Dog Gone It - Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of my next nonfiction narrative book which begins in 2000, the year mom died and my life drastically changed. I moved home to look after my dad with the help of my rescue dog

I wiped away the steam from the bathroom mirror. The image staring back at me�"Ugh! Puffy, tear-stained eyes more red than hazel, and I didn’t remember inviting crows to dance on my face when I napped.

“S**t, I look haggard.”

A paw on my leg and a short, deep bark alerted me that Baldwin, my six-month-old puppy watched my every move. Nothing like a rescue dog to make you feel loved.

I reached down to ruffle Baldwin’s soon-to-be dreadlocks.

“Do I look like I need stress leave?”

He barked again, ran around my legs, and herded me from the bathroom into the bedroom. I found Baldwin, my curly mop of a dog by accident. After losing my first dog as an adult, my wonderful Blondie, I volunteered to walk the pups at The Lange Foundation. One look at me sent the precious pup into hysterics. He clawed at his kennel and wined for me to hold him.

“I’ve never seen him act like this,” the sweet volunteer at Lange said. “He’s been on the quieter side since he came here.”

“Can I hold him?” The minute she placed Baldwin in my arms, he settled down.

“He’s so cute.” I cuddled him and inhaled his sweet puppy smell like baby powder and freshly mowed grass mixed with a few corn chips. When it came time to go back in the crate, all bets were off. Baldwin screamed like a wild hyena.

He turned out to be a Hungarian Puli from the herding family and much more dog than I bargained for. I didn’t understand yet that herding dogs required considerable time and training. Plus, they needed a job.

I touched my reddish cheek. “Could be from the shower,” I told my doggie sidekick.

“Woof.” I got back.

“I have no excuse for these dark circles under my eyes.” I tried to smooth the frown lines on my forehead. “Or the fact that I look like an old lady, not someone in their early 40s.”

I heard my former significant other enter my tiny one-bedroom apartment. Although Jack and I officially broke up months before, he still lived with me and would be until he found a new place of his own. Our romantic relationship may have faded but after ten years together we’d become best friends.

“What are you doing home, Dudan?” Jack yelled from the living room. He gave me that nickname after hearing a friend’s three-year-old daughter pronounced “Susan” that way.

Baldwin raced to greet his other human. I slipped on my robe and headed toward the living room. “They sent me home on stress leave. Can you believe it?”

Baldwin wiggled his entire body to welcome Jack home then attacked him with big, wet, sloppy dog kisses.

“I love you too, boy.” Jack laughed before Baldwin knocked him off his feet. “Okay, okay, that’s enough boy.” Baldwin rolled over for a belly rub. “I’m not surprised after everything you’ve gone through in the last six months.”

My handsome ex-boyfriend, ten years my senior, so striking, with his piercing blue eyes and tanned olive skin. His Spanish blood gave Jack many blessings in the looks department. He could pass for half his age, even though he worshipped the sun.

Baldwin ran back to me as if to announce Jack’s arrival.

“I know. Jack’s home!”

 “Anyone in your shoes would be stressed.” Baldwin ran back and jumped on Jack’s lap.  “Come on, you work too much, your dog died, we got robbed at gunpoint, you got hit by a car in front of Starbucks, you had to move, and we broke up, again. Any one of those things would stress out even the healthiest person.”

“Your bad luck rubbed off on me.” I towel-dried my hair. “In all fairness, that car only grazed me, nothing like what happened to you last year. I didn’t have to spend two weeks in the I.C.U. with bleeding on the brain.”

“I wish my meditation practice would rub off on you. I told you. You need to meditate.”

“I know, I know.” I sighed big time. “I tried Reiki and Yoga. You’ve got to give me a little credit for that.”

“Well, at least your boss realizes you’re only human.” Jack stood with Baldwin in his arms. “I mean that last media FAM sounded like a total nightmare.” He placed the fluff ball on the couch and walked to the kitchen for a beer.

That last media familiarization tour, or FAM as they’re called in the business, turned out to be a total drag. Being a Public Relations Agent in the travel industry meant dealing with high-maintenance journalists. These strangers enjoyed�"no expected�"the red-carpet treatment anywhere and everywhere they visited. FAMs required me to pull out all the stops to ensure my clients received positive reviews.

