Summer 2004

     The volunteers met on a Sunday in January. It was snowy, and inside the animal shelter a crowd of fifteen or so was bundled in scarves and hats, armed with Kleenex, sitting on the floor in puddles of slush from their boots. Amelia thought they were awfully surly for people who supposedly wanted to do something nice. Everyone who wanted to be a volunteer Dog Walker or Cat Cuddler at the shelter was required to attend the one-hour orientation program. Amelia wasn't sure what you could you say about dog-walking that would take up an entire hour, but she didn't have anywhere else to be.
     The volunteer coordinator began by sharing some facts and figures about the shelter, which had recently expanded.      Nobody smiled, except when the resident cat wandered in and chased someone's shoelace. Then the volunteers started to coo and make little motions with their fingers, trying to get the cat's attention. The coordinator described the cat cuddling and heartworms and leashes, but no one was really listening. They all seemed sure they were going to be the one to win the cat's heart, positive that they were the ones who really knew animals, so they all continued to kiss the air and make silent meows. But Amelia listened to the coordinator intently, wanting to make sure to get it right: loop the chain this way, slip it over the animal's neck, keep treats in your pocket, don't cross the major streets, clean up poop or you will be terminated.
     From the program, Amelia added under her breath, wishing her husband was there to hear her joke.
     The animals were the ones who were actually terminated, euthanized when they were too mean or too sick to warrant space in the shelter. None of the volunteers was paying attention to this part though, because the dogs in the kennel downstairs started howling and barking like a chorus on cue.
     "And that's pretty quiet," said the volunteer coordinator, eyebrows raised. "They get excited when people come to see them. It might be a little overwhelming until you get used to it."
     Amelia was sure she would be able to do this. Meet the dogs, look them in the eye, walk them for fifteen minutes, then shuttle them right back into their four-foot cages. She'd be helping. She'd give them a dose of human contact, something to stave off the lonely hours before their owners returned to rescue, before a new family arrived to adopt.
     A woman with rough skin and hair past her waist was saying, "I'm used to it. I've raised six dogs and I've nursed four cats with feline leukemia." They weren't even talking about feline leukemia — you could tell she had just been waiting to let that drop. She was clearly proud of herself, but shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal. Like she was from the mean streets of the animal world. Like it was just part of life, dogs yelping, cats dying. Amelia started to hate the woman a little bit, then felt bad for feeling hatred at a volunteer orientation. What could be more antithetical?
     Towards the end of the session, the coordinator asked for questions. An older woman raised her hand. Her fingers looked like weathered bamboo, circled by swollen knuckles. She had on sky blue eye shadow, vague circles of rouge, a touch of coral lipstick. She looked like she spent lots of time at the club, or gardening.
     "I was just wondering about the cat cuddling program," she said tentatively. "I know you said you have to come with a group of two or more — but what if you don't have anyone to come with?"
     Christ, thought Amelia. Why did somebody always have to bring things down? She couldn't think of anything more sad than this woman, and that sadness made her angry. She wasn't here to feel bad. She was here to feel good. That's what volunteering was about. She was tired of her quiet life, the careful dinners she and her husband ate in front of the television, tired of being surprised by maps of the world: so much space, so many people, and she never thought of any of them.
     "We can make exceptions," the coordinator was saying to the old woman. "The cats and dogs will really appreciate this. Just give us as many hours as you can."
     Amelia had plenty of time, if she really thought about it. She was an elementary math curriculum writer and worked from home, so she wasn't stuck in an office all day. She and her husband rarely did things with friends, and weekends were filled with projects like recaulking the bathroom, or reading novels. She and Ken were in love, she knew it, but their lives were so contained, so muted. She wanted something to jolt her, and the sound of a barking dog seemed like just the thing. It wasn't technically helping or meeting people, but people were overrated. The shelter was just a few blocks away, so it would be convenient for Amelia drop by. Maybe a dog would pull her on the leash and she would stumble into a world she could actually feel.

