Street noise shrieks through a slit in my bedroom window. I stir from sleep.
Shapes ebbing from fuzzed to focussed hover above my crib. Each dangles from string leashed to the arm of a mobile. Bodies and tails of beings I’d seen on Zoo Parade prowl a heaven I as yet cannot reach.
Nature sighs, rustling the blinds. The one-dimensional animals crouch, twist, flip and spring. What invisible force wields such power! I will come to know it as the wind. I will soon learn to create it by babbling upon my own hand. Come next year, my hot breath will whir torrents of mist against the mirror; I’m becoming the eye of my parents’ storm.
Something cold and wet gently grazes my arm. Sniff. Sniff. Sniff. I turn to meet a big, black nose twitching from the end of a shaggy cone. The wind must’ve knocked one of the harmless animals off its tether. He fell onto the shag carpet and swelled into a wolf. The wolf nuzzles me. A pink tongue slinks from its jaws, tickling my elbow. I squeal.
I trace his snout beyond the crib’s vertical slats and meet a pair of watchful eyes bathing me in gold. Nothing like mommy’s and daddy’s eyes: often kind, sometimes terse, perhaps searching for something of themselves in me. No. These eyes are different. These eyes will swing me to sleep in the hammock of night. These eyes will swaddle me in tenderness when the wind flies from my parents’ mouths, shattering our glass house.
Daddy named him Kane, from the Irish meaning “battlefield.” He’s a German shepherd; black-faced and snouted. A huge, black chevron of fur peaks along his spine and tapers to points at his foremost ribs. His chest is coppery tan, a vast field of wheat whose silken stalks beckon my surrender. Because of slight delays in my velar speech sounds, I call him “Hane” until I’m three.
Kane pads beside me during my first milestones. Mommy is afraid he might foil my first steps, but he actually supports them. I grab a clump of Kane’s thick mane to pull myself up onto wobbly bowl legs and steady myself. Kane strides carefully forward, taking me with him. Soon, I release Kane’s fur and amble on my own.
Weather forecasts are impossible under my roof. Out of nowhere, mommy and daddy sling foul words at each other. Maybe because of me. I squint really hard and cover my ears, hoping to disappear. When it gets really bad, I’ll poke Kane’s face or pull his fur. He never gets mad, though. He’ll bark at passing neighbors or show his teeth when he thinks someone means me harm. But, for me, it’s always kind eyes and kisses. I hug him and cry for being so mean.
Why can’t Kane rescue me like he does when I’m asleep? In my dreams, I ride him bareback. We streak through the hollows of a boreal forest. The hem of the northern lights wave above, guiding us to freedom. Falling snow spatters my face and covers Kane’s coat with jewels. We run so fast the castle demons will never catch us!
Just after my fourth birthday, Kane and I get sick at the same time. Kane makes lots of loose poopies on the rug. He can’t help it. My tonsils blow up and turn red as the Carlsbad Caverns, dad says. I go to the hospital and Kane goes to the vet. Before I leave, I pet Kane and tell him his poopies are gonna be okay. In the operating room, Kane’s face swims in a halo of surgical lights. When I come home, I wish that was the last thing I’d ever seen.
Kane is gone. I ask where he is. Mommy and daddy look at each other, tacitly aligning their story. They shrink their words so I can understand:
“Kane was too sick to come back home. Let’s not talk about that now. How about if we go to the zoo on Saturday?”
I double over, grab a clump of carpet and puke into it. Several of Kane’s hairs stick to my hand. That night, I tuck them under my pillow. The next day, when mommy and daddy aren’t looking, I plant them in the side yard flower bed.
Every day I watch for a field of wheat to grow.
The preceding memory was constructed with the help of my beloved parents who now dwell in the ether with Kane.