A Little Nudge

The morning sunlight slanted in the window like sharp blades slicing into Vanessa’s eyelids, forcing her to wake up. Her head throbbed. The irony of quarantine – the only thing you could do is stay at home and somehow, she still couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. Last night she had been worried about her grandmother who she was unable to visit and who she worried might be bored to tears. And then she had wondered if she should visit her as soon as quarantined lifted or if that might be putting her at risk. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Round and round her thoughts had gone until finally exhaustion had put her out of her misery.

She forced herself out of bed and went through her morning routine, motivated by the promise of coffee at the end of this particular tunnel and thankful that she had set the timer on the coffee machine before going to bed last night. The smell drew her to the kitchen. Before pouring herself a cup, she unlatched the baby gate which quarantined Skylar in the laundry room at night, and her exuberant yellow lab, jumped up to give her a sloppy kiss.

Vanessa pushed her down to focus on fixing her coffee but smiled at the puppy’s exuberance and felt gratitude for her love. Without Skylar she would feel very alone. Her family kept in touch with Facetime and work had frequent Zoom meetings, but it wasn’t the same as face to face interactions. And school - she didn’t know how to reach her students. She didn’t know if they were hearing her, if they understood without being able to look them in the eyes and see their body language.

Vanessa carried her coffee to the kitchen table, which was also serving as her office and opened her laptop. She logged into her email, but before she could read any of the messages awaiting her attention, Skylar nudged her with her muzzle and whined plaintively.

“You’re right, I forgot to feed you,” Vanessa said, patting her head and rising. She went into the laundry room and filled her food bowl before taking the water bowl to the sink and rinsing and refilling it.

With Skylar engrossed in her morning meal, Vanessa returned to her email, but had barely finished reading her first message before Skylar’s head was in her lap. She stroked her absentmindedly and replied to the first message, typing slowly with her free hand. After replying to her new messages, she got up and poured herself some cereal and returned to the table to check the learning management platform to see what her students had accomplished since last evening. As she sat down, Skylar rolled over, proffering her belly. Vanessa laughed and pet her for a minute or two before checking out the work her night owl high school students had submitted since she had logged off last night.

Next, she turned her attention to the assignments she had created for today and checked to make sure they had published at midnight as she had set them to.  They had. Phew. Yesterday she had forgotten to change a setting and although they had published on time, students had not been able to submit to them, but no one had bothered pointing this out to her until the day was half over! Fortunately, it looked like all but one student had gotten it done on time and that one hadn’t signed in to her class since quarantine started. Vanessa worried about her – she had a baby at home. She wished she could do more for Sofia, but if she needed to focus her attention on her home life rather than school right now, Vanessa figured being understanding was more important than pushing her to do her school work. She just hoped that Sofia and her baby were safe and well. As if she sensed this, Skylar nudged her gently. Vanessa pat her, grateful for the dog’s intuition and love. She hoped Sofia felt loved too. She stared worriedly at the computer screen which noted her last log in two weeks ago. Her concerns about the girl were interrupted by Skylar running to the window and barking. Vanessa jumped, and looked at what had caught the lab’s attention. At first she saw nothing, then she noticed a bunny in the grass outside their window.

“Silly puppy, you knew about that bunny, you sniffed her nest out yesterday and nearly knocked me off my feet in your enthusiasm to try to dig up her babies. Now settle down. That mama is just trying to take care of her little ones and I have to do my video for tomorrow’s class,” Vanessa said. Skylar gave one last halfhearted huff in the bunny’s direction and then lay down.

Vanessa opened the tab for her tenth grade class and then clicked on Screencastify and began explaining the lesson. She was wrapping it up when Skylar jumped up, her front two paws on the table and leash in her mouth, nudging Vanessa impatiently. Vanessa pushed her down, but Skylar bounded back up and so Vanessa quickly wrapped up her video.

“Skylar!” Vanessa scolded, “you aren’t supposed to be in my videos! I’m sure the kids will think you are adorable, but they are supposed to be reading and discussing “The Yellow Wallpaper,” not how cute you are! And I know you want to go for a walk, but can you wait until I do my videos for all of my classes?”

Skylar just continued to stare at her hopefully. Vanessa ignored her and started her next video, but she didn’t get far before Skylar’s muzzle snuck between her and the table and rested on the keyboard. She pushed her head off, but Skylar had hit some weird combination of keys and now Vanessa wasn’t sure what the program was doing. She decided to shut it down, take Skylar for her walk, and clear her head. Technically her lunch break wasn’t for another hour, but as she had been on her laptop nearly the entire time she had been conscious for days, she figured she could justify this early break.

They walked their normal route, a little over a mile around their neighborhood. It never ceased to amaze Vanessa how few people they saw. Even though everyone was home, no one came out. She had seen one or two people venture to mailboxes to get mail or sprint the short distance from their car to their door, but she had seen more of her neighbors on her 5am walks back when school was in session than she did now. She thought of a lot of the kindly elderly people she would encounter on those walks and hoped they were well.

