The Dog Harlan Left Behind

Harlan lay on the concrete by the cart. His cap had rolled a few feet away. He looked as if he had sat down to rest, and the rest had been long.

And Chief was lying against him.

The dog had put himself along my husband’s side, with his chin on Harlan’s chest. When I came in, he lifted his eyes to me and did not get up. He did not bark. He did not whine. He only looked at me, as if to say, I have been here. I did not leave him.

I got down on the concrete beside them, in my good wool coat, and I put one hand on Harlan’s face and the other on Chief. I do not remember a thing I said. I remember that the dog was warm.

I called Gene Kasten before I called anyone, because he was the closest. He was there in six minutes. Gene wept in the doorway like the boy I remembered him being.

The funeral was the Monday after, at the Methodist church, and I was proud of my son that day. I want to say that plainly, because of what comes later. He held up the whole family for a week. He sat with me at the bank and the funeral home, and he ordered twelve copies of the death certificate before I knew we would need twelve.

And then everyone went home. That is how it goes with a farm widow. The casseroles come for three weeks, the cards for four, and then there is a Tuesday in November when the house is so quiet you can hear the refrigerator thinking.

I did not get dressed that first month, except for Chief. I would wake at six in a bed that had become the size of a pasture, and lie there with my eyes open and no reason in the world to move.

And then the dog would stand up.

He slept on the braided rug on Harlan’s side of the bed. When he stood, his nails clicked on the floorboards, and he would put his nose on the edge of the mattress and breathe on my hand.

So I got up. For him, not for me. I will say that in church and I will say it to anyone.

And at four o’clock, every afternoon, the old rhythm came into the house. Chief would lift his head, wherever he was lying. Slowly, because of his hips, he would get up and go to the back door and wait.

The first time I understood what he was doing, I sat down on the kitchen floor and cried.

He was going to the machine shed. He was going to wait for quitting time.

I followed him out that day in my slippers. He lay down at the shed door, in the exact spot he had lain for thirteen years, with his nose pointed at the lane. I fetched a five-gallon bucket from the corner, turned it over, and sat down beside him.

We did that every afternoon after. I took a thermos of coffee and Harlan’s old wool blanket. We sat at the shed door from four until the light went gray, and neither of us expected anyone to come out. We only kept the hour.

It was not Harlan I was holding on to, you see. It was the hour. It was a reason to put on my coat and go outside and sit in the quiet with a creature who knew exactly what the quiet was.