🎧 Chapter Seven | A Wild Dog and Birdsong

What you need to know:

A couple in trouble applies strategic communication techniques to an ailing marriage. The efforts seem to be working until a quiet day in May when something startling is revealed by Rick about one of Jennifer’s kids…

Chapter Seven

A Wild Dog and Birdsong

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It’s the first Saturday in May. At the front door, a dog barks, then comes a scratching sound.

“MAULIE!” the kids call in unison.

Out of their rooms, they clatter down the steps, shoving and yelling.

I’m in the master bedroom, tug the quilt up on the bed, plump the pillows and gather cups of now cold mint tea the kids always drink while doing homework and settling down for the night.

Juggling the cups, I circle around the bed and stop before a pair of double hung windows that overlook an old cedar and the street below.

Steve, who parked at the curb in front of the house, leans against his black SUV, arms crossed over his wide chest, a pair of sunglasses on his face. He wears a puffy silver vest over a black t-shirt, snug Levi’s, black boots.

“You don’t have to wait outside,” I tell him every single Saturday when he comes to get the kids.

“I know,” he says, but still won’t come in.

By this time, Rick and I have been in therapy with Maxine (Todd didn’t have room on his calendar) every other week for more than three months. Revelation after revelation. Rick wants to spend more “quality time” with me. Rick wants me to press Steve to pay more child support. Rick wants the kids to be quiet when he sees patients in his home-office. None of what Rick feels, or wants, is impossible, but with each revelation, I am that much more amazed. For all these years I thought he was so Zen, so spiritually advanced, so serene, but it turns out he’s just like everyone else. Petty. Angry. Demanding. Human.

Maxine calls Rick a turtle and me a hailstorm. “The classic combination,” she explained. “But not to worry. I’ll get you guys sorted out.”

The front door opens downstairs and bangs against the wall. A clatter of nails. The kids calling out, “Come, Maulie, come.” Then a wild scramble up the stairs. A moment later, Maulie stands quivering in the doorway of the master bedroom and stares at me with shining eyes.

Steve picked her up at the Humane Society last month. Says “kids need a dog.”

She’s black, brown and white. Seems to be a boxer mixed with hound mixed with pit-bull?

No. 7 Untitled by Josephine Lauck

“Hi Maulie,” I say, juggle the cups in one hand, tea pot in the other.

Sleek as a seal, Maulie sniffs all the corners of the room, ducks into the closet, pops out, trots to the hall.

Spencer clambers up the stairs and claps his hands, the sound loud in the narrow confines.

“Who’s a good girl?” he says. “Who’s a good dog?”

Maulie jumps up, paws against his chest, licks his face. Spencer laughs and pretends to be grossed out.

“You ready?” I ask, voice raised over the din. “All your stuff packed up for the weekend?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says.

“What about Jo?”

“I think so,” he says.

The dog drops to all fours, circles twice, slicks past me into Jo’s room. Up on the now made fourposter bed, Maulie sniffs at two stuffed paper bags and Jo’s backpack.

“Off,” I say to Maulie who jumps down and wriggles under Jo’s bed.

“Grab your things,” I say to Spencer, easing pot and cups to a side table. “I’ll get Jo’s stuff.”

“Got it,” Spencer says. “I think we’re going to take Maulie for a walk though, before we go.”

“Good. Perfect. I’ll come with,” I say.

Maulie darts out of Jo’s room and into Spencer’s.

I hurry into Jo’s room, loop Jo’s pack over my shoulder, take up the bags in my arms and navigate down the narrow steps.

The house is a hundred years old, narrow and tall. Three floors when you count the basement. The upper level for bedrooms, the mid-level for living, and the basement with an apartment suite where Rick keeps a home office to include a futon for when we have overnight guests.

Jo, at the closet, pulls on a poncho. This one white and purple fleece with darker purple tassels. “We’re going to the big field,” she says.

“I heard,” I say and continue out to the porch.

Steve strides up the walk with Maulie’s leash in one hand, a cluster of poop bags in the other. “Hey,” he says.

“How’s it going?” I ask.

“It’s going,” he says.

We swap what we carry.

“Every week,” he says, swings Jo’s pack over his shoulder, peers into the bags of stuffed animals, favorite books, colored paper, glue gun, paints, crayons, markers, and her collection of crystals and bird feathers and buttons and bark chips.

