(Start this story from the beginning)
It had been four days since Rose came into his life. Charlie had been holding his breath the whole time, yet, as luck would have it, no one had come a-knocking or searching for a dog. He hadn’t seen any flyers up on telephone poles looking for an Irish Setter. He had called the pound every day, but they had received no lost dog reports for a dog matching Rose’s description.
Stevie came over regularly by now to play with Rose, or he met them when they walked in the park. Charlie now had a new reason to go out: giving his dog a walk. He found that he immensely enjoyed this: it gave him a new reason to interact with people.
“Charlie, you got a new dog? What’s its name?” “Her name is Rose. Isn’t she a sweetie?” “Where’d you get her?” “Well, she just kind of showed up! I kind of feel like she adopted me!”
Charlie found these conversations joyous, like sharing good news. Indeed, he felt that he was. Yet in the back of his mind, he harbored a secret worry: what if the original owner came looking for Rose? She couldn’t have come from that far away. Charlie tried to put these thoughts out of his mind, but they were like the unavoidable elephant in the room for him.
Or unavoidable dog, that is.
In the meantime, he enjoyed his new role as dog owner. He loved nearly all of it, except for the parts involving cleaning up Rose’s droppings and trying to keep her from digging up the flower bushes in the backyard. This was proving a difficult task. Rose had gotten the taste for digging up the backyard her first day, and had not quit trying. Charlie found it helped to supervise her when he let her in the back. As long as he kept her occupied, it seemed like she was less prone to dig up the bushes.
On that evening of the fourth day with Rose, Charlie’s phone went off. Nan was calling. Oh no! Charlie suddenly thought. She’s going to want to garden. She’ll see the state of the flowers.
To be fair, all the flowers were still in tact. But Charlie doubted that Rose would be happy to see the ground dug up. Also, Charlie knew that Nan was unhappy about the dog. In fact, somewhere in his brain, he recalled her telling him that he couldn’t have pets. At the time, it had been a non-issue. Yet things had changed, and Charlie, being ever the optimist, hoped that Nan would allow it.
Charlie picked up the call. “Hello, Charlie?” asked Nan.
“Hey, Nan! How are you?”
“I’m okay, Charlie. Um… so I am wondering, would it be okay if I dropped by tomorrow with Tim? He wants to meet the dog. I don’t know why, but he does. And also, my daughter wants to come for some reason. Would that be okay?”
“Of course, Nan! Anytime! I’m sure Rose will love to meet them!”
After working out the details, Charlie put the phone down and stared into space. Although he had not picked up the degree of Nan’s upset about the dog, nor the fact that she had seriously considered evicting him if he kept the dog, he did feel that something had shifted for the better. Nan wasn’t scolding him.
And she wants to introduce her family to Rose! How wonderful!
Charlie eyed Rose, who sat in a floppy pile next to the front door, eyeing him with interest and the only understanding that mattered: that he was hers, and she was his. “We’re gonna have some company tomorrow, Rosie. You okay with that?”
Charlie came over and pet Rose on the back. She eagerly turned over and lifted her paw, awaiting a chest rub.
It seemed that the idea of company suited her just fine.
Charlie’s happiness with his dog, realizing how Rose (such an extraordinary name for a dog, so human, so formal!) is expanding his life, how he appreciates walking her, how he is more open to other people they pass , how he realizes they too enjoy seeing him walk her, how Rose gives both of them a reason to reach out and share—all this I have experienced with my dogs over the years and especially miss now with my last dog, my beloved Maisie, gone.