Every Living Thing

  By the fifth week, Jack had gained weight, made plans for a camping trip with another man and was finally not as afraid of his life as before. The doctors said he could leave.

  Jack wanted to be home again, to move around in his own small kitchen and fix a few things in the garage. He wanted to leave. But he wondered about his squirrels.

  He moved out of the hospital, back home, and for the next four days woke up at dawn and thought about the squirrels. Then on the fifth day, an idea struck him.

  Jack was at the hospital the next morning, before sunrise. He walked through the grass around to the wing of the building where his ward had been. All the windows looked alike to him, especially in the half-light, but when he saw three black shapes moving around outside one of them, he knew he was in the right place.

  “Hey!” Jack called softly, standing below the window. “Hey! I’m outside now!”

  The squirrels stopped moving and sat, listening sharply. Then one of them jumped off the sill into a tree.

  “Hey!” Jack called again. He opened the bag he was carrying and pulled out a long rope of peanuts. He shook it at them.

  “Look what’s for breakfast,” he said.

  The peanuts that Jack had strung together like popcorn clicked in the silent yard, and the squirrels came after them.

  Jack draped the rope over a few tree branches and watched, grinning, as the squirrels picked off the nuts.

  “Thanks,” he whispered. “Next week, sunflower seeds.”

  Stray

  In January, a puppy wandered onto the property of Mr. Amos Lacey and his wife, Mamie, and their daughter, Doris. Icicles hung three feet or more from the eaves of houses, snowdrifts swallowed up automobiles and the birds were so fluffed up they looked comic.

  The puppy had been abandoned, and it made its way down the road toward the Laceys’ small house, its ears tucked, its tail between its legs, shivering.

  Doris, whose school had been called off because of the snow, was out shoveling the cinderblock front steps when she spotted the pup on the road. She set down the shovel.

  “Hey! Come on!” she called.

  The puppy stopped in the road, wagging its tail timidly, trembling with shyness and cold.

  Doris trudged through the yard, went up the shoveled drive and met the dog.

  “Come on, Pooch.”

  “Where did that come from?” Mrs. Lacey asked as soon as Doris put the dog down in the kitchen.

  Mr. Lacey was at the table, cleaning his fingernails with his pocketknife. The snow was keeping him home from his job at the warehouse.

  “I don’t know where it came from,” he said mildly, “but I know for sure where it’s going.”

  Doris hugged the puppy hard against her. She said nothing.

  Because the roads would be too bad for travel for many days, Mr. Lacey couldn’t get out to take the puppy to the pound in the city right away. He agreed to let it sleep in the basement while Mrs. Lacey grudgingly let Doris feed it table scraps. The woman was sensitive about throwing out food.

  By the looks of it, Doris figured the puppy was about six months old, and on its way to being a big dog. She thought it might have some shepherd in it.

  Four days passed and the puppy did not complain. It never cried in the night or howled at the wind. It didn’t tear up everything in the basement. It wouldn’t even follow Doris up the basement steps unless it was invited.

  It was a good dog.

  Several times Doris had opened the door in the kitchen that led to the basement and the puppy had been there, all stretched out, on the top step. Doris knew it had wanted some company and that it had lain against the door, listening to the talk in the kitchen, smelling the food, being a part of things. It always wagged its tail, eyes all sleepy, when she found it there.

  Even after a week had gone by, Doris didn’t name the dog. She knew her parents wouldn’t let her keep it, that her father made so little money any pets were out of the question, and that the pup would definitely go to the pound when the weather cleared.

  Still, she tried talking to them about the dog at dinner one night.

  “She’s a good dog, isn’t she?” Doris said, hoping one of them would agree with her.

  Her parents glanced at each other and went on eating.

  “She’s not much trouble,” Doris added. “I like her.” She smiled at them, but they continued to ignore her.

  “I figure she’s real smart,” Doris said to her mother. “I could teach her things.”