“She’s a girl with stuff,” I say, wind up the poop bags in a neat coil. “Oh, and I’m coming with you guys. We need to talk birthday.”

“Got it,” Steve says, turns on his heel and carries Jo’s stuff to his car. 

Back into the house, Maulie has dashed into the living room. Following her, Spencer drops his backpack and a silver box of electronic supplies next to the entry table, takes the leash from me. “I’ll get her,” he says.

“Good luck,” I say. 

Maulie shoves behind the sofa and then emerges on the other side, continues into the dining room. “Here girl. Here,” Spencer says, trailing behind.

Jo tugs on a pair of yellow rubber boots. “I’ll take the bags,” she says.

I toss them into her open hand. She pops up and hurries out the door.

“Come on, Maulie,” Spencer says, pleading now.

I trudge back up to the top floor, grab the cups and the tea pot, and jog down again.

Spencer’s in the kitchen and chases Maulie around the island.

Rick, barefooted and wearing jeans and an untucked denim shirt, stands in the middle of this mayhem smiling serenely.

Every morning before the sun, he goes out and meditates on the deck and then does qigong next to an old pine, “absorbing the ancient tree energy.” Once done with this routine, Rick tends to his three manic chickens: a Jersey Giant, a Leghorn, and a Bantam. Finally, Rick comes in and blends together yogurt, ice, pomegranate juice, almond milk, flax seeds, Goldenseal, and a moldering mushroom mix which he drinks to improve the clarity of his “third eye.” 

Maulie noses open the door to the basement. 

“No, no,” Spencer says.

Too late. The dog continues down the steps.

Spencer tosses his hands in exasperation but follows after, the thud of his tennis shoes on the stairs.

“How are the girls?” I ask Rick about his chickens, sorting cups into the sink and dumping out the spent mint leaves.

Rick leans over, kisses the back of my neck. The intimate gesture is not wholly unwelcome. I’ve adapted to this new Rick, have adapted to his new needs. (I am many things but unreasonable is not one of them). Now, I tell myself we are better for the Imago work we’re doing (despite how I cannot stand Maxine), our marriage is more honest. Things will be fine.

Rick motions to the bowl of blue and green eggs on the counter. “They did good. Three intact eggs,” he says, uncapping a container of yogurt and pulling the blender toward him. “I’m making a smoothie with one. Should I make enough for two?”

“Not today,” I say, drying my hands on a towel. “I need to talk to Steve about Spencer’s birthday and then I have to go to my office for a few hours. Remember?”

Rick, gone cool at this news, turns away from me, tilts the yogurt container into the blender cup. White ooze absorbed by the brilliant red juice. “Oh. Right.”

I study him a moment. A rising restlessness. “It’s his birthday, Rick,” I say, toss the towel aside. My voice impatient, but also pleading. “Surely you can’t fault me for planning a party?”

Yogurt upright again, he licks the drippy edge. “I know,” he says, but the coolness prevails. A flat quality in his eyes.

I rest a hand on his forearm, look at him intently. “We can grab dinner later?”

Rick nods on this, then picks out a blue egg, juggles it in his palm as if weighing it.

Spencer opens the basement door. “Victory,” he says, tugging the dog up the steps by the leash.

“Good job,” I say, hold an extra moment to Rick’s arm. “I’ll see you later. Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, closes his hand around the egg. “Later.”

The kids dash down the block from our house, cross the quiet street and continue onto the next block and then dart into the fenced field.

Steve and I follow behind. Walk side by side.

Steve, sunglasses still on, tucks his hands into his pockets.

Pulling on a coat I grabbed from the closet, I zip up the front.

“Spence wants to go to that waterslide park with a couple friends,” I say. “I can take him on the weekend of his birthday or the one before.”

“Spendy,” Steve says.

“Not if I book in advance,” I say.

“Okay. Fine. Gifts and cake at my house?”

“Yeah. Get that ice cream log he likes from Baskin Robbins.”

“Gold Medal Ribbon?”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like we’re set.”

“Yeah, we’ll have a good time.”

With the birthday settled, I could—should—go back, talk more with Rick, perhaps yank out the script since he’s clearly upset but instead, stand there with Steve and watch over the kids.

