Chapter 2: A Griffin

As a compensation for being sick, Jacinta’s parents decided to get her a puppy for her upcoming 5^th birthday. Her mom and her Aunt Mary took her to the local pound, where Jacinta was drawn to a little female scruffy black spaniel mix of about 12 weeks old, with deep doleful eyes and a tail that wagged the whole body. The pup was outgoing and lively, and licked and played and took the girl’s sleeve in her mouth and tugged.  Sometimes, Jacinta still reverted to Spanish when she was very emotional; so when she was introduced to the puppy, she clung to it, calling out “Mi Miel! Estas regresada!”, while the creature nipped with sharp little pointy puppy teeth and wriggled in delight from her touch.

Ginny smiled and asked the attendant the prerequisite questions- how old, was it spayed yet, did it have its shots, was anything known about the place it came from, etc. Satisfied with the answers, she watched the two youngsters play together for about 15 minutes under the watchful gaze of the attendant, who was obviously amazed to see such a mature animal interaction from a child so young . Finally, Ginny took her daughter’s hand and said, “Come now; we’ll come back later with Daddy and get you your puppy.  Jacinta reluctantly handed the pup back to the attendant, and Ginny asked him to put it on temporary hold. She had seen the look in Jacinta’s eyes, and knew what it meant.  Mother and daughter walked out discussing matter-of-factly what it meant to adopt a puppy, and how much responsibility it took, and how much fun it was all going to be.

Jacinta had had bad nightmares the year before, often shrieking in the middle of the night and soaking the bedclothes with sweat. She was inconsolable at times, and also inarticulate, without the vocabulary to explain what was wrong.  She was so visibly shaken and terrified that Ginny finally resorted to having the child draw her nightmares with crayons. She tucked away the pictures in a cardboard box in the laundry, afraid to show them to her husband. She would periodically take them and examine them for clues about her daughter’s remarkable behavior. Fire. Green shirts. A crudely drawn figure, with vividly splashed red in what was obviously a scene of someone bleeding. A black dog and a little girl, Jacinta herself, with the dog. Another little girl, also red. Smoke. A big knife. Jacinta’s drawings were remarkably talented for her age, and Ginny believed the girl remembered a lot more than they were told.

Ginny had rocked the disconsolate child in her arms many nights, as had Frank. “Come now”, Frank would say, “you’re a big girl, and big girls aren’t afraid of the dark, are they?”

But Jacinta was. Not just afraid, terrified. Frank’s solution was to have the girl sleep between the two of them, cuddling her to sleep. Ginny’s recommendation had been a therapist and a nightlight. Frank had said, “There isn’t anything here we cannot handle in house”.

In truth, Jacinta eventually learned to keep her fear to herself. She was learning to count, so she would count slowly to seven, her favorite number, and rub her eyes so that specks floated like electric dust motes and she couldn’t see the dark any more, just the light from the motes. At “seven” her heartbeats would slow to normal, and she would take a gulp of water from the glass her mom left her, just to prove she wasn’t afraid of ghosts. Still, she slept curled in a ball, taking strength from pretending she was a wild animal, a wolf maybe, sleeping in the Arctic like the stories Frank read to her. She had never seen the Arctic but she had seen snow, lots of it, and knew how cold it was and how curling in a ball made you warmer. Wolves never were afraid of the dark.

She slept with the windows open and her toes securely covered because she was sure something was going to eat them in the dark if they were left uncovered by the blanket, even with socks on. If she had to leave her bed, she walked with her back to the wall, certain something was going to nip her bum if she didn’t protect it. “I’m a wolf, and I'm not afraid of you”, she learned to say to the dark, and saying that seemed to make the dark a little less threatening. She became very good at hiding how she felt, although in truth she liked it when Frank picked her up and carried her to bed, like a baby. She imagined she was a baby, like her little cousin Randy, being wrapped in warm blankets and held close. Nights she was scared were the only times Jacinta was held close.

The day they went to the dog place, Jacinta heard Frank come home, and she rushed out to meet him. “We picked out a puppy today!” she exclaimed, “and I already have a bed for it and everything!”

She dragged her dad by the sleeve down to the laundry room before he could even take off his coat and ruin the spell; to where she and her mom had indeed made a walled off area with scrap lumber, and put a soft bed made from old blankets inside the safe perimeter.

