Was the Baby Crying?

October 12, 2017: Jake and Zeke are walking together in front of us, I admire the muscles and sleek black and white coats of my boys as we move along the curving gravel from the barn back up to my long low bungalow tucked warm into the slope. The crunch of the gravel under my boots, the hard blue of Alberta sky, our faint breath in the air, the comforting heaviness of my coat, the earthy old apple smell of fall and my beloved Verity in my arms, it all makes me heady with gratitude. I smile, looking at the dogs, and feel my heart bloom warmth through my chest. My boys, my sweetie boys, as I call the two-year-old brothers, make life here possible. In my sixties now and on my own, I couldn’t live out here in Speargrass without them. My companions. My fur babies. My protectors. I am unaware in this moment of the stoking of an unquenchable fire inside them that will, moments from now, blast across my beloved homestead and raze my world.

It was my first book, titled Speargrass, that bought me this expanse of wild prairie. I turned over the majority of the section (six hundred acres) to The Nature Conservancy, to protect forever this windswept home to burrowing owl and black footed ferret and swift fox. I built my house and barn to conform to the swell of the land in this spot, to tuck against the slope and allow the ever-present wind to flow over them as wind streams up and over the hood of a Jaguar in a wind tunnel.

I like the wind, the air alive. I like the rough unforgiving nature of this place, the hard scrabble of it, the scraggly tumbleweed, the cacti and the tall queenly bluebells bowing their blossoms to the ground in an effort to save their heads.

Landscape as seascape; sliver of flattened land like an eternally calmed sea pressed smooth by the heavy sky. It is an honest place, showing itself with the nakedness of the bleached antelope skeleton forever curled in sleep atop the slope behind my house. Crocuses surround her in spring, trembling in the wind, caressing her face and legs and ribs with their velvet blossoms. Her horns are curled in so close that they form a heart. You can see that heart against the sky from the gate at the drive. I knew I would build my house below her, so she could guard over all who travelled here.

A sliver of wild grassland prairie remains in Canada. Ninety-five percent has been broken under the plow to fill the gaping hungry mouths of the homo sapiens blanketing planet Earth. Wheat, oats, barley, soybean and canola fields, green and yellow squares, to the horizon and beyond.

People admire the ‘patchwork quilt’ appearance of the prairies from the air. It doesn’t make me smile. It makes me cry.

This quilt holds no place for the prong-horned antelope, allows no wild seed to blow across the land to sow the natural fabric of the place. Tens of millions of bison roared across this land for millennia, rumbling, ironically, like the steam trains that would later carry bison skulls and hides by the millions to the edge of oblivion.

I can see those lost herds in the storm clouds that boil through the infinite sky above, I can hear them in the thunders that boom unimpeded across the wild grasses. I am glad of my infinite horizon of grasses and wild flowers and cacti. There is no green and yellow quilt wrapping around my Speargrass, not even in the minus thirty-degree winters.

The only trees for a hundred klicks are found in my leafy oasis. I didn’t plant them. Prairie is not devoid of trees.

This morning a sheen of frost coats the gold leaves still clinging to the aspens, like the one in Verity’s tiny hand, the one she twirls by the stem. The one she will later press into her book about trees.

I push back the red maple leaf adorned toque threatening to slip over her blue eyes. I miss brushing her curly blonde hair out of her eyes.

“What kind of leaf is that?” I ask.

“Nana.” She says, as though I were a simpleton. “It’s an aspen leaf. It came right off the aspen tree. Didn’t you see?”

I laugh, “How did you get to be so smart?” She shrugs in my arms; her jacket makes a ‘sshh’ noise. I fall silent, revelling in the echoing ‘ssshhhhhh’ coming from the shimmering aspen leaves.

It is a long walk from the barn to the house and her leukemia means she can’t walk the round trip anymore. But there have been good doctor’s words this time. Ninety percent survival rate for her subtype of the disease. Ninety. Her labs are good. She is on the road to her future, it’s just that right now I have to carry her. I know soon she will walk it all by herself.