  Mrs. Lacey just shook her head and stuffed a forkful of sweet potato in her mouth. Doris fell silent, praying the weather would never clear.

  But on Saturday, nine days after the dog had arrived, the sun was shining and the roads were plowed. Mr. Lacey opened up the trunk of his car and came into the house.

  Doris was sitting alone in the living room, hugging a pillow and rocking back and forth on the edge of a chair. She was trying not to cry but she was not strong enough. Her face was wet and red, her eyes full of distress.

  Mrs. Lacey looked into the room from the doorway.

  “Mama,” Doris said in a small voice. “Please.” Mrs. Lacey shook her head.

  “You know we can’t afford a dog, Doris. You try to act more grown-up about this.”

  Doris pressed her face into the pillow.

  Outside, she heard the trunk of the car slam shut, one of the doors open and close, the old engine cough and choke and finally start up.

  “Daddy,” she. whispered. “Please.”

  She heard the car travel down the road, and, though it was early afternoon, she could do nothing but go to her bed. She cried herself to sleep, and her dreams were full of searching and searching for things lost.

  It was nearly night when she finally woke up. Lying there, like stone, still exhausted, she wondered if she would ever in her life have anything. She stared at the wall for a while.

  But she started feeling hungry, and she knew she’d have to make herself get out of bed and eat some dinner. She wanted not to go into the kitchen, past the basement door. She wanted not to face her parents.

  But she rose up heavily.

  Her parents were sitting at the table, dinner over, drinking coffee. They looked at her when she came in, but she kept her head down. No one spoke.

  Doris made herself a glass of powdered milk and drank it all down. Then she picked up a cold biscuit and started out of the room.

  “You’d better feed that mutt before it dies of starvation,” Mr. Lacey said.

  Doris turned around.

  “What?”

  “I said, you’d better feed your dog. I figure it’s looking for you.”

  Doris put her hand to her mouth.

  “You didn’t take her?” she asked.

  “Oh, I took her all right,” her father answered. “Worst looking place I’ve ever seen. Ten dogs to a cage. Smell was enough to knock you down. And they give an animal six days to live. Then they kill it with some kind of a shot.”

  Doris stared at her father.

  “I wouldn’t leave an ant in that place,” he said. “So I brought the dog back.”

  Mrs. Lacey was smiling at him and shaking her head as if she would never, ever, understand him.

  Mr. Lacey sipped his coffee.

  “Well,” he said, “are you going to feed it or not?”

  Planting Things

  Mr. Willis was a man who enjoyed planting things. He had several beds of zinnias, a large circle of green onions, a couple of barrels of eggplants, a row of spinach and some Swedish ivy on his front porch. Mr. Willis was not a practical gardener, so it did not matter to him whether or not he could eat what he grew, or even if what he planted grew badly or not at all. Mr. Willis just enjoyed planting things.

  Mr. Willis’s wife lived with him and she was not well. She was old (as was he, but it didn’t seem to bother him so much), and she lay in bed most of every day. Mr. Willis loved her—he had loved her for fifty-six years—and he tended to her needs.
Her favorite food was a chocolate milkshake mixed up with an egg and some powdered malt. He fixed one for her twice a day—and more, if she asked.

  Mr. Willis missed his wife as he puttered about his yard, planting his favorite things. Sometimes she would pull herself up from her bed and stand at the window, watching him work among his onions or zinnias. But not often. She did not seem to enjoy life any longer since she had become old, as if she had decided there was no more for her to do. And Mr. Willis, as hard as he might try, could not change this.

  On summer evenings, if the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, Mr. Willis sat on his front porch and listened to the sound of children playing at the house just down the road. Traffic was light, and he could hear the crickets and the katydids in his apple trees. Sometimes he almost forgot, sitting there, that Mrs. Willis was in the house.

  On his porch, Mr. Willis’s Swedish ivy, growing down from a pot attached to the ceiling, was so healthy that Mr. Willis did not tend to it as he did his other growing things. Plucking off a brown leaf or two, that was all the plant required, and Mr. Willis could ignore it for days.