“Very nice sweetheart”, Frank said, beaming at the girl. He turned to Ginny, “Where did you find a dog?” he asked, with a strange tone in his voice.

“We went with my sister to the city pound. There was a little black pup there, and Jacinta fell in love with it instantly. We asked them to hold it.”

Frank paced. “You know I don’t want a pound dog,” he explained, as if to another child. “We can afford a real dog now, you know. Let’s go look at the ones Jim told me about. We could use a Rottweiler, with you and the child here alone.”

“But Jacinta really wanted this dog, Frank. I think it might help with the nightmares.”

“What the hell makes you think that? You a psychiatrist now? Besides, she hasn’t had the nightmares in months. She’s better now. Aren’t you, Jackie?” he finished, turning to the girl. “Wouldn’t you rather have a big puppy that can protect you from the bad things anyway?”

“I want Miel," Jacinta said quietly and firmly.

“What? Speak up and don’t mumble. You know I can’t hear you!” Frank shouted. Jacinta stubbornly shut her mouth and swallowed her words. She was lucky to be getting a puppy at all. She must learn to stop asking for things. She was so lucky, lucky, lucky. The word echoed inside her head like a mantra.

****

That weekend, they drove to Frank’s coworker Jim’s friend Carl’s house, and were ushered into a large basement with a completely destroyed couch cushion in the middle of the floor, oozing foam squares from various inflicted wounds. Carl and Frank shook hands, while Carl’s wife nervously showed them around. She had on a blue old-fashioned and had hands that clung to folds and walls. “These are the pups”, she said, while Carl and Frank talked and she wrung a piece of her skirt in her hands.  

“Why do they all have a collar except this one?” Jacinta asked about the pup nipping at her heels.

“Because, dearie, he’s the only one that doesn’t have a home yet”, Mrs. Davids explained, tiredly, while she cleaned up the mess, shoveling pieces from the eviscerated cushion into a plastic trash bag, and pushing the puppy away as it tried to attack the bag.

“Why is he out of the cage?” Jacinta followed up.

“He just likes to get out and chew on things."

"Great," said Ginny.

The pup was more or less disinterested in Jacinta. He was smooth shiny black and very round and sturdy and had dramatic chestnut markings like eyebrows and a chestnut throat and legs and rear.  He wanted to get at the other couch cusions every time she tried to pet him.

“See he’s a black puppy, just like you wanted," Frank said.

“He looks angry," replied Jacinta. "I liked the other one better," she followed up, matter of factly.

“You know, you can’t always get what you want. Sometimes you have to learn to compromise with what other people want, too. Do you know what ‘compromise’ means, Jackie?” Frank asked her.

Jacinta nodded her head. Yes, she knew. “Tell me”, implored Frank, "Tell Dad what it means."

“It means that someone else decides what is best," Jacinta said, looking at the floor.

“Your daddy does know what is best for you, Jackie. Do you believe me?”

Jacinta nodded.

“We’ll take the dog”, Frank announced to Carl. “How much?”

They rode home with the pup balanced in the box on Jacinta’s lap as she sat between her mom and dad, her dad driving and commenting about how nice it was to finally, after all these years, have a real dog, one that you had to pay good money for the bloodlines.

By the time they reached the house, he had decided to name the animal, “Griffin”.

That night, Jacinta had another nightmare, about being choked so that she could not speak. She crept into the laundry room and crawled into the pen with Griffin. The whimpering puppy gladly left his hot water bottle to nestle into the space of her curled body, its cries settling into a contented doggy sigh as it snuggled against her chest and legs. Jacinta nestled her arms around the puppy and buried her nose in the scent its nape and carefully matched her own breathing to the rise and fall of its chest.  She had asked Frank what a "Griffin" was, and he had responded, "Something big and powerful that can protect you." That was good enough for her. Soon, both she and the puppy had sunk down into a dark peaceful and dreamless sleep.

Reviews

[Through the Gateway]

Another good chapter, Marie. We are really beginning to see who Jacinta is, and what kinds of worlds she lives in: memory and present. I find it interesting that no one seems to understand that the present is just as terrifying for her as the past was, just for different reasons.

Looking forward to more!