Baldwin looked up at me with those brown eyes all but hidden behind soft black curls. I’d had him for only a few months and already, couldn’t imagine my life without him. Plus, Mom bought him for me after my nineteen-year-old Blondie died�"a sort of doggie peace pipe from her.

My five-foot-two mother looked like a little cupcake with her frosted voluminous bob hairstyle. Finally, we got along after butting heads with one another since I went into puberty. Buying me that dog became the beginning of our new relationship.

I’d been living in my new place for three weeks but hadn’t unpacked a thing. The one-bedroom apartment seemed more like a kid’s playhouse than an adult’s home, the bathtub so small I had to bend my legs. The living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows allowed lots of natural light to stream through, but the view of a brick wall left a lot to be desired. Mom promised to buy me some curtains once I got settled.

Jack and Baldwin followed me to my bedroom where my entire wardrobe sat folded in boxes that lined my bedroom floor.  “Mom’s birthday celebration,” I opened one to find something to wear. “I’m sorry you’re not joining us tonight.”

 “Tell her happy birthday from me.” He took a swig of his beer. “Let your mom and dad know I’ll visit them soon.”

And he meant what he said. During my last media FAM, mom called me in a panic. Dad fell and she couldn’t get him up. I called Jack and he sprang into action. Without question, he drove over the hill, found Dad in the bathroom, and lifted him to his feet.

That’s the kind of compassion that made me love Jack in the first place. Ours, an unbalanced, rocky relationship where I held the role of provider, especially financially. Over the years, we ended our commitment to each other only to renew again months or even days later. Relationship cycling left me exhausted.

This time, I promised myself to stay broken up. We could remain friends but the two of us had different hopes and dreams about the future. Jack didn’t want to get married and have children. Me, at age forty-two years old, that’s all I craved in life�"a real family of my own. We’d stopped sleeping together a year ago.

            I pulled a white cotton blouse out of a box. “Does this look too wrinkled?”

            “Dudan.” Jack, the fashion God shook his head no before digging through a different box. He handed me my black cashmere sweater. “Wear this. It’ll be cold in the Valley.”

I took the sweater and said, “I always think of the San Fernando Valley as a hot punchbowl. I considered it child abuse that my parents made me live there without central air or a swimming pool.”

“We had both,” Jack said. “But then again, my mother tried to commit suicide every other day so it all evens out.”

“If you say so.” I pulled on my favorite pair of jeans and took a final look at myself in the mirror. “Do I really look that bad?”

“You look fine,” Jack said. “But you better get outta here or you’ll be late.”

I grabbed the present I’d wrapped for Mom, leashed Baldwin, and headed out the door. On the way to my car, I realized I’d forgotten to bring the gift receipt in case Mom wanted to return the DKNY nightshirt and slippers I'd bought her.

When I entered, I heard Jack on his phone, “Happy Birthday anyway. I’ll see you soon.”

Baldwin pulled me on the end of his leash to Jack and greeted him as if he hadn’t seen him for years. “Were you talking to my mom?”

Jack placed his phone back in his pocket. “Yup. She called me.”

This news made me stop in my tracks. “I didn’t know she had your number.” Mom’s invite, another olive branch from her to me. 

“I know, that’s a first. Wish I could go but I have band practice.”

 I found the gift receipt right where I left it, on top of an unopened box by the front door. “Forgot this.”

“I don’t understand why you give her presents anyway. She returns everything.”

“You’re one to talk. When we first met, I thought you had a trust fund, with your designer wardrobe.”

“Pre-grunge.” Jack pulled a blue plaid flannel shirt over his wife-beater tee. “Have fun.”

Baldwin and I headed back to my BMW and hit the road. With Baldwin riding shotgun, I thought about my current predicament.

“Should I tell them I’m on stress leave?” I asked Baldwin. He looked at me as if he understood, his red tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Maybe not,” I said outloud, “Mom has enough to deal with.”

My older brother Will and I hired people to help with Dad’s care many times. The latest caregiver lasted a day, six hours more than his predecessors.

Mom told us, “I don’t want any stranger living here, getting up in our business. They cost too much anyway.”

“But Will and I pay.”

Didn’t matter to my spendthrift mother. Meals on Wheels barely made it through a week.

“The food’s not that good,” she said. “Wouldn’t you know it that the day after I canceled, they served meals from Spago. Go figure.”