I used to hate how he and I were so chop-chop with each other, so business-like about things but now I crave our no-nonsense ways. Sometimes being with Rick is like having a third child. Exhausting.

In the middle of the near field, Jo turns circles. Arms wide. Face to the sky. Her poncho lifts around. In the far field, Spencer throws a ball but Maulie runs past where it lands and sniffs the perimeter of the grounds instead. Spencer runs after her, stops to pick up the ball and calls out. “Maulie. Maauuulie.”

“So? How it going with the new book?” Steve asks, glances over at me. “When did it come out?”

“Last month,” I say. “It’s not selling as well as the others but I am doing a lot of interviews, so that’s good.”

“And your classes? Are they paying the bills?”

We exchange looks like we always do when talking about money. A sore subject. He’s the kind that never has enough. Complains about every penny spent.

Doing the math on my current situation, I wonder which is worse? A grown man who acts like a child? Or a bossy guy who hammers me endlessly about the cost of things?

It’s a toss-up, I suppose.

“I’m getting by,” I say. “I have a lead on a job at Portland State University. Once I finish my MFA, I should be in the running for it. How’s the auction scene?”

Jo sways side to side, topples onto her back, then lays in the grass with her arms wide, stares up at the sky.

“Good. Busy. I’ve picked up a sale in Boise,” he says, then calls out, “Hey, Boo? You okay?”

Jo shoves onto her elbows, waves at us and then looks around the field. Pushing to stand, she runs across the grass after Spencer and Maulie.

I turn to Steve who used to have dark hair but now grays at the temples. “How’s it going with, ah…” I ask. Snap my fingers trying for the name of the woman he’s dating but it always eludes me.

“Rachael?” he asks.

“Right. Rachael. Lives in Canada, right? How’s that working out?”

Steve rubs a hand over his mouth, looks strained by the question. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s good.”

“Spencer says it’s getting serious,” I say. “Says she staying over most weekends.”

“Nah,” Steve says, jaw working the way he does when irritated. “We’re just having fun.”

I consider him for a long moment, then give up, look out at the field again.

Spencer hooks the dog on the leash and Jo, meeting him, takes it. Maulie runs toward Steve and me, yanks Jo along. Spencer digs the ball out of his pocket, tosses it in the air, catches it and then tosses it up again.

Back at the house, Rick sits on the top step of the front porch, his blender cup in hand and half empty. He lifts his chin to Steve.

“Hey, man,” Rick says.

Steve slides his sunglasses off, finally, and does a similar chin lift to Rick.

Men, I think. They are baffling to me.

Juggling his keys out of his pocket, Steve clicks open the back hatch. Maulie—who has been totally unmanageable to this moment—hops in obediently, sits on her haunches, a wide smile on her hound dog face. 

“Looks like you got her trained,” I say.

“She’s a good old dog,” Steve says, rubs Maulie’s neck, then shoves her back, closes the hatch.

I hug the kids, like always. Spencer first. “Got your phone?” I ask him.

“Yep, in my bag,” he says.

“Love you,” I say.

“You too,” he says, climbs into the front seat, waves big to Rick. “See ya.”  

Rick lifts his blender-cup by way of good-bye. 

I hug Jo next, then fish bits of grass out of her tangled hair. “I’ll miss you,” I say, then open the side door. Jo scrambles in. I buckled the belt. Jo kisses my forehead with a big smack sound.

“Love you, Mommy,” she says, then like Spencer, waves at Rick only now he’s gone inside.

No. 8 Untitled by Josephine Lauck

At the dining nook in the kitchen, I pack my messenger bag. Books, pens, student papers, my lap top.

Rick stands at the sink, rinses out the blender cup, and then tucks it into the dishwasher.

The clock on the wall above him goes off with the song of the American Robin. It’s now one in the afternoon. A few more peeps, then the clock goes quiet.

Rick takes up the dishtowel, dries his hands. Head down.

I’m about to say, “See you later,” but he twists the towel like a rope. “I think something bad happened,” he says, studies the towel in his hands.

Maybe Maulie knocked something down in his office or peed somewhere in the house? He’s about to say he doesn’t want her here anymore?

