Peter did not come home for the summer. We were dealing with it, his father and I. We knew how he felt about her, and we were happy. But the farm was too quiet. The kitchen was too clean and the handrails too polished, and most nights we could only talk of him and go off to bed.
Peter’s dog Lenny began sleeping on the porch then. One night I awoke to the shrill getaway of a car. I nudged Tom and asked if he heard, but he groaned. I couldn’t find my slippers, so I walked barefoot to the road. The gravel was cool on my feet. I squinted and saw the brown dog lying there, and I cried.
I yelled for Tom, but was sorry I did. I dug an old flashlight from the truck and whacked it on my hand to keep it going, but couldn’t see any wounds. He was too heavy to carry, so I pulled him to the field. I caught my breath and slid my hand along his stomach and felt the rip and cried again. I placed the flashlight in the grass and sat, and rubbed his head. No other cars came along, and it was quiet. It wasn’t a busy road.
Peter declared this place not busy enough for him during his last visit home. He said a young man required a city’s voltage to tingle his blood.
I rocked his dog and tried to keep him calm, and his breathing slowed. I told him why Peter wasn’t coming home, and about the girl, but then I didn’t know what to say. I was embarrassed. I stroked his ears and head, and I was tired. The ground was soggy on my legs.
The stories of our own lives, before Peter came, didn’t echo with him. He was twisting in a funnel of his own animation, collecting and discarding what he needed. We were happy to climb in, but understood on all counts we would be shot out.
I looked up at the sky, and it was splashed with stars. I saw a blinking light from an airplane floating to a city far away from our simple road, and I thought about the people inside. Breathing high above us. I removed Lenny’s collar, and we drew in beneath them, and the glow from the flashlight weakened and disappeared in the long, cool grass.