I am lying in the shady grass at the bottom of the soapbox track.
I don’t always attend the girls’ soapbox races, but it’s a gorgeous sunny day and the first weekend of the new racing season. The girls ask me to come, so I mom up and suck it up and feign great interest in the goings-on. Ahem. Soapbox racing is just not my thing; Mark and the girls have a fabulous time doing it, and I love that they have this activity that bonds them together, but it is just not my thing.
It is so not my thing that when I accompany Mark and the girls, I like to bring Jack along. I bring Jack partly because he is entertaining company and partly because a woman with a small badly behaved dog cannot reasonably be asked to volunteer to help with soapbox duties. Mark puts in endless happy hours helping with all kinds of soapbox shit, and I am not inclined to get sucked into this particular vortex of need. Ahem again.
The races are done for the day, and I would so help with clean-up except for the fact that I have this small incorrigible dog.
Hee hee!
Anyway, I am lying in the shady grass with Jack on my stomach.
I am warm and drowsy and content.
I reach to slip-knot Jack’s leash around my wrist in case I doze off, because he would soooo not stay with me if he were to find himself suddenly able to roam free.
As I reach, I see a woman walking toward me.
She is hesitant and has the manner of someone who thinks she knows me but is not positive of her identification. She is all combined urgency and apology, as though she fears I will turn her away before she says what she wants to say. I lift my sunglasses up onto the top of my head and watch as she approaches. I do not know her.
The mother of one of my daughters’ racing friends?
I sit up and shift Jack into my lap and shade my eyes with my hand.
She stops perhaps ten feet away and just stares at me.
Yeah, because that’s not awkward at all.
So I have to break this silence, “Beautiful day to spend in the park, isn’t it?”
I am a master of small-talk.
She steps a bit closer, “What sort of dog is that?”
Oh! It is Jack who has drawn her over! I relax and roll Jack out of my lap and introduce him to the woman.
Jack shakes himself awake and trots happily over to see her.
As she bends to pet him and scritch the space between his ears, she tells me she never used to be a dog person.
Jack makes little growly sounds of delight at her touch, and she tells me a story.
She tells me the story of a dog her mother once had, a small fat dachshund named Gloria. Gloria went everywhere her mother went. It was embarrassing. Gloria was old and fat and she smelled. Her teeth were bad and she had digestive issues, and she was pretty much the most disgusting dog ever. Her mom wouldn’t listen to anybody, and no matter how much they begged for Gloria to be left behind, if Mom was coming? Well then, Gloria was coming as well.
She and her husband used to tease her mom constantly about the dog. Her husband called the dog “Dead Meat Gloria,” because the dog really did smell that bad. She and her husband were actually pretty mean to her mom about that dog, although at the time, she thought her mom was foolish to get her feelings hurt about a dog. It was just a dog, for god’s sake.
The woman pauses in her story for a minute, but her hands never leave Jack’s fur.
Then Gloria died, and her mom was heartbroken.
The woman looks at me, “Heartbroken as if she lost a child, you know? We thought she was crazy. She had the dog cremated and talked about how she wanted to be cremated as well when the time came. How she wanted her ashes to be with Gloria’s ashes.”
She sits down in the grass and sighs, “We didn’t understand. We weren’t that kind.”
She winds Jack’s curly fur in her fingers, “And then Mom died.”
We sit in silence, this woman and I.
She takes a deep breath and picks up the story . . .
“So here it is all this time later, and I suddenly get an urge to get a small dog. A dog I could snuggle, you know? My kids are getting a little older, and I wanted something small that would love me. Something on whom to pour all this extra love I have. My husband thought I had gone crazy because I am not a dog person and here I was asking for a little dog. I couldn’t really explain . . . it was just a want. A serious want.”
She looks at me to be sure that I understand, “So I have this little dog now . . . a miniature Boston Terrier. He is just the cutest thing ever and he loves me. He loves me. He sleeps in the crook of my elbow and he runs to sit on my lap when he sees that I am wearing my comfy robe and he begs for treats from me and he follows me everywhere and he is like a little person. He just loves me. I love that dog . . .”
Her voice fades away and she brushes tears from her eyes.
She pets Jack’s head as he starts to fall back to sleep, “So now I know what my mom felt. Now I know how much I must have hurt her with my cruel words and teasing. Now I know . . . but now it’s too late.”
I say the only words I have said since she started talking, “I’m sorry.”
“Yes. Me too. Gloria is dead and my mother is dead. There is no one to whom I can offer apologies.”
“That must be hard.”
“Yes. Apologies are heavy to carry around in your heart.”
She stands up and straightens her blouse. Swipes at her eyes. Stares down at adorable sleeping Jack, “Thank you for letting me say hello to him.”
She walks away.
I call after her, “It was nice to meet you!”
I never did get her name.
I lie in the shady warm grass with Jack.
He’s a good dog.
I tighten the slipknot around my wrist.
Just in case.