My nose is cold. Verity puts her gloved hand up to my nose and covers it. I laugh, “What are you doing?” She laughs too; she has the craziest staccato laugh. “Your nose is red.”

Verity is only four years old and is so light in my arms that I imagine if I tripped, she would float away, like a helium filled balloon, up into the crackling blue morning until I could not see her anymore. I hug her tighter. Later, I will wish I had kissed her, I will wish…I will wish…I will wish not to wish because wishing slices my heart into stinging wet ribbons.

Ahead of us, Jake and Zeke turn as one. For a second, I smile. But now they are in the air, their jaws open, their eyes black, low growls grind deep in their throats. They eclipse the world as they smash into us.

I grip Verity as hard as I can, but she is ripped away. Verity. Her name means ‘truth’.

***

“You cannot write this.” My younger sister stood behind me.

“It’s the truth.”

She snorted; Stephanie was younger than me at 63. It was an impossibly ancient number when we steered our rickety rafts down Policeman’s Creek in Canmore, Alberta, high on the Bow Valley plateau. During those dappled glittering summers there was only clear sailing ahead to the shiny future of flying cars and jet packs and hotels on the moon. We couldn’t wait. Star Trek with all its sleek optimism, was becoming real.

I slapped my laptop shut. “Why not?”

“Laura.”

“Stephanie.”

She blew out a stream of air that I felt on the back of my head. “Okay, so this is just a journal, right?” she said.

I blew out my own breath. I was too bloody tired for this. My voice was croaky, it always was now. I don’t believe my voice ever recovered from the screaming I did that day. “Why would I be writing a journal at my desk in the middle of the day with my nosy sister in the house?”

“Are you out of your — your –“

“Fucking, the word you’re reaching for is fu-“

“Don’t say it again.” She sat on the new neutral coloured wing chair, in the new neutral alcove off the neutral living room in the neutral Craftsman home I had built, in the engineered and planned neighbourhood in Calgary.

I had needed neutral back then, after selling Speargrass. Beige and taupe days in a beige and taupe place with vanilla music and Mary Tyler Moore.

Mary Tyler Moore’s show wasn’t beige, but it was safe. Nothing horrific happened at 119 North Weatherly. Rhoda and Phyllis were there in that big but cozy Victorian house. Loving neighbours steps away. Not miles and miles away. Not a wild place too far removed from help.

“You want some coffee?” she asked. I looked at her now, at her long wavy grey hair, her Bohemian chic style. I envied it. Miss Six Pack, Miss Ride My Bike Everywhere, Miss Former Belly Dancer.

She still danced. I had never danced. I only wrote. So damn serious. Every. Word.

She yawned then. I shivered and closed my eyes and for just a sec…

***

What, what, what, their mouths open, those teeth, those black eyes coming at us what, what, no, no, no, no, oh, my god, no no no no… I turn away from them, gripping Verity, they are in front of me, they are up, they jump as one, knocking me to the ground.

Noises bubbling screams gargling mangled noises guttural choking wet and above all a taught line of buzzing scream a wire a metal wire pulled tight a knife blade sliding over it the noise is me I think it’s me it’s me I am screaming, my mind is…she…she is under me I’m trying to shield her, I’m being torn, my skin is torn, blood is running, they’re so fucking strong no no no no I can’t help no “JAKE NO ZEKE NO STOP STOP NO NO NO STOP!!!”

My limbs are being pulled, my arms pulled a mouth is in my face slicing hot wet sting arm where’s my arm where’s my arm is pulled push push the mouth away push — it clamps down on my hand I — Verity Verity Verity protect her my baby my sweet my everything my hand my hands my hands are empty…

***

My hands were going numb, but I gripped the handle of the sign against the wind, determined to stand my ground, our ground, for these loving dogs, my babies, my everything.

‘Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit.’ I thought as the damn wind pushed harder, shoved me back a step like the opposition pushing back at the Calgary City Hall.

Breed Specific Legislation. BSL was an evil I had to fight against, for my Jake and my Zeke. Fear mongering, generalizing, misunderstanding, bad owners, dog fighting, abuse. These dogs had been tortured enough.

