, we left the pier and headed south along the path the bicyclers used; no one was dumb enough to be riding while the sun was still up. There was a little shade here, still, the first huge planter we got to—a twelve-by-twelve-foot cement square filled with trees and room for people to sit along the rim—Dash jumped up, walked to the nearest tree, dug awaythe topsoil until he got to a cooler layer of earth, and lay down.
Jackson, second on my list, hadn’t been in his room, but we’d found him downstairs, sitting in the corner of the dining room, dripping paint from his fingers onto one of the pages of a drawing pad.
There were two women I hadn’t yet met there, one at either end of one of the rectangular tables. They looked far enough apart in age to be mother and daughter. The older one, wearing a tiara, might have been fifty, the younger one in her late twenties, but when people have no expressions on their faces, age can be difficult to judge.
There was a fat, bald man at one of the round tables, playing with a busy box, his fingers short and wide, the fingertips almost square,
There was a drawing pad on one of the tables, some colored pencils next to it. I walked over and leafed through the drawings, not knowing which of the residents had made them, since the kind of self-awareness that inspires artists to sign their work was not likely with this population.
Sitting on the bench where the pad had been left, I turned the pages back to the beginning and looked at the drawings, all meticulous renderings of exactly what the artist had seen:that one big tree across from the table. Each drawing was the same, except for one. Apparently a squirrel had scaled the wall a puli could not. But he hadn’t remained long enough for his portrait to be completed. The unfinished squirrel, washing his hands at the base of the tree, stood out in contrast to the tree, the trunk neatly colored in four shades of brown, the leaves, pale green where the sun reached them and dark green where they were in shade, each drawn perfectly, the pencils, points up, all neatly replaced in the box.
The glitches were fascinating to me and always had been, one of the many reasons I did pet therapy, for the chance to see what people who worked in homes such as this called tiny miracles, like the time a Down’s syndrome boy who was assumed to understand nothing handed Dashiell his plate of cookies when I told another child I had to leave because it was time for Dashiell to eat and he was very hungry, saying good-bye with something he could relate to.
Cora thought I was her daughter, and as she’d wisely told me, she didn’t know the time of day, but she’d remembered that Lady didn’t do tricks but came to love her.
I flipped back through the drawings once again, stopping at the incomplete squirrel. Only part of the story, like the one Venus was telling me.
I wondered what I’d hear next, the details carefully orchestrated, but for what purpose, I didn’t know.
Was she protecting someone?
And if so, who?
I held the door for Dashiell, then tried it to make sure it was locked and followed him down the hall. There were two more residents who had biscuits in their pockets, and though they probably didn’t know it, they were waiting for his visit.
CHAPTER 9
He Wants To Run
It was one of those triple-H New York summers, day after steamy day so hot, people always say, you could cook an egg on the sidewalk, a suggestion worth ignoring. If the germs didn’t get you up front, the cholesterol would surely do it over time.
When we got to the pier, Dashiell lay down, his tongue out. I was thinking that, despite the heat, after his last visit, he’d need to run. But even after finishing most of the water, he refused to move.
I thought about doing a round of t’ai chi, but practicing moves your energy and makes you hotter. So instead, we left the pier and headed south along the path the bicyclers used; no one was dumb enough to be riding while the sun was still up. There was a little shade here, still, the first huge planter we got to—a twelve-by-twelve-foot cement square filled with trees and room for people to sit along the rim—Dash jumped up, walked to the nearest tree, dug awaythe topsoil until he got to a cooler layer of earth, and lay down.
Jackson, second on my list, hadn’t been in his room, but we’d found him downstairs, sitting in the corner of the dining room, dripping paint from his fingers onto one of the pages of a drawing pad.
There were two women I hadn’t yet met there, one at either end of one of the rectangular tables. They looked far enough apart in age to be mother and daughter. The older one, wearing a tiara, might have been fifty, the younger one in her late twenties, but when people have no expressions on their faces, age can be difficult to judge.
There was a fat, bald man at one of the round tables, playing with a busy box, his fingers short and wide, the fingertips almost square,
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