  But on one summer evening, when there was still light enough outside to show up a brown leaf for plucking, Mr. Willis’s Swedish ivy gave him the surprise of his life. He was glad he was on good terms with God, in case it should be a sign to him!

  On top of the pot, among the ivy, a robin had built her nest. Right there, on the porch of Mr. Henry P. Willis, she had nested. There were plenty of trees about, but no, she had chosen to grow her babies on his porch.

  Mr. Willis had thought at first she was one of those stuffed birds used to decorate Christmas trees or Easter bonnets. He thought someone had tricked him.

  Still, being a cautious man, he had not reached for the bird but had moved closer, eyelevel with her. And he knew then she was real. Real and sitting on eggs.

  “Charlotte!” He went right to his wife’s bedroom. “Charlotte!”

  She was lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling. The room was gray.

  “Charlotte, you will never believe this. There is a bird nesting in the Swedish ivy!” Mr. Willis’s face was the brightest object in the room. She could see it shining. He took hold of her hand.

  “It’s a robin, dear,” he said. “A robin. And she has eggs. I stood right beside her—can you believe it!”

  Mrs. Willis smiled slightly.

  “I’m happy for you, dear,” she said.

  Mr. Willis rubbed the top of her hand.

  “Would you like to see?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so right now.”

  So Mr. Willis went back out to the porch, quietly closing the door behind him, and he sat down softly in his chair and watched the bird, feeling his heart pound in his chest.

  The following morning Mr. Willis went to check the nest. The bird was away, and he saw three blue eggs lying in the nest, Swedish ivy bunched all around and spilling from the pot. Mr. Willis knew not to touch the eggs. He went on to his chores and waited for the robin to return.

  After he had given his wife her morning milkshake, he asked her again, gently propping up the pillows behind her head, “Would you like to see the nest, dear?”

  Mrs. Willis smiled and patted his hand. “I’ll see it. Don’t worry. I’ll see it soon.”

  “Would you like to see it now? Can I help you out to the porch?”

  Mrs. Willis sighed. “No, thank you, dear. I’ll just lie here and rest a while. You go on. Don’t worry about me.”

  Mr. Willis left her, worrying about her as he did nearly every minute he was awake. He pulled up some onions, watered the eggplant and checked the nest again.

  The robin was back, sitting like a statue, never moving her head or blinking an eye, no matter how near Mr. Willis stood. Her being there on his porch among his ivy took his breath away.

  One day Mrs. Willis stood at the front door and finally did see the bird, to satisfy her husband. She said she found the bird’s being there “curious” and went back to bed.

  Mr. Willis spent many summer evenings sitting on the porch with the robin. He never told anyone else about her, never pointed her out to visitors, for he feared that someone might frighten her or touch her eggs or steal her nest. He had learned that she would not leave her nest to protect herself.

  Sitting with her, day after day, was like waiting for a baby to be born, as it had been for Mr. and Mrs. Willis when they were young and expecting their child. It had been quiet then, too, the waiting. The world had slowed down for them, and the days had been long and full of conversation. And finally their baby boy, Tom, had come.

  Mr. Willis remembered this, sitting with the robin, and it gave him a feeling of great peace. He was sorry he and his wife had had only one child.

  All three of the robin’s eggs hatched sometime on a Thursday morning. Mr. Willis went to check on the nest after fixing his wife’s breakfast, and he discovered the robin missing and three skinny, squawking babies.

  “Well!” he said to them. “I’m a daddy!” He stood beside the nest, beaming.

  In the days that followed, the mother robin was away from the nest most of the time, hunting for food. Mr. Willis wished he could make it easier for her—and he tried leaving popcorn and bread on the porch—but she was a particular mother and seemed to want only baby food he could not supply.

  So he just sat with her babies, commending them on their fine growing bodies and scolding them for their constantly gaping mouths.

  He sat in his chair and watched the birds and laughed out loud.