I knew my boys. They played with kids. They were good loving boys who looked into my eyes so trustingly and now they were being persecuted. Well, I wasn’t about to stand by and let that happen.

“Can’t say I’m surprised by the turnout.” she said, Mavis, my best friend. She clapped me on the shoulder in that Brit comradery way of hers, the way I imagined someone would slap your shoulder down in the shelters while London was being bombed, ‘Steady on, there, we’ll get through.”

She said those words then, ‘Steady on there, we’ll get through.’ She’s much larger than me, like a Budweiser horse compared to a pony. A fat pony. I’m fat. She’s tall and strong, tan coat, tan shoes, tan pants and blouse. No nonsense of colour.

“Steady on there, we’ll get through.”

***

“You will be crucified.” Stephanie put her hand on my shoulder.

I jumped but was grateful her touch broke my reverie. I stood up to banish the images and sounds of that day. The day I did the second stupidest thing of my life. I shook out my numb hands.

“When are you going to get your hands fixed?”

I walked into my pretty white kitchen and plugged in the kettle. And I thought, ‘I’m never getting my hands fixed, they betrayed me.’

***

Dirt in my face, my arms, my arms, my hands, empty, empty, empty, no no no no run the dogs wild animals who are they get up get up get up I’m running to the dust and the noise a staccato grunting and where where verity verity verity

I pound Zeke’s back push between them teeth black eyes red red red red red ver ver where what I look round behind them where is where is no no no no no nooooo between them the red lump between them not the deer shank no god no god god god god god where where get on top get on top of her it’s her it can’t be her it’s her it can’t be her get on top push them get them off I’m ripping and tearing I’m being torn and ripped I can’t get to I can’t get to her I can’t get to her I

***

“I — We cannot allow a few really bad owners to make these dogs pay with their lives. Why do so very few incidents lead to the banning of entire breeds? How is this possible? Do we blame every white person for every crime committed by a white person? No, of course not. It can be said that some of us blame all black people, or Muslim people, or Mexican people or whomever, for the crimes of the few. Some of us do that. Some of us are racists. And some of us are racist against these dogs because of a few who act out after years of abuse and torture. It is not right and we will not let breed specific legislation come to Calgary!”

I was surprised my voice didn’t shake. I’m not used to speaking to crowds. I felt a rush at the swell of applause and cheers. Okay, I’m a 65 year old rock star in the world of animal rights. I soaked in that little bit of recognition, smiling to myself as I looked down at the edge of the stage.

And then I saw her, the woman with the photograph, the mangled child. Her eyes met mine and the blood in my veins slowed like a sludge filled sluice, turned to concrete, hardened.

The sounds of the crowd, the city traffic, the birds, the wind in the trees meshed together in a buzz and then descended into silence. The sun on my face disappeared, my hair fell still as the wind died.

There were only her eyes, and then there were only the eyes of the little girl in the photo. The open dead eyes. And the word there. ‘Truth’.

***

Fucking liar.

She must have beat those dogs.

Bitch you should have looked after your dogs.

Fucking cunt probably tortured those dogs, kid’s lucky she’s dead.

You better not be bad mouthing the dogs bitch that was your fault.

Listen cunt we know where you live we better not see any more dogs there cause we will come for you you piece of shit.

Why is she being interviewed? She obviously abused her dogs for them to do this and you are just giving bad owners a platform to spread their hate against these beautiful souls. Shame on you!

She’s not even really crying — look at her trying to squeeze out some tears — she did something — she did something to that little girl and she used the dogs — somebody kill her please just fucking kill her already.

Where’s the mother? Why would she give her to this disgusting grandmother to look after? What was wrong with her? The whole lot of them should be fucking shot instead of those poor innocent dogs!

***

I look at my closed laptop. I haven’t been on social media for two years. I don’t miss it.

“I saw Julia yesterday.” Stephanie waits but I don’t have the right to ask about my daughter. I killed her. I killed her when I convinced her my dogs were safe. ‘Like Scooby Doo.’ I’d said, ‘A couple of Scooby Doos.’