Rick tosses the towel aside, crosses the kitchen, eases his glasses off and sets them on the table, then pulls a chair and sits. He motions to another chair, as if I should sit, too, but I remain where I stand. The script, I think. I need the script. I’ll say, “I understand you need to talk but I’m feeling a little pressed here because, as I already told you, I need to get work done today…”

“You know how Spencer and I went to the wood working store, to check out summer camps?” Rick says, breaking into these thoughts.

I ease my messenger bag to the table. “Yes. Right. Okay,” I say.

Rick stares up at me, those pale blue eyes, those filament thin lashes. Tears rise and he lowers his face into his hands.

A spiked feeling moves through my chest. I un-sling the messenger bag strap and tug out the chair. The scrape of the legs on the wood floor. I sit down on the edge.

“I see you are upset, Rick,” I hear myself say. Mirroring being the first step. “But I feel both restless and angry. What are not telling me?”

Rick lifts his head and stares at me for a long moment. His eyes are red rimmed. “I think someone touched Spencer…inappropriately…” he says. “At the woodworking store.”

He lowers his head into his hands again and weeps louder now.

Part of me wants to comfort and support Rick, but my son…someone touched Spence? Inappropriately? My brain cannot quite pull it together so I try to fit my confusion into the script again: “I’m hearing you say that someone touched Spencer inappropriately. I see you are upset about this,” but another part of me is like a wild creature now—like Maulie—racing and running. My son. My son.

I stand fast. The chair topples back, hits the floor with a crack. Into the dining room, I grab the remote handset for the house land-line and hurry out the front door. With a shaking hand, I dial but mess up Spencer’s cell number. Hang up. Dial again. Finally, it rings.

“Yel-low,” Spencer says.

I tap at my forehead. Calm. Calm. Be calm.

“Hi ya, honey,” I say, force lightness in my voice. “How’s it going?”

“Ah, you saw me like twenty minutes ago, Mom,” Spencer says.

I cross to the edge of the porch, study the thin patches of sky that show through the gnarled branches of the cedar tree. “I know,” I say, force a laugh. “You all settled at Dad’s? Got your computer working?”

“You sound weird. What’s wrong?”

A man pushes a rusty grocery cart down the middle of the street. The wobbling of an errant wheel. He looks over at me, lifts a hand, and I do the same though I don’t know him. 

“Well, I’m calling because…” I say, turning and pacing the length of the porch. At the end, I turn, pace the other way. 

“Mom?”

“I’m wondering…did it go okay at the woodworking store, because Rick mentioned it was a little weird…like the people might be weird there?”

Parking the cart, the man now ambles over to a row of garbage cans, opens a lid, peers inside.

“What do you mean, weird? What did Rick say?” Spencer asks.

The man tugs out an old milk carton, opens it, sniffs.

“Mom. Just tell me what’s going on.”

The man tosses the carton back, fishes around a bit more and finally closes the trash and goes back to his cart. I close my eyes and repeat, word for word, what Rick told me.

A long silence on the phone.

“Mom,” Spencer finally says. “Listen. Nothing happened. Nothing. We got pamphlets with dates, times, prices, just like you asked. I gave them to you.”

I’m nodding because all that’s true. Spencer skipped into the front door after the trip. All smiles. “That place was great!” he said.

 “I don’t know what’s going on with Rick,” he says now, “or what he’s talking about, but nothing happened.”

Now I’m the one with tears running down my face because this kind of thing is my worst nightmare. The sexual abuse of kids. We all know it happens in homes, in schools, in churches, in summer camps. We also know that it usually comes out years after the damage is done.

“You’re telling the truth, right? If anything happened, anything at all, you know you could tell me.”

“Of course,” he says.

The homeless man continues up the street pushing his cart. That loose rattling wheel.

I turn, look through the front window and see the shadowy outline of Rick standing in the dining room. He is absolutely still.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I say to Spence. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. I love you,” Spencer says.  

“Me too,” I say.

Hanging up, I dial Maxine.

Next:

Chapter 8: Unexpected and Uncharacteristic

An emergency therapy session is called to clarify Rick’s insinuation of child molestation. It is true? Or did Rick make it up?

PLUS: Our first two teachings on scene/exposition/progression: Walk Your Talk, and tracking beats.