     The next weekend, Amelia was walking a male Boxer who was straining so desperately she could barely keep up.
If I dislocate my shoulder this is it, she thought. "You'll be toast," she warned the Boxer, who kept pulling madly. "I can write this on your chart," she told him. The Boxer didn't care. He was busy sniffing his own myriad layers of the world, unearthing the life he'd been missing in his cage.
     The city neighborhood they roamed rode the line between fancy and crumbling. A few blocks north were houses that could truly be called mansions — turrets and circular driveways and carriage houses. Three blocks south was an auto parts chain, and street after street of ramshackle houses. Older brick Victorians broken up into apartments. Unkempt yards, porches cluttered with old planks of wood and panes of glass, street parking spaces reserved with dirty old lawn chairs.
     But no matter which direction Amelia and the Boxer walked, she saw the signs. Rich or poor, everybody appeared to have pets. Pets who ran away. Cats who scuttled out past the unseeing cleaning lady, dogs who broke free from their homemade string leashes to chase a squirrel. Then the owners put up posters. Lost Dog. Missing Cat. Call With Info. Reward.
     "Stay with me, killer," Amelia said to the Boxer, certain that losing a previously lost dog would destine her for a particularly howling section of hell.
     After two times around the block, Amelia was afraid she was going to let go of the leash, and she had brush burn on her palm from the tug of the loop handle. She dragged the Boxer back inside and towards his cage, where he clearly did not want to go. She heard the volunteer coordinator's voice in her head saying, "Make sure not to let them run free in the kennel. Get into the cage with them if you have to, before you take off the leash." Amelia threw her weight against the Boxer and tried to shove him in the crate. When they were both inside, she freed him from the leash and gave him a rub on the ears. "I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe we'll try again next week." She opened the cage door just slightly so she could slip out, and the Boxer wriggled past like a wisp of air, out the door, into the kennel, running loose.
     It was not in Amelia's nature to yell. She found that when she did try, she sounded more like she was doing an impression of someone yelling, or like she was some kind of Muppet. But the dog was on the run, and she needed help.
     "Um, excuse me?" she said loudly. "I accidentally let a dog out."
     No one answered. The Boxer was gaining speed, making circles around the halls, and the other dogs were beginning to work themselves into a group frenzy as he passed, skittering across the grey concrete floor and flashing what looked like a smile as he passed by his comrades behind bars.
     That little shit is gloating, thought Amelia. "There is a dog loose!" she said with her hands at her mouth like a megaphone.
     One of the shelter workers appeared at the door and frowned. He didn't say anything to Amelia, just reached out and grabbed the Boxer by the collar when he passed. They grappled for a minute, and the man successfully locked the dog in the cage.
     "I'm so sorry," said Amelia. "It's my first time walking a dog here, and I. . ."
     The man waved his hand and walked out of the room.

     "Did you know that the human eyeball weighs about one ounce?" Later that evening, Amelia was working on a new set of math problems, secretly enjoying the fact that the mere mention of anatomy would send any class into pandemonium. She wouldn't want to have to keep tabs on a classroom full of eight year olds, but she did like the idea of riling them up a little bit with her curriculum.
     "I had no idea," said Ken, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. "Then your beauties must weigh at least twice that."
     "Ken. Come on." Amelia could feel herself blushing slightly, even now. They'd been together almost six years, but she still got embarrassed when he complimented her.
     "I'll give you fifty bucks if you can tell me how much the human spleen weighs," Ken was saying.
     "You're gross," said Amelia, jotting down ‘spleen' in her notes. "I'll tell you what does weigh a lot, though. This dog I walked today. I thought he was going to rip my arm off."
     "Now that would make a good math problem," he said. "How much force does it take to actually pull off a human arm?"
     "I'm not very popular at the shelter so far. They'd probably just let me lay there in a pool of my own blood. ‘Oh yeah, she doesn't even need that arm; she's the one who can't keep up with a dog — forget the tourniquet.'"
     "Amelia," said Ken. "You could keep up with anything. Did you write that down about the spleen?"

