The Dogs of Littlefield Read Online Free PDF

vibration.
    â€œMy husband keeps telling me to develop some outside interests.”
    George was walking behind her now, twigs cracking and popping under his boots. In her imagination, she continued to talk about Bill, hearing even the timbre of her voice—pitched at a reasonable middle register—describing in detail their marriage counseling: Bill saying that he loved her but that something was missing, and that for now they were following Dr. Vogel’s advice to be honest but kind to each other, in six months they would see where that landed them. It was the uncertainty of everything that was so difficult. Bill wasn’t a big talker, lately he hardly talked at all, so she found herself reverberating to every change of mood, every shift in tone. Any disturbance affected her. It had gotten habitual. She couldn’t stop herself, even when she wasn’t with Bill. It was like being a human tuning fork.
    â€œHe suggested tennis,” she said. “Or squash.”
    â€œSounds exhausting,” said George.
    â€œYou have no idea,” said Margaret.
    But he did. When she asked if he had a family he revealed that his wife had left him last spring. “For two months,” he said, “I had a heart attack every morning.”
    Margaret stopped walking so abruptly that George almost walked into her. She had been staring at the ground, but now out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed something large and white flickering through the trees.
    â€œWhat was that?”
    â€œWhat was what?” said George in his peculiar, harsh voice.
    â€œI thought I saw something.”
    George squinted and then turned to look at her, his hands at the back of his belt, hitching up his denim pants.
    She smiled apologetically and said she was very sorry to hear about his wife, waiting for him to say more about their separation, but he only made a small, open-palmed after-you gesture with one hand.
    As they resumed walking she thought how surprising it was that he had confided something so personal to a near stranger and again imagined herself confiding in him, being as frank as he had just been. Well, for Bill it’s mostly about sex, she would say coolly. He says he doesn’t feel anything. He says he feels dead. His father died in March and, according to our couples therapist, death makes men think about sex. He probably wishes he could be with someone younger. That’s what I’m afraid of, anyway. But I’m trying to give him some space, I want to help him go through whatever he needs to go through.
    What a remarkable person you are, George would say to her.
    Once more she found herself blushing and called for Binx. He came trotting back to the trail to stand by her legs while she fastened the leash onto his collar again.
    â€œA miracle,” she said. “He never comes when I call.” The trail was now wide enough that George could walk next to her, Binx trotting ahead.
    â€œHe’s kind of an anarchist,” she said.
    â€œAll dogs are anarchists,” George said, “at heart.”
    â€œWell, some dogs hide it better than others.”
    George laughed and said it was a miracle that any dog ever listened to human beings, given that dogs were the ones with big teeth. Then he reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder.
    The trail was again stippled by sunlight, a complicated pattern that shifted with the tree branches. She felt the warmth of George’s hand against her bare skin, a mild but insistent pressure. And then it was gone; the shade of the woods drew back, and together they walked out into the ordinary humming light of day.

5.

    T he morning after her walk in the woods with George Wechsler, Margaret looked out of her kitchen window to see the door to the Fischmans’ carriage house propped open with a battered-looking blue canvas suitcase. On the front stoop were woven baskets of varying size—each filled with books or colored scarves or