Rise: How a House Built a Family(54)

Sometimes I felt ridiculous, even paranoid for being afraid of Adam years after our divorce. I wondered if he had left a paranoia seed in my mind, sending me on my own path toward insanity. But then on an ordinary day I would come home before the kids and find a note, or a knife, or hear the pained scream of an animal, and know the paranoia was justified. He was never far enough away.

“Hershey?” I yelled, tears coming even though I didn’t know for sure if the noise was her or some wild creature. I ran to the side door of the garage, wondering if it was safe and worried that the sound of my heart would announce me even over the animal shriek. I held back a sob when the scream grew louder. It was on my back porch, and since Hershey hadn’t come to greet me, I knew it had to be her.

I pulled the back door wide and was standing on the concrete slab before I realized I should have grabbed a weapon, at least a knife.

Hershey was on her back, thrashing wildly from side to side like she had a thousand times before on a hot day when she found a shady spot of tall, cool grass. Her feet were taped together with clear packing tape. Back paw to back, and front to front. Her jaw was taped shut, too, a cellophane muzzle of packing tape, but she’d worked it open enough to make that noise, that god-awful noise.

“Shhhhh,” I said, kneeling beside her and looking for wounds. The sidewalk was bloody but I couldn’t see where it was coming from. “It’s okay, I’m here, girl. I’ll get you out. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t leave you. I’m sorry.” I was bawling. Snot, tears, and sobs like I don’t think I’d ever cried before. I ran back inside and grabbed a steak knife, then returned to Hershey, trying to calm her so I wouldn’t take gouges of her hide when I sawed at the tape.

Scissors would have been better, but one of the kids had forgotten to return them to the drawer. “How many times? How many damn times have I told them to put things away? You never know when you’ll need them. When an emergency like—”

I started laughing. “An emergency like what? Like when a crazy man tortures your family pet with packing tape? That sort of emergency? Is that what my kids are supposed to plan for? Is that why I should yell at them about the damn scissors in the junk drawer?” Hershey’s mouth was free even though the tape was still stuck across the top of her muzzle and under her lower jaw. But she could open it freely now and had quieted to a pitiful, high-pitched whine, intermittent, like she only had the strength to make the sound on every other exhale.

Her front feet were separated, but I’d nicked her with the knife on the inside of her right foot. It wasn’t bad, but I would put some antibiotic cream on it. When the back feet were finally cut apart, she rolled over on her side, head in my lap, licking my hands while I rubbed her ears and spoke a million platitudes and promises.

I kissed the top of her head a dozen times, leaving a puddle of tears and snot. Her back was rubbed raw, the hair stuck in the smears of blood on the rough concrete. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be when I first saw the blood. Her spine was raw and would take some time to heal. There was no way to hide it from the kids, but there was no way in hell I would tell them the truth. God no. This was too horrible to tell anyone. I felt horribly ashamed.

I took my phone out and took pictures. I hadn’t thought to take any when I had first seen her and didn’t regret that even now. It would have been inhumane to delay even a second to get her out of the tape.

“Jesus! Oh, Jesus!” I wiped a hand over my face, trying to process why anyone, how anyone—no, how Adam—had done this.

I went inside for supplies, meaning to leave Hershey on the porch and come back out to clean her up. But she stayed at my side, her left shoulder pressed against my right leg. We walked to my bathroom like that, with me bent over to keep a hand on her rib cage, rubbing and patting in comfort.

Baby oil released the worst of the tape, but not without leaving bare patches. Her muzzle was the worst, where she had torn clumps of hair out working to open it before I arrived. She sat patiently, big yellow-green eyes on me the whole time. When I washed her back and applied antibiotic cream, she panted and moved her feet in a tiny dance, barely lifting them high enough for the nails to click against the tile. But she didn’t try to get away, and she didn’t whimper. She was safe with me, and she knew it.

Even when she had calmed down and eaten a bowl of kibble and drunk two bowls of water, my hands were still shaking and I had only just stopped crying. The kids would be home any minute and my head was pounding. I crawled on the sofa with an ice-cold washcloth on my swollen eyes. Hershey lay on the floor next to me, my hand draped over her.

When the door opened, Jada yelled, “We’re home! We’re home everyone!” A silly habit she had almost outgrown now that she was in kindergarten.

I smiled from under my mask.

The kids made the expected fuss when they saw the dog, and I sat up on the sofa, keeping the washcloth over my eyes. “She’s just fine,” I told them. “Got into a little scrape. I cleaned her up and we’ll keep an eye on it until she heals.” The washcloth trick wasn’t going to work for long, and I wanted to be honest with my kids. But this time, oh God, this time was different. This time lies were going to have to do. “Give me twenty minutes to close my eyes, try to get rid of this headache. Then I’ll start supper. Do your homework!” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but just sounded forced. My voice was hoarse and my nose was stuffy.