“Laura.”

“I heard you.”

“She’s back teaching, but she changed to high school.”

Her words hang there. Of course, she changed to high school. How could she do otherwise? How could she have looked at the rows and rows of Grade One dewy faces and bright eager eyes? After she had seen Verity.

I told her not too look at her baby. The doctors told her not to look at her baby. She was sliding to the floor in the emergency room, nurses trying to hold her up and to stop her from looking behind that curtain.

Because once you looked behind that curtain. Once you saw the bowl of meat and sinew and bone that used to be your little girl’s head, the one you kissed at night, the one that lay on your shoulder, that snuggled under your neck, reduced to this….grotesquerie, the one eye left was huge, eyes are so big when they are out of the socket, I didn’t know they were that big. It was lying near the middle of…there is no face, no nose, no mouth, no chin, only a mushy deeply indented bowl of something that used to be your child’s face.

“What are we gonna do what are we gonna do what are we gonna do.” She grabbed the doctor’s lapels, “What are we gonna do what are we gonna do are you gonna operate operate you have to operate you have to operate get going get going!”

That was the last time I heard my daughter’s voice. Those words seem to still hang in the air as I move from room to room in my new home, I see them often, ‘what are we gonna do’, hanging white and elegant, like a beautiful ‘Welcome Home’ sign, sagging down in the middle, curled up at the edges, like a big smile. What are we gonna do?

Right now, I am going to pour my tea. I close my eyes against the steam rising to my face, warming it because these memories of horror turn my body and soul cold and so I am always cold now and everyone complains. Well, everyone nowadays means Stephanie. She’s the only one who has been in my new house. The only one still talking to me. The one who made sure I had company on Christmas Day. The sit down dinner for twenty plus was at my brother’s home, fifteen minutes and another lifetime away.

“I don’t know how you can drink tea when it’s so god dammed hot in here.” Stephanie opens the fridge and fans herself.

“Shut the door.”

“Put your air conditioning on.” She takes out the water jug, gets a glass and pours.

“Shut the damn door.”

“I AM.” She puts the jug back and swings the door with more force than necessary.

“Jesus.”

“Why do you always have to swear.”

“I’m sorry. Does it fucking bother you?”

She ‘tssks’ and downs most of her glass in one gulping noisy go.

“Jesus.”

She smacks the glass down on the table.

“Careful.”

“No. You be careful.”

We hadn’t talked for ten years before Verity died. We don’t talk about what drove us apart. Family should not work with family. A book came between us. A stupid book. A stupid book that was not finished because we would have killed each other before it was done.

Stephanie and I are both writers. She is much more successful meaning wealthy and famous. Stephanie attends conventions where thousands of people swoon to hear her speak about her series of romance crime books.

I can’t stand her books. There is no truth in them. They are spun fool’s gold designed to distract the masses and the masses are distracted by them like crows catching something twinkly out of the corner of an eye.

“You are not going to write that.”

“It’s the truth.”

She sucks in a hissing breath. “The truth is not…the truth does not always need to be spoken. Nobody wants to relive this again, especially not Julie, and not me and…nobody. Have you, have you talked to Mavis about this?”

“I haven’t talked to Mavis since.”

“Why not?” I look up at her then, her eyes are full of sudden rare compassion, “She was your best friend.”

“Our friendship was built on a lie.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It was. And she was bossy and she had no sense of humour.”

She gives me a look then, “Really?”

“Jesus Christ, Stephanie, I have a sense of humour but I’m — “

“I know. Sorry.” She sighs, It’s a long road back.”

“There is no road back.” Of this I am certain.

“There is.”

“There’s only a road to another place that might not be quite as dark, maybe the shadows will recede a bit there, but they’ll never go.”

“I loved her too.” Tears in her eyes. I wonder about their sincerity.

“You saw her what, five times in her life?”

“Laura!”

“You’ve been flitting round the globe, okay? It’s not the same, Stephanie, I saw her every day. Every. Day. She was part of my life every -“

My voice chokes out, I stand, my knees buckle, I sit. My heart pounds. “Why did you come here today?”

