A thin, gold chain around her neck prevented her glasses from escaping. Not that the time lost in a search for them would matter. Over time her friends had faded or passed away. Her family had even gradually extracted her from their formula. She was mostly alone. Rather than fold, she had accepted this hand, bluffing contentment. To her family, she existed as a relic to be dusted off, carted around, and shown off on holidays, a quick fix of memories . . . little more.
She lived in a large eighteenth-century farmhouse, equipped with red barn and overgrown wooden acreage. The house was packed full of decades of memories. She had, in fact, brought two decades in when she crossed this threshold. Once things were meticulous; now dust and disorder had the upper hand. Things of value were becoming buried treasure. Outside the paint peeled, flaked off, and fell into the now untamed landscape. Maintenance of this place was beyond her. Her ability to toil had been depleted like a well gone dry.
Her sole companion was a husky. He had arrived one morning, a gift from her oldest son. A dog dumped off because the condo overseer did not appreciate pets. Her son, by alleviating two neglects, her and a dog that he couldn’t care for and really didn’t want, had eased his conscience. He figured he had helped himself and her.
Once a day, usually in the morning, the woman and the dog left the house and walked across the side lawn to a thirty-acre patch of woodland. This woodland held a matrix of overgrown logging roads. It had been thinned out about twenty years ago, but things had grown back. The older stumps were rotting away to soggy, mushy pulp. After the last clearing, there really was no good hardwood left. No one bothered to replant. No one had the foresight to replant. Raking the earth of its elder members seemed right at the time. Somehow she experienced solace in this awkward landscape, at least until the sporadic crack of falling branches interrupted her vacuous states, moving her to go home. The dog always instinctively joined her.
On most days, after walking in the woods, she began her trek to the mailbox. On this day, she picked up a thick pile of mail from the box, wondering if she had missed a few days. She didn’t think that she had, but her hands seemed particularly full. She turned and headed back towards the house, the bundle of letters sliding between her grip and her waist.
Although her husband was deceased ten years, mail addressed to him still arrived in her box from time to time. She usually attended to it as if something urgent needed to be done, lest she be remiss in her duties. Today, after sitting down at the kitchen table, she squinted at the table and saw his name on a bogus million-dollar check. It took a minute, but she slowly placed the unopened letter in the wastebasket. He was gone. She needed to end this ritual. She and her dog just sat in the kitchen. In fact, most afternoons, she and her dog could be found in the kitchen, she in a black painted rocker and the dog on an old rug beside her. Two empty chairs, from two different kitchen sets, bookended the inseparable pair.
The vacuous audience captively watched as things decayed and became overrun like some ancient, lost city.
In the kitchen, ice snowballed in the freezer; the refrigerator held plastic gallons of milk in cheesed hunks. The red meat turned gray. Outside the refrigerator, unwrapped breads displayed garden mold. A monument of cans of dog food and Spaghetti -O’s, some spotted with rust, showed fallout from a leaky roof. They were randomly stacked on a weather-beaten bureau. Although now heading a household of one, she unconsciously grieved her once large and familiar family by still shopping once a month for a brood that had long ago dispersed. For several years, she had maintained a semblance of preparedness, in case they one day came back.
At night, she attempted to outlast the darkness. She forced herself to stay awake driven by a relentless fear of dying in her sleep. Every night a perseverant voice whispered, “Good night, rest now.” It was the only thing that she positioned herself against. Every evening, in her easy chair, she eventually went under watching television with the volume blaring. Some nights, she would reluctantly drag her exhausted body to bed consenting at these times to the probability of death. Mornings the dog pulled her out of this begrudged state, licking her hand, begging for breakfast. Her daily response was to awake and smile relief.
But relief was fleeting for her, as many days were long and nerve-racking. On some days, robbers, hoodlums, and pirates rapped at her windows. Sounds sent her investigating every corner of the house. Nothing was there. She often phoned her sons, pleading protection from the phantoms. They listened patiently, then excuse themselves from the whole ordeal. Occasionally, one would force himself to come over the house, stand around, politely pacify her, then leave. This electrocuted her sons’ nerves, unraveling then eventually severing the rope of family ties to a few threads. At times, even the dog grew tired of this hunt with no apparent substance or winner, though it continued to faithfully join her in the ventures. The dog was a steadfast appendage.
With Thanksgiving Holiday approaching, her oldest son had arranged for her to attend a Thanksgiving Day dinner at another son’s house. That day, she would be picked up at twelve noon and returned at four. For the last five years, it had been a clockwork ritual, where she was punched in and punched out. The big variation was where the dinner was being held, or simply who was stuck putting it on.
On the eve of the family union, in her upstairs bedroom, she placed her clothes out over her haphazardly made bed; they were clean but wrinkled. They looked good enough, and Thanksgiving was tomorrow. That evening she actually went to sleep in her own bed with peace of mind—she took comfort in the expectancy of the next day.
Upon awakening, she noted that the dog was gone. In fact, she became more acutely aware that the dog had, in fact, been gone for about three days. A rush of anxiety spread over her body. Each morning, for the last few days, she had continued to dump the old food out of its bowl and had replaced it with fresh cans. The brown meat mixture would stand up straight in the bowl, molded like the can container. It would later soften and slide down into mush. With her head now in her hands, she knew she had to find the dog. Why hadn’t she searched yesterday? For a moment she wondered if meeting her son outside would disguise the loss, but that would break routine. He’d surely be suspicious. What if he asked to see the dog? The task was daunting, she feared the result—but time was still passing. On this day of thanks, she would likely be chastised. Anxiety stricken, she went to the closet, selected her thickest winter coat, and dropped it on the chair. Next, she went to her oak dresser. She opened the lower drawer which contained her leather gloves and wool hat. She put on her coat. The winter blanket brought a strange moment of comfort to her. She stopped and fastened all the buttons. She put on her hat, then her gloves. She headed out of her bedroom, down the stairs towards the front door. She paused in the foyer listening for sounds, wishing for a dog collar jingle or scratching. She heard nothing. She started out the front door, making sure the lock would click behind her. A cold wind hammered the outside screen door against her back. She pried it off her and let it slam shut. For a moment, she breathed with her eyes closed. Her forehead was so heavy. She shook her head slightly. She ventured across the side lawn. The fallen leaves crackled under her light-hastened footsteps. A cool wind whipped the almost-bare branches of the trees that framed her side lawn. She moved past them. She closed in on the edge of the lawn where it began merging into the woods. The sun shone through the bushes and trees. She squinted and felt tired. She entered the woods and began following the path that she had last walked with the dog.
At 11:55 A.M., her son arrived. He knocked repeatedly on her front door, trying the securely fastened knob a few times, then left-agitated that she had not called to tell him she wasn’t coming, saving him the trip. After all, the family was waiting to see here. Two days later an all-out search for her began.