Free In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders

lead.

    WHEN
WE GOT to the Rectory, Father Terry said he was sorry for our loss,
and brought Merton out, and we watched a long time and Merton never
shuddered and his eyes remained dry, you know, normal.
    Looks
fine, I said.
    Is
fine, said Father Terry. Watch this: Merton, genuflect.
    And
Merton did this dog stretchy thing where he sort of like bowed.
    Could
be fine, said Uncle Matt. But also could be he's sick but just at an
early stage.
    We'll
have to be watchful, said Father Terry.
    Yes,
although, said Uncle Matt. Not knowing how it spreads and all, could
it be we're in a better-safe-than-sorry type of situation? I don't
know, I truly don't know. Ed, what do you think?
    And
I didn't know what I thought. In my mind I was all the time just
going over it and over it, the before, the after, like her stepping
up on that footstool to put that red bow in, saying these like lady
phrases to herself, such as Well Who Will Be There, Will There Be
Cakes?
    I
hope you are not suggesting putting down a perfectly healthy dog,
said Father Terry.
    And
Uncle Matt produced from his shirt pocket a red bow and said: Father,
do you have any idea what this is and where we found it?
    But
it was not the real bow, not Emily's bow, which I kept all the time
in my pocket, it was a pinker shade of red and was a little bigger
than the real bow, and I recognized it as having come from our
Karen's little box on her dresser.
    No
I do not know what that is, said Father Terry. A hair bow?
    I
for one am never going to forget that night, said Uncle Matt. What we
all felt. I for one am going to work to make sure that no one ever
again has to endure what we had to endure that night.
    I
have no disagreement with that at all, said Father Terry.
    It
is true you don't know what this is, Uncle Matt said, and put the bow
back in his pocket. You really really have no experience whatsoever
of what this is.
    Ed,
Father Terry said to me. Killing a perfectly healthy dog has nothing
to do with—
    Possibly
healthy but possibly not, said Uncle Matt. Was Cookie bitten? Cookie
was not. Was Cookie infected? Yes she was. How was Cookie infected?
We do not know. And there is your dog, who interacted with Cookie in
exactly the same way that Cookie interacted with the known infected
animal, namely through being in close physical proximity.
    It
was funny about Uncle Matt, I mean funny as in great, admirable, this
sudden stepping up to the plate, because previously—I mean,
yes, he of course loved the kids, but had never been particularly—I
mean he rarely even spoke to them, least of all to Emily, her being
the youngest. Mostly he just went very quietly around the house,
especially since January when he'd lost his job, avoiding the kids
really, a little ashamed almost, as if knowing that, when they grew
up, they would never be the out-of-work slinking-around uncle, but
instead would be the owners of the house where the out-of-work
slinking uncle etc., etc.
    But
losing her had, I suppose, made him realize for the first time how
much he loved her, and this sudden strength—focus, certainty,
whatever—was a comfort, because tell the truth I was not doing
well at all—I had always loved autumn and now it was full
autumn and you could smell woodsmoke and fallen apples but all of the
world, to me, was just, you know, flat.
    It
is like your kid is this vessel that contains everything good. They
look up at you so loving, trusting you to take care of them, and then
one night—what gets me, what I can't get over, is that while
she was being—while what happened was happening, I was—I
had sort of snuck away downstairs to check my e-mail, see, so that
while—while what happened was happening, out there in the
schoolyard, a few hundred yards away, I was sitting there
typing—typing!—which, okay, there is no sin in that,
there was no way I could have known, and yet—do you see what I
mean? Had I simply risen from my computer and walked upstairs and
gone outside and for some reason,