“To see you, to see if you’re…how you’re getting…have you seen someone?”

“I’ve seen several. I know the drills.”

“You’ve had PTSD, is it…resolved?”

I laugh, “Nothing is ever going to be resolved.”

Her face turns red, “I know that. Of course, I know that, do you think I’m an imbecile?”

“Oh, God, Stephanie, just go. Just go please.”

Her jaw sets, I can hear her teeth grinding, she relaxes her jaw enough to say, “Are you going to publish Verity’s story?”

“Yes.”

Her hands pound the table, “Goddammit Laura! Then you deserve the pile of shit that is going to land on your head. Do you know how old you are? Do you really think you’re ready for this? Do you?”

“Do you think I really give a good goddamned about anything at this point? Do you understand what happened that day? Do you really?” She opened her mouth, “Shut up, you don’t. You don’t. You weren’t there. You didn’t hear her screaming, you didn’t see her, you didn’t see what was left of her, you don’t know, you have no idea none not a clue so just shut the fuck up about it.”

She stands up, knuckles on the table, voice a growl, “You deserve the cluster fuck that is about to become your life, but I don’t.”

My breath hitches, stops, as white-hot spears of rage fill me. “THERE it is. THAT’S the issue right there isn’t it, oh, the crowds aren’t going to love you anymore because now you’re an animal hater just like your sister, you’d like to see those dogs all dead because you’re a cunt now because your sister is a cunt and that’s your big problem, that’s why you came here, isn’t it, to protect your precious famous name and business, what are you selling now tote bags and perfume with your character’s name, oh what is that whiny character-“

She throws the water glass into the sink, smashing it. “You selfish bitch!”

She leans down into my face, “You have no family left. You understand that. None. You killed Verity with your stupid dogs. And now you’re going to keep her gruesome horrible death going and going and going and nobody wants it Laura! NOBODY! Nobody wants to hear it! Nobody wants to hear it! NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR IT!”

“It’s the truth.”

“FUCK THE TRUTH!”

***

And there’s Mavis. She’s being interviewed on my television. She is in my new house for the first time.

My television is always murmuring in the background. I used to love music, but I can’t take the emotion anymore. Happy songs remind me of Verity and then of her death, sad songs are always about her death.

I turn up the volume and sit on the ottoman close to the screen. She looks older, she does, her grey is…do I care? I don’t.

Mavis is saying, “We were devastated to learn of Laura’s loss, of course we were. She was her life, that little girl. Laura lost her life.”

“What do you suppose she did wrong?” the ubiquitous perky blonde asks.

“Well, I would have to ask one question: Was the baby crying?”

Perky blonde blinks at her, “Why would the baby crying have mattered?”

Mavis looks annoyed. “Because dogs can be upset by a child crying and perhaps the upset triggered violence for some reason.”

“But these dogs are advertised as great family dogs, even being called ‘nanny dogs’ which was actually based on an advertisement by a dog breeder in England and is not the truth.” I am looking at Perky with more respect now.

“My dear, I have worked with dogs for forty plus years and I can tell you I have never ever had a single problem with a particular dog of any breed. Chihuahua’s however are the most nippy little beasts, they are like small men with a Napoleon complex..”

“A chihuahua bite is not going to kill a child. Or an adult.”

“Laura was not that experienced with dogs and some dogs do require a more seasoned owner. I am sorry for what happened to her little granddaughter, of course it was horrifying, devastating, but even in this case I don’t believe the dogs should have been shot.”

***

Run run run the house closer closer in the back door the back door, it’s loaded, I keep it loaded, locked up but loaded, open open I am still screaming I can’t stop screaming I have it run run run

Down the lane the noises god the noises I try to yell nothing will come out no sound run run run I am almost there I have to be sure I am on top of them on now they are still attacking no no no no on Zeke I press the rifle to his side and fire it blows him back I turn and push the barrel into Jake’s side and fire he is blown back they aren’t getting up verity verity verity no no no no

***

“Wait, they killed a child and-“

“In the hands of an experienced owner, ideally on a more isolated property, those two dogs, who were two of the sweetest loving dogs you could ever meet, could have lived to a ripe old age with no further incidents. They were lovely dogs, they greeted everyone with a wagging tail and usually a ball in their mouth for you to throw. “

“So, if you have these loving, sweet dogs of these breeds how can you tell which ones might suddenly turn?”

