Invisible

Invisible

By Doris Booth

The woman’s voice on the phone was soft, almost apologetic. “Yes, I have only one left. All her siblings have found homes, but…well, I just don’t think she is the right fit for everyone. You might not want her.”

“Why?” I asked, my voice filling with apprehension.

“She is terribly shy. Terrified, really. She needs a quiet home, no children, certainly no other dogs,” the lady said.

“I have neither.” The words fell flat, a stark admission of my solitude. 

I didn’t offer details - not the estrangement of my son these past two decades, nor my husband ‘s month-long trip to see his daughter. No dogs, he had insisted.

My ears rang from the silence in the house. When my spouse was home, I could see the glow of his computer screen through the nearly-shut office door—a silent sentinel. Photos in my bedroom of smiling faces whispered reminders of a life no longer possessed. I was the invisible one, the one whose needs went unseen.

I needed a protector. A new chance. A beating heart to break the silence.  Maybe a dog would bark with excitement and ward off outside evils, and snuggle warmly against my body at night. I spent hours on canine sites eager to find the right companion. Then I heard about the foster mom.

“Can I see her?“ I asked the woman on the phone. 

 “The shelter said no one will adopt her. She is scheduled for euthanasia. But I thought I’d give her one more chance,” the woman said. “I can’t keep her any longer. I have other dogs to foster. She is very little trouble. She doesn’t play or chew things. She doesn’t even bark.”

A dog that doesn’t bark and play? Wasn’t that part of why I wanted one? The woman texted me her picture while we talked. I looked into the dog’s big velvet brown eyes and took a deep breath. “I would still like to see her,”I said.

 “I can bring her by this afternoon. And you can decide.”

That afternoon, the pitiful creature arrived, trembling and straining to break free from her leash, flinching at a slightly raised hand. In the wild, she might have been mistaken for a teenage deer on graceful stilted legs. Now her body convulsed against the unfamiliar room. 

“Her name is Diana,” the foster mom said. “Give her a few days to get used to you,” she added, leaving a blue fleece- covered pillow and aluminum bowl with me.

I hadn’t had a dog since childhood. My beloved Tippie wasn’t mine alone. She belonged to the whole family. She wasn’t allowed inside the house-proper, but on cold nights, I sneaked onto a small utility porch and covered her with my robe to keep her warm. When the lump on the side of her head grew, my dad gently took her away and I never saw her again.

Now, Diana slipped her collar and ran under my desk, curling into a tight ball. If people couldn’t see her, perhaps they wouldn’t hurt her anymore. Her eyes looked up at me, pleading that I leave her alone.

She seemed to want to be invisible. If she could talk, she might say, “No more pain, please.” She shied away from any touch. She flinched when I touched her left leg, bent crooked, perhaps by unsupervised children or an adult. I tried to rub her head, but she jerked away. I imagined she was saying, “No, don’t touch my face. It is still sore from the blows I took. And please talk softly. I cannot stand to hear the woman cry again. Leave me in this dark hole where no one can see me. You won’t even know I am here, I promise.”

I crouched down under the desk and embraced her shaking body, pressing her against my chest. “It’s ok now,” I whispered.”I gotcha.”

No it wasn’t. For weeks she hid from view anywhere she could, under the desk, or the vanity, or in the bathroom. I didn’t have the heart to let her go back to the woman, so I kept trying. I knew that feeling. The urge to disappear, to become invisible. Hadn’t I been doing the same for years? My father taught me that dogs have feelings too, if you pay close attention to what they are trying to tell you. Day after day I talked to her gently, stroked her soft fur. 

One day, I invited her up on my bed. She refused. She had never had permission, didn’t want to lie in the open where she could be exposed. In a past life, she was probably safer in that cage where she spent her long, lonely days. There between the bars she could read the flickering lights through a nearby window as cars came and went, or the shadow on the walls of approaching humans. Even now, if someone walks near her cage, with an unlatched open door, she cringes. The shadows tell her to stay still and quiet, out of the way of humans.  Invisible. 

When she wouldn’t drink water, I wet my fingers and held them to her to lick. Her bowl of kibble sat uneaten for days. Then one afternoon as I was having lunch in the kitchen, she started nibbling. A few bites today, a little more tomorrow.

Maybe if she could feel my warmth, she’d feel less fear. I pulled her from the desk, and hoisted all 38 pounds of her upon my bed. She reluctantly lay on a pillow while I watched TV, but the sounds of fighting and crying on the television made her jump to her feet, muscles tensed.

“It’s just the TV, Diana,” I said pointing to the screen and rubbing her cheek. She finally understood the sounds were not real. She relaxed and  curled in a half circle, resting her back against my side.

I began watching her eyes to signal me if she needed to pee. “Do you want to pee,” I’d say. Her eyes would dart toward the door if she needed to go. When I asked if she wanted dinner, her tail wagged rapidly.Yes, please. We had developed a private language only the two of us understand.

She began sleeping beside me every night. Remarkably, every time I deeply sighed, she sighed with me. 

She does not play with toys like a normal dog. If no one watches us, she spins in a few playful circles— only for my eyes. She stretches her front paws on the floor and hikes her butt in the air, for me to give her a friendly pat. I tell her, “Yes, I see you, baby girl.” And I laugh. 

Now she has learned my every move. When I leave my place on the sofa, she fills it until I return, then politely moves for me to resume my place as mother dog. If my voice turns harsh to someone on the phone, I see empathy in her eyes. When I limp from recent knee surgery, she limps too. As I make the bed in the mornings, she helps, nibbling the corners of the mattress and running her body against the edges to smooth out the bedding. She seems  to sense when I need help or support.

Weeks after all my efforts, something extraordinary happened. I was in the shower and Diana began pacing back and forth outside the shower door as she had begun doing. It occurred to me that she was patrolling for her master, like her ancestral farm dogs were trained to do. 

While I soaped up under a stream of water, she barked. I jumped and nearly hit my head. Her silent voice, the voice I had never heard, escaped in a continuous string of defiant noise. I hurried out of the shower, dripping wet. Diana stationed her body in front of me,  daring my husband to take another step. 

“She’s guarding you.” He smiled as he stepped back. Her voice reverberated.

I laughed aloud at her courage to release her voice, to be heard and respected. Her need to protect me triumphed over fear of annihilation.  Yes, I saved her life. But she saved mine, filling a hollow place inside that only genuine love can fill.

She exists. She doesn’t hide anymore, as long as she is within my presence.  

“Does this mean you are keeping her,” my husband asked. I had caught him sneaking a treat to her and talking softly. When she cautiously plucked the gift from his hand and hurried away, I saw him grin for the first time in a long while.

“You mean you don’t mind? I asked.

“You seem different with her. She likes you.” He looked down at his shoes, then back at me, his face still seeking an answer.

“Yes, forever,” I said.

“Forever, then,” he smiled.

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