Vanessa had thought one of the perks of quarantine would be getting outside more to enjoy the spring weather – her classroom didn’t have any windows and so she would often come in while it was still dark and leave after the sun had set, so she appreciated any sunlight she saw. However, even though it was spring, these days were still the cold gray of winter and few cheerful colors were to be found aside from the occasional tulips or daffodils planted around mailboxes. Still, Skylar’s enthusiasm knew no bounds as she eagerly pulled Vanessa up and down the streets, sniffing everything she encountered as if the world had been reborn in their absence.

Too soon their completed their route and returned to the kitchen table that had come to symbolize Vanessa’s whole world, or at least her connection to it. Vanessa powered through her videos for her other classes while Skylar basked in a ray of sunshine on the floor. With that completed, she sat on the floor next to Skylar who turned her big brown eyes up to her and offered her belly. “Do you know how much I hate making those videos? I look ridiculous. And the background – I wish I had a greenscreen, or that I could set my background like you can with Zoom. But at least Screencastify lets you focus on the webpage, so there is just a tiny video of me in the corner. Maybe that way they won’t see the circles under my eyes or that I am not bothering to do my makeup.” Skylar rubbed her ear against Vanessa’s leg. Vanessa laughed and scratched the itch.

“Thank goodness for you. You can’t accuse me of talking to myself-  I am talking to you.”

After a little, Vanessa extricated herself and retrieved a can of soup from the pantry. As she waited for it to warm in the microwave, she thought about the videos, trying to figure out if there was a way to improve them. She had noticed a number of her students did not seem to be watching them as they would claim ignorance of directions or assignments she explained in the videos. Frustration flared in her chest. She spent so much time making these videos and the students couldn’t even be bothered to watch them!

Her anger was interrupted by the persistent beeping of the microwave. Vanessa retrieved the bowl, muttering a curse as she burnt her fingers, but thankfully managing not to drop the bowl or spill the soup.

Tucking a leg under her, she returned to her laptop and began looking over quizzes the students had completed yesterday and grading their essay responses analyzing the narrator’s insanity, offering possible diagnoses, and examining its origins. Vanessa was impressed by the handful who caught on to the idea of postpartum depression and wondered idly if they had come to this on their own or if they had googled the story. Either way they had demonstrated more effort than her typical student. Between the essays and emails from students and their parents, the day slipped away. Skylar demanded attention a few times, sometimes for pets, sometimes by barking at anything living that crossed their field of vision, but it was after 4 when she brought her tug-of-war toy over and refused to leave until Vanessa got up.

Vanessa grabbed her end of the rope and pulled. Skylar’s first tug pulled her off-balance. Vanessa looked at the puppy who had been so tiny when she brought her home at the beginning of last summer and realized how much she had grown. If she got much bigger, Vanessa wouldn’t stand a chance. As it was, she staggered her feet, set her weight and pulled back. It was a pretty even match and they played until Skylar grew bored and stood by the door.

“Time for our afternoon walk,” Vanessa acknowledged. As they walked, Vanessa was pleased to see it had gotten warmer out and the gray sky now had patches of blue intermingled. From a  distance they waved to a neighbor or two. Returning home, Vanessa made them each dinner. She sat down again in front of the laptop, but Skylar whined and jumped up on the sofa. Vanessa had been training her not to do that and got up with the original intention of scolding her, but something on the puppy’s face changed her mind and instead she closed the laptop and carried her meal into the living room, settling onto the sofa with Skylar. After listening to the news for a few minutes and determining they were not saying anything new or different, she put on her favorite movie.

The next morning she woke up on the sofa, entangled with Skylar in one warm heap. With the sunlight illuminating the room, she worried momentarily that she had overslept and hurried over the laptop to log on and start her day. When it turned on she was relieved to see that she had not failed in her duty. But she decided to check her email before going to get a shower and get dressed. To her surprise, she had an email from Sofia. It had arrived shortly after 1 am.

“Miss Moyer,

Angela told me I had to watch your video today. She said your puppy showed up. I always liked the stories you told about her. She seems just like my Isabella, always demanding attention. I hope you and the puppy are good. I am sorry I have not been doing my work. I’ve had to get a job to help out more and Izzy takes up the rest of my time, but we are getting by. I hope you are too. Please give that puppy a pat from me,

Sofia”

Vanessa sat for a long moment, thinking about Sofia. Hearing from her seemed almost like a miracle. And she was glad that Sofia was okay, but she wished there were more she could do. Ideas began to swirl around in Vanessa’s head. First of all, Skylar would be making more appearances in her videos. On cue, Skylar’s head settled into her lap. Vanessa smiled. They had managed to reach Sofia, now she just needed to figure out how best to help her.

“But you are going to help me with that, right?” Vanessa said, scratching Skylar’s neck, finding comfort and insight in her calm, confident eyes.