A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

one night at one in the morning. I leapt from bed, stomped downstairs flicking on every light and yelling my head off for whoever it was to get out of my house. The hammering continued and the dogs and I were determined to track it down. Scared as I was, and I was scared, I was delighted to find that anger overrode my fear. I was not going to cower in my bedroom or hide in my closet. I was going to beard the lion in its den. And, anyway, it was my den. Whenever we got close, the noise stopped, then started up again somewhere else. "This is my house," I shouted down the cellar stairs at one point (the only time my dogs were really scared). Eventually we lay down on the couch, every light in the house blazing, and waited it out. Later my friend Chuck suggested he get me a chain saw as a housewarming present. I could keep it under my pillow. The sight of me in my big flannel nightie carrying a chain saw would surely scare the bejesus out of anything. For the record, I never found out what made the hammering but happily it hasn't come back.
    I'm comfortable here. The sound of something smacking its lips over by the fireplace? I don't even look up from my knitting. A kind of slithery sound like something being (gasp) dragged? A sound that morphs into heavy breathing (through a very large nose) that comes, upon investigation, from the walls of every single room in the house? No problem. If I don't hear toe-nails scrabbling, and I don't, the dogs and I go to bed. The noises are real and no doubt have a logical explanation, but at midnight logic is not my companion, so the solution is to keep my imagination in check. A warm body on either side of me under the covers is excellent company and I find a big smile on my face, thinking that we are coexisting with walls that snuffle and grunt. In the old days I'd've been out of the house in a microsecond, but had I left, I might never have been able to come back.

    I know what I'm doing here. I love the house, the village, the people I've met are already dear to me.
And Rich is only twenty minutes away. Today he is unshaven, walking slowly into the lunchroom when I arrive. He is wearing wrinkled khaki trousers and an unfamiliar flannel shirt that his daughter, Sally, must have brought him. He looks at me with surprise and happiness. "Absie!" he says. His hands are cold. He is sweetness itself. His hug still warms me like nothing else. We go downstairs to the art room, passing the huge goldfish tank. Usually he comments on how fat the goldfish are, but today he stops. "I wonder if they know where they are," he says. "Or if they remember other aquariums."
    In the middle of the night I think of his smiling face, and the goblins disperse. Or if they don't, I can stare them down.

How to Break Up a Dogfight
    Grab the haunches of the smaller dog and pull. Or grab the haunches of the larger dog and pull. Forget about being bitten. Or consider what your friend Claudette did in this situation and recall her words for their comic relief. "I screamed and threw a paper towel at them."
    Carry a water pistol at all times filled with some repellent liquid. Try to remember the name of the harmless substance all dogs hate. Toy with the idea of ammonia, lemon juice. Tear gas. Wear an earsplitting whistle around your neck. Have handy a coffee can filled with coins to shake at them. Shock yourself by declaring after a fight in which your hound, Carolina, bit her own tongue and sent streams of blood flying at your skirt, "I feel just like Jackie Kennedy." Ponder your sudden ability to joke about the event that for forty years had you weeping every time you thought of it. Try to figure out why this is no longer sacred ground. Realize that September 11 changed everything.
    Hire a dog trainer and then be unavailable for the next three months through no fault of your own. Make sure that for the initial visit you have hurt your back and can't move anything except your eyes and mouth without screaming. After he