Free Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein Page B

singing whenever she spoke. And who didn’t like dogs, though I had no objection to her whatsoever. Immediately, the nurse started fretting about me. To my dismay, Maxwell agreed and Denny didn’t notice, so I was shoved outside into the backyard; thankfully, Zoë came to my rescue.
    â€œMommy’s coming!” Zoë told me. She was very excited and wore the plaid dress that she liked because it was so pretty. I felt her excitement, too, so I joined in with it. I embraced the festivity, a real homecoming. Zoë and I played; she threw a ball for me and I did tricks for her, and we rolled together in the grass. It was a wonderful day, the family all together again. It felt very special.
    â€œShe’s here!” Denny called from the back door, and Zoë and I rushed to see; this time I was allowed inside. Eve’s mother entered the house first, followed by a man in blue slacks and a yellow shirt with a logo on it. He wheeled in a white figure with dead eyes, a mannequin in slippers. Maxwell and Denny lifted the figure and placed it in the bed. The nurse tucked it in and Zoë said, “Hi, Mommy,” and all this happened before it even entered my mind that this strange figure was not a dummy, not a mock-up used for practice, but Eve.
    Her head was covered with a stocking cap. Her cheeks were sunken, her skin, sallow. She lifted her head and looked around. “I feel like a Christmas tree,” she said. “In the living room, everyone standing around me expecting something. I don’t have any presents.” Uncomfortable chuckles from the onlookers.
    And then she looked at me directly. “Enzo,” she said. “Come here.” I wagged my tail and approached cautiously. I hadn’t seen her since she went into the hospital, and I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. It seemed to me the hospital had made her much sicker than she really was.
    â€œHe doesn’t know what to think,” Denny said for me.
    â€œIt’s okay, Enzo,” she said.
    She dangled her hand off the side of the bed, and I bumped it with my nose. I didn’t like any of this, all the new furniture, Eve looking limp and sad, people standing around like Christmas without the presents. None of it seemed right. So even though everyone was staring at me, I shuffled over to Zoë and stood behind her, looking out the windows into the backyard, which was dappled with sunlight.
    â€œI think I’ve offended him by being sick,” she said.
    That was not what I meant at all. My feelings were so complicated, I have difficulty explaining them clearly even today, after I have lived through it and had time to think about it. All I could do was move to her bedside and lie down before her like a rug.
    â€œI don’t like seeing me like this either,” she said.
    The afternoon went on forever. Finally the dinner hour came, and Maxwell, Trish, and Denny poured themselves cocktails and the mood lifted greatly. An old photo album of Eve as a child was taken out from hiding and everyone laughed while the smell of garlic and oil floated from the kitchen, where Trish cooked the food. Eve showered with the help of the nurse. When she emerged from the bathroom in one of her own dresses and not the hospital gown and robe, she looked almost normal. Except there was a darkness behind her eyes, a look like she had given up. She tried to read Zoë a book, but she said she couldn’t focus well enough, so Zoë tried her best to read to Eve, and her best was fairly good. I wandered into the kitchen, where Denny was again talking with Trish and Maxwell.
    â€œWe really think Zoë should stay with us,” Maxwell said, “until . . .”
    â€œUntil . . . ,” Trish echoed, standing at the stove with her back to us.
    So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is made of looks and gestures. Trish’s robotic repeating of the single word “ until ”