     On her second walk, Amelia chose a smaller dog. Vince was a beagle mix, less than a foot tall, and he seemed lethargic. "Let's go, Vince," Amelia said as she easily slipped the collar over his neck. They stepped out into the frosty evening and began a stroll around the block. Vince didn't look back, but he didn't tug at his leash, either.
     The signs were everywhere. Amelia tried to distract herself by making puns with Vince's name — "You're in-vince-ible, get it?" — but she could not help noticing that the world must be teeming with missing animals. It was enough to make her want to get in a cage with the dogs and stay put. Vince's short legs didn't require a long walk, and Amelia found herself considering what it would be like to take him home. It was pretty easy to squelch philanthropic thoughts like that, though. She was already doing her part. And a dog would just die or go missing after someone left a door ajar. Amelia and her husband had no pets, partly because Amelia did not ever want to be crying in front of an empty food dish. She did not want to be begging for help on telephone poles, wandering the sidewalks and calling feebly for her love to come home.
     She tenderly put Vince back into his pen. "You'll find a family for sure. You might even say I'm convinced."
     Amelia was embarrassed when the night janitor appeared behind her, having certainly heard her puny joke. He was pushing his mop and walking gingerly, as if on a tightrope. "That's right," he said without looking up. "They like it when you talk to them."
     Amelia excused herself quickly, and waved to Vince, who was already in a ball, ready for sleep.

     Amelia began to take longer walks with the shelter dogs each week, and began to know many of them by name. Her first Boxer was still there, apparently unwanted by anyone who valued their arms. Vince had been adopted early on, but he was quickly replaced; there was a neverending stream of new animals in the cages. Sometimes Amelia would run into the volunteer coordinator on her way in or out of the shelter, and she had to stop herself from saying, "Doesn't it bother you that this will never end?" Instead she'd just smile at the dog brooch the coordinator liked to wear, and keep walking.
     Each time Amelia walked a new dog, it seemed as though she would see a flier stapled to a telephone pole, more staples amidst the glinting army that was already stuck in the wood. Handmade, xeroxed, pleading.
     "I actually saw a sign for a lost gerbil today," she told Ken one night while they were preparing dinner.
     "A what?" Ken said, halving butternut squash and placing them face down in a baking dish. He was a great cook — part of the reason they rarely went anywhere to eat.
     "Some kid made a flier for a lost gerbil. It said, ‘Lost. Gerbil in a ball. Reward, five dollars.' Have you ever heard anything more pitiful?"
     "Wow. Funny. Can you just see that little gerbil rolling down the sidewalk?" Ken was dribbling olive oil over the squash, which suddenly looked to Amelia like human forearms in the pan. "I wonder if they'll find it."
     "Of course not. But that kid is probably still looking. I guess you have to admire people's optimism."
     "What's the difference between a gerbil and a hamster, anyway?" Ken was saying, putting the pan of forearms in the oven.
     "What do you care?" Amelia said, meaner than she meant to be as she looked at his sweet profile. "You don't even like animals."

     I can't take this, Amelia thought. In fact, she began to think she would never be able to go outside again. She tried not to look at the posters, but it was impossible not to meet the gaze of Misty or Linus or Fancy, staring at her like ghosts. She didn't understand why they had to be so personal. The missing children announcements on milk cartons didn't include terms of affection. They just listed the vitals, maybe showed a grainy school photo. But people got so personal about the pets, writing things like "Malcolm loves tennis balls and salami." Amelia felt tears well up in her eyes when someone would ask that Fluffy "come home to mommy." She began to imagine the lost Poodles wandering the streets, saw the lost Siamese step out in front of a car.
     Amelia was out with a one-eyed lab mix named Poochie when she saw the worst one. Someone had put high-tech effort into this one, a color photo on glossy paper, entitled      "We Are Heartbroken."
     "That's it," she said to Poochie, yanking him over toward the pole. "That is just it, I am not going to pass another of these. It's ridiculous." She didn't take one of the phone number tabs that dangled from the bottom of the paper. She pulled off the entire flier, folded it as many times as you can fold a piece of paper, and stuffed it in her jacket pocket. She looked at Poochie.
     "That's right," she said. "I took it."
     Poochie looked at her with his glassy right eye. Amelia wondered if the useless left eyeball was still behind that sewn up muddle of skin, or if it was gone altogether. She found herself closing one eye and staring at the dog. "I can't look at these things anymore," she told Poochie. "I'm sick of wondering what happened to all these animals. Aren't you? Aren't you sick of it all?" Her left cheek started to twitch with the strain of holding her eye closed. I could do this, she thought. I could get by with just one eye. Poochie came over and licked her hand, ready to keep moving.