  Mrs. Willis stood at the door once, watching her husband and his birds. She was surprised they had actually hatched, and she congratulated him.

  “You have always done well with your planting, dear,” she said. “Your Swedish ivy must have been good for them.”

  Then she went back to bed.

  Mr. Willis had thought the birds would probably fly away from the nest one by one, as children do.

  But one day, they were all gone, the mother and the children, and they did not come back.

  It is probably best, thought Mr. Willis. Best they go all at once, with no long leave-takings and teary good-byes again and again.

  But he did not miss them any the less, just because they had all flown in one morning. The empty nest stayed in the ivy until the winter, when he was sure they wouldn’t be back.

  He brought his chair and his ivy inside for the season, removing the nest and putting it on top of his dresser.

  Mr. Willis would look after his wife all winter. Then, come spring, he would put the nest, ready-made, in one of his apple trees.

  He was a man who enjoyed planting things.

  A Bad Road for Cats

  “Louie! Louis! Where are you?”

  The woman called it out again and again as she walked along Route 6. A bad road for cats. She prayed he hadn’t wandered this far. But it had been nearly two weeks, and still Louis hadn’t come home.

  She stopped at a Shell station, striding up to the young man at the register. Her eyes snapped black and fiery as she spit the question at him:

  “Have you seen a cat?” The word cat came out hard as a rock.

  The young man straightened up.

  “No, ma’am. No cats around here. Somebody dropped a mutt off a couple nights ago, but a Mack truck got it yesterday about noon. Dog didn’t have a chance.”

  The woman’s eyes pinched his.

  “I lost my cat. Orange and white. If you see him, you be more careful of him than that dog. This is a bad road for cats.”

  She marched toward the door.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, like a threat, and the young man straightened up again as she went out.

  “Louie! Louis! Where are you?”

  She was a very tall woman, and skinny. Her black hair was long and shiny, like an Indian’s. She might have been a Cherokee making her way alongside a river, alert and watchful. Tracking.

  But Route 6 was no river. It was a truckers’ road, lin
ed with gas stations, motels, dairy bars, diners. A nasty road, smelling of diesel and rubber.

  The woman’s name was Magda. And she was of French blood, not Indian. Magda was not old, but she carried herself as a very old and strong person might, with no fear of death and with a clear sense of her right to the earth and a disdain for the ugliness of belching machines and concrete.

  Magda lived in a small house about two miles off Route 6. There she worked at a loom, weaving wool gathered from the sheep she owned. Magda’s husband was dead, and she had no children. Only a cat named Louis.

  Dunh. Dunh. Duuunnh.

  Magda’s heart pounded as a tank truck roared by. Duuunnh. The horn hurt her ears, making her feel sick inside, stealing some of her strength.

  Four years before, Magda had found Louis at one of the gas stations on Route 6. She had been on her way home from her weekly trip to the grocery and had pulled in for a fill-up. As she’d stood inside the station in front of the cigarette machine, dropping in quarters, she’d felt warm fur against her leg and had given a start. Looking down, she’d seen an orange-and-white kitten. It had purred and meowed and pushed its nose into Magda’s shoes. Smiling, Magda had picked the kitten up. Then she had seen the horror.

  Half of the kitten’s tail was gone. What remained was bloody and scabbed, and the stump stuck straight out.

  Magda had carried the animal to one of the station attendants.

  “Whose kitten is this?” Her eyes drilled in the question. The attendant had shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody’s. Just a drop-off.” Magda had moved closer to him. “What happened to its tail?” she asked, the words slow and clear.

  “Got caught in the door. Stupid cat was under everybody’s feet—no wonder half its tail got whacked.”

  Magda could not believe such a thing.

  “And you offer it no help?” she had asked.

  “Not my cat,” he answered.

  Magda’s face had blazed as she’d turned and stalked out the door with the kitten.

  A veterinarian mended what was left of the kitten’s tail. And Magda named it Louis for her grandfather.