Feeding Faith

For Ralph the nights were cold, stone against flesh with no respite. There were so few places to find shelter, but then so much shelter in the company of his friends.

There is the cat, Oreo, big with large black and white splotches, who sometimes bullies the biggest dog, Sam. The feline is unspeakably stubborn and fearlessly protective of Ralph, who dreams of the unevenly provided things providing him the resources to shelter more animals or even to offer animal-assisted therapy to others with no homes.

He believes it is possible even as the needle moves incrementally forward and then far back, where he is forced to rely on Jack Daniels for the heat and comfort that lies in the middle of the familiar glass bottle. Shame often results in him drinking to the bottom. Still, he has faith. He is faithful to his vision. Full of faith, even, in the calling the universe has set before him.

It is difficult to ignore it as it manifests as mews and soft woeful whimpers.

It is not just Oreo and Sam. There are three other dogs too, Hank, Teddy, and Faith, who urge Ralph forward, pushing at him with wet noses and making forlorn eyes at the passerbyers who would otherwise not pause at all.

The safety of animal company causes benefactors to linger and to offer more than they otherwise would, and Ralph earmarks these funds for his friends and their future.

The Altoids tin is nearly too full for more bills.

Still, life had been easier with Susie. He’d met her in college and they’d reunited after both of their first marriages dissolved. When she was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, they were both convinced they’d get through it.

He’d been volunteering at the local shelter and started bringing pets home then. He guised these housebroken gifts as if they were for her - to comfort her in the loss of her hair, her strength, her vitality, while enduring chemotherapy then radiation - but they were at least as much for him.

He’d spent everything they’d saved on treatments for her, and not just the hospital bills. They’d tried everything: alternative practitioners, acupuncturists, medicinal retreats, even mediums and psychics. He could not help himself. He poured out money hoping to buy certainty, survival.

They were not for sale.

Her illness was uneven and on some days her familiar loving light would emanate from her eyes without the boundary of a hairline and he’d know what their love was capable of.

Still, the cancer had its own rules, kept its own time, and its dividing cells kept moving from one tissue to another. When she took her last breath, Ralph realized that he’d invested everything in her, hoping for the impossible, and no miracle had come.

He lost hope for a while, until the three-legged dog, who he’d named Faith, showed up on his doorstep, just before the bankers came to foreclose his house.

Faith would get him through, literally.

He held her now in his lap, warm and consistent, and offered her a small bone-shaped biscuit.

Such a small thing, really, to exchange for a reason to live.