Mavis gives her the patronizing look I’ve seen too many times. “My dear, the chances of that happening are miniscule.”

“It’s happened hundreds of times. Hundreds of children and adults killed.”

“Mostly because animals were abused or neglected or—“

“Or there was a baby crying?”

“Yes.”

“Great family dogs but if a baby is crying they might attack and kill the baby?”

“Media are always twisting words about to get an agenda across.”

“Your agenda against BSL is that all dogs are equally dangerous.”

“And equally loving.”

“A chihuahua cannot kill a child or an adult. And, you said Laura’s dogs were the sweetest dogs you could ever meet. So how is anyone to tell what might set the dogs off? Which ones will or won’t be set off, there is no marking that can tell you. No little black spot above an eye. So how can you deem them safe?”

“My dear, all dogs are safe if taken as individuals and treated with love and respect.”

“Did Laura treat her dogs with love and respect?”

Mavis hesitated then, I leaned closer to the TV, stopped breathing.

The interviewer is not slow to step into the gap. “You helped her train her dogs.”

“I did, yes. The basics. And they were quick learners.”

“Obedient.”

“Yes, obedient.”

“There are many photos of them with Verity. With Verity cuddling them, sleeping on them, with the dogs licking her face. So, what happened?”

Mavis’ jaw set and then her mouth twisted a bit, “Laura loved her dogs, I thought, but honestly which of us knows what goes on behind closed doors?”

“By all accounts the dogs doted on her.”

“Dogs will dote on abuser if that person treats them with love sometimes.”

My living room is at the bottom of a mountain lake suddenly, everything is wavy and murky and moving, and my gut has a block of ice in it.

“Are you accusing Laura of abusing her dogs?”

“Dogs do not attack for no reason.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Why, then? We cannot accuse her of being an abusive owner when the neighbours and everyone who knew the dogs said they were happy dogs who doted on her and she on them so why then, why?”

“Well, was the baby crying?”

The answer is no. Verity was not crying. Crying is not what I heard from Verity that day.

***

HELPHELPHELPHELPHELPHELP I’m screaming it, nobody can hear me I know but I keep screaming it I’m running to the house with Verity in my arms I don’t — I need help help help oh god help help

“DOGS DOGS DOGS!” landline, the 911 operator

“What? Are you being attacked?”

“Killing Verity, HELP HELP HELP! AMBULANCE! AMBULANCE!”

“Have you at 609 range road 24, right?”

“YES YES YES AMBULANCE AMBULANCE AMBULANCE!

I lay her on the floor I — what — where — no

“Is she breathing? Put your hand to her nose or open her mouth to see if she’s breathing.”

I I I can’t I “She no her she’s her no face!”

“You can’t see her face?”

“No no she no her no no her no face gone her face gone it’s gone!”

“Uh…uh…okay, okay, feel her chest can you feel her chest?”

I put my hand down on her chest — it’s bare — I didn’t notice her clothes are gone — her chest does not move “NO! She’s not breathing — she help me help me help me.”

“Do you know CPR? Do chest compressions.”

“Yes yes I have CPR!”

I pump Verity’s chest again again again, you’re supposed to stop after thirty to do rescue breathing but…

Her little body jumps up and down as I pump, I see her skin turning blue, I know she’s…

“Help is on the way — RCMP are — they’re 20 minutes away.”

“Send STARS send STARS to HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME!!”

***

“Stars. Jennifer Anniston. Jon Stewart and Laura, Patrick Stewart will hate you. Patrick Stewart. Captain Picard will hate you. They will hate you, all of them.”

“But it’s the truth. My dogs were good dogs. They were the best dogs. Until they weren’t.”

“If you say that again I’ll fucking kill you myself. Jesus.”

