At twilight I sat alone on the ground in the immense park, pulling my mother’s camel hair coat tightly around myself to keep warm. I looked around. The colored leaves torn by the wind from their branches were beautiful in death as the wind carried them to the ground. I had no impulse to crunch through the leaves like I did before that autumn after my mother died.
I loved this park. It was a block away from busy Beacon Street where trolley tracks carried the outside world to and from nearby downtown Boston. The apartment buildings and constant traffic were hidden by the trees. It was an oasis of peace and I came here often. I was a twenty year old bride who read Redbook Magazine novellas on the grass while my new cookbook dinners simmered on the stove in our nearby apartment. I was a bright-eyed expectant new mother who dreamily watched nameless children play. Then I was a toddler’s mom with watchful eyes and cookies for my daughter as we both played in the sandbox and on the swings, Often I was a poet in search of the perfect tree to sit under and cut a gem of words from a raw diamond of inspiration. Now I was a mourner. My mother had died when I was five months pregnant with my son.
A huge black dog appeared at the far entrance. He paused, then slowly lumbered towards me. “I must be dreaming,” I whispered as the dog came closer. He stopped a few feet from me and stood still as if inviting inspection. Such a comic creature, I thought. He was panting and toothless, except for two yellowed front teeth. Long, thick, white dog drool hung from his enormous red tongue.
Suddenly a fit of itching seized him and he attacked himself with all four paws scratching at once. Then, just as suddenly, he stopped and arranged his face into a satisfied dog grin. I laughed.
The gentle beast came closer, sat down, and gracelessly settled his matted bulk next to me, leaning hard against my side. Repulsed by his obvious infestation of fleas, but deeply touched by his eagerness for company, I patted his huge head and remembered.
My much loved stuffed dog, Brownie, was my comforter, confidante, and sleep partner when I was a little girl. Too often his soft, cinnamon fur was wet from my tears. My home was a sad one to grow up in. When I was seven, I was afraid to go to school for months, magically fearing my chronically ill mother would get worse and die if I left her. My mother wept each time her second grader stayed home. “You’re going to ruin you whole life if you don’t go to school,” she cried. I had no words for my feelings then and stood firm in my resolve to stay home and ruin my life to save my mommy. Bedecked in her floral housedress and apron, she was helpless against her daughter’s will. But one morning I realized that Brownie would be home to watch over mommy. I went to school every day after that.
Time and wear caused Brownie’s hind leg to fall off, and holes that released his sawdust guts appeared on his body. I still loved him. One day he wasn’t there anymore. I searched and searched behind and under everything, but never found him. I sensed he had been thrown away, though my mother pleaded innocent. I longed for him years after that, and felt long into my adulthood, that childhood sense that Brownie longed for me too.
The huge dog licked my hand in a grand slurp of passion and gazed at me, bringing me back to the present. He let me stare back into his eyes, a rare thing for a dog to do. “Brownie?” I asked. He didn’t respond. I felt foolish and patted his head and neck. Gray was mixed in with his dark fur. The stranger poked his incredibly big wet nose under my arm and nuzzled. We sat that way for a long time as the sky grew darker.
There was no bond beyond the moment to keep him there, I thought as the dog stood up, shook himself off, walked a few steps away, stopped to turn and look back, then walked toward the street. “Wait boy!” I yelled getting up to catch him, study his many tags, worried that he was a lost dog. He kept on going and left the park with the confidence of a dog who knew his way. The dog was not lost, I thought, I was, and slowly walked home to my four year old daughter and infant son.