     Amelia was finding it hard to concentrate on her writing. She had her notebooks and charts splayed out on the kitchen counter, under the warm light, but she'd not made any progress on her latest graphs. Ken was too tired to cook, so they were eating take-out Indian food. Someone had broken into his car while he'd been at work in the lab that day, and he had just finished telling Amelia a funny story about having to file a police report with the cops. They were laughing about the embarrassing list of cassette tapes he had admitted to still having.
     "We're old, Ken," Amelia said. "Only old people have shitty tapes in their cars."
     "So I guess I should thank the thief for forcing me to start a new tape collection?" he said.
     "Do they even sell tapes anymore? I think it's all cd's, babe. You're way behind."
She looked at him, the man she so easily called her babe. Her love. The man she was making her way with, navigating a life. He seemed to so easily accept things. Lost tapes, new technology — it all came and went while he gazed calmly. Amelia felt a lick of love so strong she had to close her eyes.
     Ken went to bed early, and Amelia stayed up editing some new algebra word problems. She liked to imagine the kids working on these equations, liked to think they might enjoy her strange details and occasional pun, but who knew if they even cared. When she finished, Amelia was not at all tired, not ready to join Ken in bed. Instead, she got her coat from the hall closet. The sign was still in her pocket, folded thickly in a way that reminded Amelia of the paper triangles boys used to shoot into each other's hands, poised as goals, across the cafeteria table. She decided she'd include something in her latest curriculum about folding paper, about the way that any piece can never be folded more than eight times. It was one of those immutable yet trivial facts she loved.
     Sitting on the living room floor in front of the coffee table, Amelia flattened out the poster she had torn down. This missing cat's name was Marcel. Okay, she thought. This is normal. I can do this and still be a normal human being. She dialed the number, and a woman's voice answered. "Hello?"
     "You don't know me."
     She was afraid this would make the woman hang up, but she felt it was best to start with the truth. The rest spilled out in one breath: "You don't know me, and I don't have your cat, but I saw the sign and I took your number, and I was just thinking about you, and, well, I was wondering if you found him."
     "Oh." The woman paused. "You're sure you haven't seen him?"
     "No," said Amelia. "I just saw the sign. I just — I don't know."
     The woman sounded as if she might cry. "Well, he's not come back yet, but thanks for calling — although, I don't really get why you're calling."
     Amelia felt the hot sparklers in her sinuses the way she always did when she was about to cry. She hated herself when she wept, hated the wiggling chin and the feral feeling of losing control. "I'm calling because I worry about these animals, you know? I worry that nobody will ever find them, I worry that I will lose one, I worry that nobody ever gets found." She felt her fingers folding and unfolding the piece of paper in front of her. Eight times was the maximum, and beyond that, things were just too fixed. "I don't even have an animal," she heard herself saying, her voice folding in on itself and faltering. "I've got a husband, but no cat or dog or even a fish."
     "I think I should go," Marcel's owner said.
     "I'm sorry to bother you," Amelia said. "It's just that—"
     The woman had already hung up when Amelia found herself saying, "We are heartbroken." She wasn't sure if she was repeating the words on the sign in her hands or speaking for herself.