***

She is blue, so blue — legs run past me ‘oh fuck no no no jesus.’ RCMP two — one runs past with verity ‘fuck fuck fuck’ he grunts with every running step.

Hands reach down, ‘we’re here we’re here you’re okay, okay, you’re going to be okay.’

He’s crying, I hear him crying. I hear the car scream down the gravel drive, hear rocks spitting, see dust flying.

I hear words from the second guy, ‘Cancel STARS.’

The car turns out onto the road, lights and sirens blaring.

The crying RCMP has my elbow but I can only get a few feet and slump to the floor. He puts his jacket on me.

He takes me by the shoulder, leads me out the door, I slump.

I sit bleeding. Something’s over. I’m not sure what. The world is turning and as it slides past I see barn, house, corrals, pond, grass, Jake and Zeke are lying down in the grass, “Jake,” I call, “Zeke, Zeke!”

I feel my body swaying, I’m leaning against someone, “What’s wrong with my dogs?”

***

“There’s nothing wrong with any breed of dog.” Mavis is close to convincing me. But then she could convince me to do a lot of things. Good things, like being more confident, more direct, more assertive.

She has helped me so much and she knows I am sometimes afraid on the acreage by myself. I didn’t used to be a scaredy cat but I guess I am now. My damn hands, my damn back, the weakness in my arms, can’t run worth a…damn. Everything is damn now. Damn.

But I have a granddaughter now too and I want to make sure she’s safe.

“Patrick Stewart, Jon Stewart, Jennifer Anniston, that girl on Big Bang, I know you like that show, some of your favorite celebrities have them. Thousands of intelligent people. They’re not stupid, Laura.”

“Mavis, you’re trying to convince me with celebrities? Okay, you may have had me at Patrick Stewart.”

She laughed, “Make it so. I know how you would raise these dogs. You are a loving caring responsible owner and they would live the best possible lives with you. It’s only bad owners that are causing the troubles. You know that. You won’t be a bad owner. I won’t let you.”

“I’m just, I’m getting older and my hands are getting worse and my –“

“They’re not werewolves, darling, they won’t go nuts on you during a full moon. If they are raised with care and love, like any other animal. Remember that damned nippy chihuahua Sandra had? Well, Sandra is an idiot. You’re not an idiot and I’ll help you train them. They are smart as whips and twice as willing to please.”

“Twice as willing to please as a..whip?” I grinned at her.

She grinned then too, “Alright, I’m an old rust bucket now and the words spill wrong ways out sometimes.”

She squeezed my arm, “Let’s go get those pups then. Get your skates on.”

***

Stop stop stop stop today stop today start over today no no today go back back stop today today stop step stop step my elbow red hot I make a sound a sorry from where this — police he — he is kind — step watch the step — front of the hospital people frowning at me — do they know do they know what — what do they know — do they know — what do they think I am bloody and police leading me — I am a killer I am a murderer I am a killer I am a murderer I am I — I see feet, shoes black shoes with blood on them — we need help out here — his voice soothes it is the voice of help of rescue of kindness of strength — I am lifted — I slump in the chair and am moving back into the doors — let me go to the floor let the floor swallow me consume me smother me in darkness smother me smother but it won’t stop none of it will stop stop stop stop please please please stop

***

I stare at the inadequate words. There are no words. Why am I writing these words? Are they supposed to help me to heal? Will they help my daughter? Will they silence those who called me cunt and wanted to slit my throat? Not because my granddaughter died but because I spoke the truth of what happened to Verity? No. None of it will stop. But I need more words. I don’t know why.

***

I don’t know how to walk through the yard. RCMP have provided victim services. Talk of charges are still there. Endangering a child. I didn’t endanger a child. I murdered my granddaughter.

The victim services lady is older than me. She looks on me with sympathy, I think. And then I think not. “Everyone makes mistakes. And sometimes the consequences are tragic. You probably could not have foreseen this.” The ‘probably’ twists in my heart. She clears her throat. Clears it again, “We all make choices. And then we have to live with them. As best we can.”

I wish I had the strength to punch her in the face. “I had someone come over and clean the, there’s no sign of the incident anymore in the yard.”

