15
July 2003
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It occurred to me today that there is at least one living creature on this planet that truly knows all my secrets – Montego. For the past five years she’s seen it all: every fight, every love, every quiet night crying alone, pints of Ben & Jerry’s on the purple couch, dancing around in my underwear. She’s my silent witness. And sometimes when she looks at me a certain way I get the nagging feeling that she’s judging me. Tego and I have a strange relationship. All at once she’s jealous and aloof, dependent and independent, the leader and the submissive. (She’s also a great indicator of the terror my loins would’ve produced had I had a baby at 22.) She’s not as well-trained as she should be, she doesn’t listen as well as she should, she follows her own rules and desires. But she’s also loving and sweet, outgoing and energetic and knows that even if she gives strangers more attention than she gives me, I will always be the one loving her the most. When it’s time to go to sleep she’ll scoot under my bed playing her own games or perhaps plotting my demise, I don’t know, but eventually she’ll hop up and try to cuddle with me. She doesn’t like it if I move the covers or try to stretch my legs out into her spot. She’ll growl and let me know she’s Serious, but I just laugh and nudge her with my foot or pull the comforter anyway. Then she’ll pounce like she’s going for it, only to lick me and nudge herself under my chin. “Well, I was going to bite you but maybe I’ll just lay her instead and let you pet me.” My dog’s an odd bird, one that will never be able to live anywhere but with me. (Or perhaps with her Grammy who takes her on a million walks a day.) I worry sometimes what she’ll be like when a man moves permanently into our lives, or what will happen when there’s a baby. Will she be jealous and demand my full attention or will she simply shift her affections toward the person who gives her the most food? I sometimes worry that I don’t take good enough care of her. That I’m not home enough, that I travel too much, that she doesn’t get to play with other dogs often enough. It’s a silly worry, to wonder if your dog is happy. She’s just an animal, right? But of course, like all of them are to their people, she’s more. She’s the secret keeper, the friend, the shoulder I cry on. On my fifth birthday my favorite babysitter, Marcy, gave me a stuffed dog that I named Spot. (He was white with brown ears and, wait for it, brown spots.) I took him everywhere and one summer I forgot sweet Spot in Houston when we went to Ohio for our annual weeks-long vacation. My dad would drop us off at my maternal grandparents’ and then he’d come back the following weekend. I was miserable during the interim, missing my father and my stuffed dog. But when he flew back to Greenfield he had packed a surprise. I vividly remember him standing in the foyer of my MeMe and PaPa’s house and pulling Spot out of his suitcase. I couldn’t contain my joy. I grabbed the stuffed animal and hugged my daddy and I knew that no matter where I went as long as I had Spot that I would be happy. He was my security blanket and the night my dad announced that he was moving out it was Spot who absorbed my tears. Now that I’m all grown-up, Spot’s come alive in the form of a shaggy, black mutt who growls and barks and could live on peanut butter alone, but who keeps a quiet stewardship by my side. No matter where I go, the different apartments, houses and even cities, as long as I have Montego, I know I will be happy.
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