     "You're coming with me," Amelia said to Ken the next evening. "I want you to come with me to walk a dog."
     "No thanks," Ken said. "Too cold."
     It was already dark, and it was true, nobody liked to walk on days as chilly as this one. In fact, since Amelia had started two months ago, many of the volunteers had stopped coming. "There's high turnover in dog walking," the coordinator had told her.      "Thanks for sticking in there."
     Amelia took Ken's hand. "I'm not really asking you. I'm saying you need to go with me tonight. Please."
     Ken rolled his eyes and went for his coat. They were nearly silent on the walk to the shelter, but Amelia was glad to have another body with her. She put her arm in the crook of Ken's elbow and made a wish that he would always be there to walk with her, if she asked.
     Tonight only the janitor was in the kennels, slowly pushing the mop over the gritty floors. "This place is hopping," said Ken. "I can see why you like it."
     Amelia mouthed, "Shut up," hoping to avoid the attention of the janitor, but as she began to sign out a dog and open its cage, the old man approached them.
     "You like to talk to them, don't you?" he said to Amelia.
     "Oh, you know," she said. "I guess I chat with them once in a while."
     "The dogs are quiet tonight," the janitor said.
     "Um, yes they are," she said, looking at Renee, the honey colored Retriever mix who was waiting patiently for her to open the cage. It was true, the kennel was relatively peaceful. "It's cold," she said, as if that would explain everything.
     "It's really too cold to be walking dogs, if you ask me," said Ken.
     "By midnight they won't be so quiet," the old man said, and he proceeded to tell them a story about the dogs, in a low tone, as if he didn't want the animals to be in on the secret.
     The Pit Bulls started, he told her, always the leaders. Then the German Shepherds, picking up the cry like good citizens. Then the mournful Beagles, the Terrier mixes. "It doesn't sound like anything you've heard before," he said. "They save their proper barking for the daylight hours when people are coming to inspect them, maybe choose one, maybe give some poor beast a home. But this is different," he said. "I don't know if screaming's the right word exactly, but it's sure not a happy sound."
     Amelia was staring at the man's nose, which was as close as she could get to staring into his eyes. She was breathing in his words, sure if she exhaled he would disappear in a puff.
     "Tell me more," she said.
     "I could swear those dogs got together and organized it."
     She heard Ken snort softly, but she kept focusing on the janitor. "Tell me what it sounds like," Amelia said, nodding her head.
     "Oh, I don't even know if I'm saying it right. Sounds like they're calling someone's name, only they're dogs, you know, but it's a kind of jabbing sound, and it hits you like a baby crying."
     Amelia smiled, as if the thought of babies crying was a pleasurable secret.
     "I don't know," he said. "It's not a part of the job I like too much." He took a step towards the door, and Amelia caught his arm.
     "You know what they're doing, don't you?" she said, thinking of all of them: Vince and Poochie and Renee and Marcel and the hundred other dogs in the cages before her, the thousands roaming the streets, the missing gerbil and the emptiness that came from searching for something that would never be found, the emptiness that came from never having something that might be lost.
     "What who's doing?" the man said.
     "The dogs. What the dogs are doing, why they're crying."
     "Uh, Amelia?" said Ken. "What are you talking about?"
     "I imagine they're just mad as hell at being here," the janitor said.
     "Yes," said Amelia. "Of course they're mad. They're scared. When you hear them scream at night, what you're hearing is the sound of those dogs praying."
     The man looked at her for a slow couple of seconds, as if tempted to believe her.      Then he slapped his leg. "Shoot girl. You're crazy."
     Amelia laughed. "Yes," she said. "Yes I am. I am crazy. Completely batty." She tugged at Renee's leash. We all are, she thought.
     Ken had his arm around her shoulders now, pulling her towards the door. "We'll be back soon, sir. We're just going to walk Renee for a bit."
     "Well, you never know," the janitor was saying, shaking his head. "They just might be praying to find their way back to where they came from. And maybe they're just dogs making noise."

     They stepped out onto the sidewalk. Amelia loved the tiny prints of Renee's paws dancing circles in the snow, anxious to start their trek. Ken was putting on his gloves, looking at Renee and then at Amelia.
     He took her hand. "I only have two things to say."
     "Lay it on me," she answered, starting to feel sheepish.
     "First of all, what was that?"
     "Yeah," Amelia sighed. "I know. They're just barking. But wouldn't it be great if everything meant something?" She gave Renee a rub under the chin. "What's the second thing?"     
     "I love you," said Ken, in a voice that sounded a bit like a dog underwater. "I love you," he yelped more loudly, lifting his nose to the sky. Then he looked at Amelia. "If I could howl, I would."
     Amelia could not say anything for a moment, so she just breathed, inhaling the night and the way she loved this man, their life, even their sorrows. She took Ken's elbow again, while Renee jumped up with her snowy paws on his khakis.
     "C'mon sweeties," she said. "Let's go."
     Ken and Renee and Amelia stepped into parallel strides that suggested they'd known each other all their lives. Walking into the cold, it was as if Amelia had a hidden eye, sewn up somewhere inside her. Through its milky lens she saw a world where all signs pointed home.