The Lost

“Have you been doing any magic shows lately?” Monica asked, cutting big pieces of layer cake for everybody. Homemade, naturally. What a perfect family we must have looked like to everybody else in the park. Mom, Dad, three kids, the faithful dog.

“No, no.” I recognized Sam’s fake-careless voice. “That’s all… I don’t do that anymore. No time.”

“Ah,” Monica said softly. “Too bad. But I guess with the new job and all…”

“Right.”

“Do you still…” Hate it, she was going to say. But she changed it to “Is it getting any better?” even though Be

“It’s a job. I’m in no position to complain.”

“You don’t complain.”

“It’s just… well, you know.”

“It is what it is.”

So profound.

But a little later, I wondered if maybe Be

All Sam said was, “How about that,” but he put his arm around Be

Oh, Be

Monica decreed the grass was now dry enough to play games on, so that was what the boys did, with Sam. I got to stay where I was and watch Monica clean up.

Desperation was creeping in. How in the world was I going to pull this off? To be this close and still fail-I couldn’t think about it. Maybe if I…

“What, Sonoma? Do you have to go? Do you have to do business?”

Bingo. It was partly the high whine, partly the soulful-eyes thing. They never let me down.

“I’m taking Sonoma for a walk,” Monica called over to Sam, who waved and went back to swinging the kids around in a game of statue.

She picked the secondary trail this time, the one that wound east, under a cement bridge and around a bend-out of sight. Perfect, perfect. Nobody was here; the path was too narrow and boggy for hikers today, and too close to the clattering river. That sound and the smell of wet earth filled my head, intoxicating. Sunlight made blue crystals on the damp tree leaves. Everything was beautiful, but lost on me. I’d remember it later-or not.

Monica went at an excruciatingly slow pace when she wasn’t stopped dead, admiring nature. She’d brought along an expensive-l ooking camera. She halted on the bank to snap a picture of dappled light on water. Was this my chance? I would only get one. If I failed, she’d be on guard from then on. I preferred nonviolence, but only as a first resort. I would fight if I had to.

I braced. Don’t make me have to hurt you.

She had the leash looped around her wrist, though. Better to wait till it was loose in her hand. Then I could just snap it and run.

“Come on, Sonoma. Don’t you have to pee? I do,” she said, laughing, and I hoped she would, right then and there. Talk about a distraction. But no, too much of a lady. We slogged on.

A thick pine tree had snapped at the base and half fallen in the river, years ago from the look of it. “How pretty,” Monica said, turning the camera on again. It did look picturesque, the sparse, rain-dark branches stretched out over churning water. She took a few shots. Then, “Oh, look, Sonoma, a spiderweb. See it?”

I saw it, in the crotch of a dead branch at the end of the tree, just before it dipped into the river. It would’ve been invisible if it hadn’t been shiny with drying raindrops. Yes, very pretty. Why don’t you go out there and take a picture of it?

And that’s exactly what she did.

What a moron. Are you crazy? I thought, before I recollected myself. Be that stupid; go farther out there with a camera in one hand, a dog leash in the other, the racing brown river beneath you. Please, after you.

But she was so athletic and surefooted, she never even tottered. And she wasn’t stupid enough to go to the end, only halfway, with me about four feet away, the length of the leash, just one long leap to shore. The expensive camera had a telephoto lens. I heard it whir into action, watched Monica sight her spiderweb picture, one-handed, through the LCD. I started to shake. From anticipation, I thought, but then I realized-I was the one who was scared. The chopping sound of the river, the potent smell of water, and the humid air were the last good memories I had of my human self. What came next was all a nightmare. I hated rivers.

Still one-h anded, Monica snapped off a couple of shots, then tilted the camera ninety degrees for a vertical. Now or never. I dug my toenails into the bark and jerked my head, my whole body, to the side as hard as I could.

She yelped as the leash flew out of her hand, and I spun and leapt to the bank.

A splash, hard to hear over the chop. I looked back. Oh, for the love of-

Monica lay flat out in the water, gripping a branch in one hand, camera high in the other, trying to keep it above the drink. Let it go, you idiot-but I saw myself in another river, leaping cartoonishly after a slippery cell phone, and I knew she wouldn’t.

The current was strong enough that her feet were bobbing at the top behind her. I didn’t know I was barking until I had to stop to hear what she was yelling. “Help! I can’t swim!” She gave an angry wail and dropped the camera-so she could grab for the branch with that hand, too. Crack. The branch broke and the water took her.

It was supposed to be the other way around, but in that moment my life passed before my eyes. I saw it all in fine detail, a Technicolor highlight film, the ups and downs of Laurie Summer’s life. Glimpsed as a whole like that, I could see it came up short in an important department, the very one Sonoma the dog excelled in. The love-and-beloved department. The only one that mattered to her, and really the only one that mattered-I saw it in this extreme instant with perfect clarity-period.

No point jumping in the water here-I’d catch Monica faster if I ran. Mud flew behind my feet as I tore along the bank, dodging rocks, trees, bushes, brush. Monica sailed downriver like a kayak, her dark head bobbing in and out of sight. I caught up when she slammed into a tangle of wood and debris swirling in the middle of the stream. She flailed for a branch, but her grip slipped. I made a ru

Rocks! One sheared my side; another cracked me in the forehead. I recognized the pain more than felt it. The current flipped me over; I swallowed water. Over the tumult, I heard shouting, a man’s voice. Sam’s? Had he heard me barking? Monica saw me for the first time and reached out-to save herself or me, I’ll never know. She missed, but we flailed side by side long enough so that I could snatch up the shoulder of her blouse in my teeth. We smacked violently into something hard and stationary. Another fallen tree, anchored to shore. Grab it, I told her, but she was too dazed; she just hung there between me and the tree, limp.

Yes, it was Sam; I recognized his voice yelling her name. All that was keeping me afloat was the force of the water battering me against Monica. Grab something, I begged her, shaking the glob of wet cotton in my mouth. It was hard to breathe. I shook her again. Her eyes stayed closed, but she reached out for the log and hung on.

Now I could spit out the cloth and get a breath. Sam was forty feet away, sprinting for us along the muddy bank. “Hang on!” he kept shouting. Except I couldn’t-no hands. Monica began to cough and retch, reviving. The one paw I could keep on the tree trunk suddenly felt it vibrate. Sam was trying to walk on it, arms out for balance. He slipped and fell to his knees. But he kept coming at a crawl.