Mom, a first-grade teacher, wore the pants in the family. Growing up in Vermont with her New England roots made her stoic as hell. She claimed her hardened attitude came from living through those rough Vermont winters.

Dad, my hero, could do no wrong in my eyes. He worked as an engineer at Atomics International and took the bus to work every day. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Dad mastered the nice, friendly, and welcoming Midwestern attitude so out of place in Los Angeles. He spent most of his time at work. Can you say work alcoholic?

I pulled into the driveway of my family home a ranch-style house surrounded by orange groves. I took a deep inhale and allowed the orange blossoms to tickle my nose. Baldwin jumped on my lap waiting for me to open the door.

Will planned to meet us at the restaurant. He lived in the Valley too but, the newlywed couldn’t tear himself away from his bride. My sister Erin lived in Northern California with her husband and my two nieces. With both of them living busy lives, that left single me to care for Mom and Dad.

I didn’t mind. I grew up the black sheep of the family. Erin and Will got good grades and did as they were instructed. Then along came me�"a strong-willed child. My third-grade teacher remarked that I marched to the sound of my own drum. Mrs. Ring knew her students well, especially me. 

Taking on the burden of caring for our parents was the least I could do after my rebellious teenage antics. Plus, it gave me an opportunity to redeem myself.

Baldwin pulled his leash out of my hand and ran like hell to the back gate, headed for the quarter-acre of green grass. He loved my parent’s huge backyard as much as my childhood dog Siesta did. Growing up that yard was my personal Eden where my Siesta, an ugly chihuahua mutt and I played for hours. During elementary school Mom dropped her off so I could walk home with her.

Baldwin stopped in his tracks when I opened the back door, followed me inside and made a beeline to the den where Mom sat reading. He jumped on her lap and knocked a book out of her hand before kissing her face with reckless abandon.

“Hello Mister,” she said, laughing.

“That’s enough, Baldwin.” I pulled him off her and placed him on the floor. But he wanted more. He jumped back on her lap. “Get off,” I said. 

“You should’ve named him something else.” Mom grabbed a tissue to wipe the dog slobber off her face. “I don’t like Baldwin.”

“I know, you told me already.” I grabbed Baldwin before he jumped again. “If only every dog owner would come to you before they named their pet…”

Baldwin wiggled out of my grip and headed straight for Mom. This time, she picked him up and held him in her hands to look at his funny face. “He looks like a Buster. You should call him Buster.”

“His name is Baldwin,” I huffed. “I made six o’clock reservations at your favorite restaurant. We better get moving.”

Their dog, Molly the Collie, a rescue I gave them years ago, entered the room wagging her fluffy, white-tipped tail. Baldwin play bowed in front of her. The elderly dog with her cloudy white eyes turned away from my puppy and walked toward the living room. Baldwin and I followed her and found Dad asleep in his wheelchair. I gently touched his shoulder to wake him.

“Hi Suzy,” Dad said, his voice soft and weak. I hated to admit that Dad was no longer the man who raised me. The former pillar of Northridge society suffered from Parkinson’s Disease.

Dad leaned forward and patted Baldwin on the head.
“Hey little guy,” he said.

“Do you have everything you need for dinner, Dad?” I took the brake off his wheelchair.

“I guess so.” He narrowed his eyes. “Where are we going?”

“Mom’s birthday dinner, remember?” I maneuvered Dad around Baldwin.

“That’s right.” He sat back.

“You’re going to stay here and take care of Molly,” I told the fluff ball, pushing Dad’s wheelchair toward the back door where Mom stood waiting.

Once outside, I helped Dad from the wheelchair to my car then lifted the darn thing to place it in the trunk. Mom got in the back seat.

“How do you lift this by yourself?”

 “It’s no big deal.” She buckled her seatbelt. 

I backed out of the driveway and caught a glimpse of her in my rearview mirror. She looked frail with a faraway look in her eyes.

“Mom, you need to let people help you.”

“We’re doing fine.” She gazed out the window.

“What about the church? I mean come on. You’ve both been active members of that church for years. Dad even built the sanctuary. Surely someone from the congregation could help you out.”

She didn’t answer. I looked at her again and noticed dark shadows under her eyes. I worried that being a caretaker for Dad took a toll on her. But I’d drop the topic for now. I needed to make this night special for her.