We are walking through the yard. There is sign of it, there are signs everywhere that she does not see but I see.

The exact spot where they turned, like automatons, like a hive mind, like Borg dogs, robot dogs set to kill, zombie dogs.

That spot is there, the grass is shorter there, some dirt upturned, smoothed over, scraped.

The signs are everywhere too of who my sweet boys were: their lounging spot, the tree they chased each other round till Zeke sat down and Jake ran face first into him. Caught that one of video, so popular on my Facebook, the slope where the snow drifted and the half grown brothers joyfully disappeared under the snow then popped up as they jumped ahead and went under again, Zeke barking at the Canada geese that congregated on the lawn for a brief time, Jake hid from them, I think it was the honking he was afraid of, both hiding under the wicker sofa on the porch when thunderstorms approached, they were my weather men, the swing hanging from the tree where Verity was swinging and Jake ran under the swing and dumped her, then rushed to her and squirmed along the ground, nosing her face, licking her face, whining in apology as she giggled and giggled at that tickling tongue on her face.

It was about ten feet from the other place.

Inside was no better. Inside the walls were covered with those photos of Verity and the dogs. I cannot think of them as Zeke and Jake. I don’t know who they were that day. They were not Zeke and Jake. Zeke and Jake, my sweet sweet boys, died in the nano-second before they turned and attacked.

***

I opened the door to my garage, opened the garage door to the dark. I locked the vanilla house and backed the Ford F-150 out of the drive.

I’ve made some decisions. It feels good to make decisions. I haven’t made a lot of decisions in the last year. I have been in neutral. In the neutral house and it felt good. But numb.

I don’t feel numb now. I feel alive. Alive for the first time since. Because I made a decision: I am not going to write Verity’s story. Because the truth doesn’t matter anymore to anyone else.

You can speak of DNA and biology and science and hard-wiring and how border collies herd because of DNA and retrievers retrieve and some poor dogs were bred to attack and kill and you cannot tell which ones will trigger but people don’t want the truth. I did not want that truth.

I wanted two large protectors who made me feel safe when they snuggled either side of me in bed. And they did make me feel safe. And I did love them. And they were my joy, my family, my world, my pals, my companions and they kept away loneliness and fear.

There is a war on science now, a war on truth, from all sides and in all arenas and nothing I say or write or do will make anyone see truth who stubbornly remains blind.

But the truth, because the truth is going to set me free today, the truth is I took a chance, the truth is my gut twisted a little the first time I looked in their eyes, the truth is I was weak, the truth is I wanted to believe and to belong to a fight for the oppressed and the disenfranchised and I wanted to be a champion for the misrepresented and I wanted the attention and I wanted to be stronger and I wanted Mavis to admire me and think I was strong and not the cardigan wearing plain Jane everyone saw.

The truth is I killed my sweet, my everything, my little baby, I killed her future because I didn’t feel like I was enough. Important enough.

I can’t ever bring her back. I can’t ever do that. I killed my daughter with her. I am a murderer and there is nothing I can do about that.

The steering wheel feels good in my hands. My hands feel strong on it as though nothing were wrong with them. I love driving. Being in control. Control is good. The truck obeys me. It does exactly what I tell it to do. I love this truck. This truck is taking me exactly where I need to go.

My sister was right. I couldn’t write about this. I would be crucified. I had been crucified. My granddaughter died and I received death threats. Everyone who lost a child to a dog had received death threats from dog defenders and opponents of BSL. I couldn’t write about it. It wouldn’t do any good. People who would write death threats to parents who had lost a child were not going to read my story or read anything except that which agrees with their viewpoint or believe the truth any more than Trump supporters believe the truth.

Mavis’ front door opens and her face registers the shock that I knew it would. “Oh, Laura, oh, my God, it’s just so, oh, lovey, come in, it’s so good to see you.”

“My baby wasn’t crying.” I point the gun and blow her face away. I look down at her. Her face almost resembles Verity’s now.

I aim and fire again. Now she looks like Verity did.

“My baby wasn’t crying.”