The Truth of Me Read online

  “Do you have truths of your own?” I ask.

  “Yes,” says Henry. “I am, in my heart, a man with a very large sailboat. I sail around the world with my two dogs and visit people everywhere. I like the wind in my hair. I like the sun. I like the stars at night.”

  I stare at Henry for a moment. For some reason, I don’t know why—maybe because Henry has told me this very private thing—I feel like crying. Just so I don’t cry, I ask Henry my very own stupid question.

  “What kind of dogs?” I ask, my voice trembling a bit.

  Henry doesn’t laugh.

  “Portuguese water dogs,” says Henry. He takes his wallet out of his pocket and shows me a picture.

  “This is what they look like.”

  I look at the picture of black, curly-haired dogs.

  I decide to push a little more.

  “And their names?”

  “Are Luke and Lily,” he says quickly, expecting the question.

  I sit back.

  Henry looks at me with a small smile.

  “Do you have small truths of your own, Kiddo?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “I think I’m too young,” I say.

  “Oh, no. You can work on it while you’re here,” says Henry. “You’ll have your own small truth by summer’s end.”

  He reaches over to tap my hand. It’s only a tap, but it’s comforting.

  “In the meantime, we won’t worry about Maddy, will we?” he says in a soft voice.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “I think we both like Maddy the way she is,” says Henry.

  “We do,” I say.

  “You have a good heart, Kiddo. Want to hear it?”

  Henry picks up his stethoscope and puts the earpieces in my ears. He holds the chest piece on my chest. It is quiet in the room. Even Ellie doesn’t move. And then I hear the steady thump, thump, thump of something inside me.

  Henry knows there are tears at the corners of my eyes, but he doesn’t say so. He puts my hand over the chest piece so I can hold it there. He gets up to stir the pot on the stove.

  And I sit, listening to the sound of my heart.

  Listening for one small truth.

  Listening to me.

  Ellie and I have gone to bed.

  Henry’s stew was normal.

  Maddy’s salad was almost normal.

  I can hear Henry and Maddy talking softly in the kitchen. I like the sound of their talk even though I can’t hear what they say.

  Ellie turns over in the dark.

  I yawn.

  And I realize that I’m missing something.

  What is it?

  I hear the quiet.

  I never hear soft voices in the other room at home. And then it comes to me. What I don’t hear is the sound of music. What I don’t hear is the faraway sound of my mother’s sweet, sad violin, the solid sound of my father playing out a melody on the piano over and over, and the sudden silence when I know he is writing it down. All that music that comes out of the night.

  I close my eyes.

  It is kind of nice to miss something of my mother and father.

  I quickly open my eyes, surprised.

  I wonder if this is a small truth.

  A small truth about me.

  5

  Alpha

  When I wake in the morning, the room is full of light.

  I get up and go into the kitchen. Maddy has left a pitcher of orange juice and a glass on the table for me. I pour a glassful, then walk to the kitchen door and look out. The door is open, and I can see Maddy sitting on a wooden bench by the garden. Ellie sits at her feet.

  I stop drinking my juice and put the glass on the counter. I look again. Ellie sits, looking at Maddy. Ellie is surrounded by squirrels.

  “Good girl, Ellie,” says Maddy softly.

  I come out of the house, and Maddy hears me. She holds up her hand to stop me.

  “Down, Ellie,” says Maddy in a kind voice.

  Ellie lies down, her head on her paws. The squirrels scamper all around her, eating corn that Maddy has tossed there. One squirrel brushes against Ellie, but she doesn’t move. Maddy leans down and feeds Ellie a snack.

  I think about Lizzie saying that Maddy has “gifts.”

  I look up and see Henry standing quietly at the edge of the stone walk.

  We look at each other.

  Henry smiles.

  I smile, too.

  “How did you do that?” I ask Maddy in the kitchen. “She doesn’t like squirrels at all.”

  “Well, some snacks,” says Maddy. “Ellie likes Henry’s stew. She likes the snacks more than she hates squirrels.”

  Ellie is prancing around proudly, as if she has done something special and heroic.

  She has in a way.

  “But I feed her snacks, and she always keeps chasing squirrels. Only squirrels,” I point out.

  “Well, I am an alpha,” says Maddy.

  “I’ll say,” Henry says.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “The boss,” says Henry.

  “Alpha also means ‘confidence,’” says Maddy.

  “I am the leader to Ellie because I am confident I can teach Ellie not to chase squirrels. And other things,” she says briskly.

  Henry raises his eyebrows.

  “She is right, of course,” he says. “Maddy is confident.”

  “And Ellie likes to please people,” says Maddy.

  “Can I learn that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” says Maddy.

  “Yes,” says Henry almost at the same time.

  Maddy looks surprised.

  “I may know Kiddo better than you do in some ways,” Henry says to Maddy.

  “Really?” says Maddy.

  She looks at Henry, then at me.

  “Do you two have secrets?”

  “No,” says Henry. “Truths.”

  “Truths?” asks Maddy.

  I nod.

  “Small truths,” I say.

  Maddy lifts her shoulders.

  “Well, then, we’ll have a go at it,” she says.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “You’ll see,” says Maddy mysteriously. “Now, who’s cooking tonight?”

  “What do you have in the pantry?” asks Henry.

  “Cold cereal,” says Maddy.

  “Oh, good grief,” says Henry. “I made spaghetti sauce this morning. I’ll get it.”

  Henry goes out the door.

  “Did you make meatballs, too?” calls Maddy.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Henry calls back.

  “Maddy?”

  “What, Robbie?”

  “You have chicken in the refrigerator,” I say.

  “I know,” says Maddy, laughing. “I love Henry’s spaghetti and meatballs.”

  She takes down big blue plates from the cupboard and begins to set the table. She hands me the silverware.

  “Henry can roast the chicken tomorrow,” Maddy whispers to me.

  We look at each other over the table and begin to laugh. Ellie woofs at us happily and prances and dances, and we laugh more.

  I watch Maddy make Ellie sit before she gives her a snack. I watch the way Maddy holds up her hand so Ellie will lie down.

  Ellie likes following Maddy’s commands. She likes it.

  Maddy smiles at me, but she doesn’t know what I’m thinking.

  I tell her.

  “I’m going to be an alpha, too,” I say.

  I put three blue napkins down next to the blue plates.

  I look at Maddy.

  “I am.”

  6

  A Walk with Ellie

  “I’m going to weed the garden today,” says Maddy. “What are you going to do?”

  “Training,” I say. “I’m taking a walk with Ellie.”

  “I see. Training Ellie or training yourself?”

  “Both.”

  Maddy nods.

  She takes a big straw hat off the hook in
the hallway and puts it on.

  “Do I look like Mother Goose?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Too thin.”

  “I’m going to train Ellie off leash today,” I say.

  “Good idea. That means she can be responsible on her own. Where are you going?”

  “Henry’s house.”

  “Be sure to remind him to roast the chicken tonight,” she says as she goes out the doorway.

  “Okay.”

  I hold the leash, and Ellie knows it. She looks at me, waiting for me to put it on her.

  “No,” I say. “No leash today.”

  I go out the doorway. When I look back, Ellie is standing there, watching me.

  “Come, Ellie,” I say.

  Ellie comes.

  Maddy is watching from the garden.

  I walk down the road and Ellie walks next to me. She looks at me every so often. Every so often I tell her she’s a good dog.

  We walk past three houses, past a fence where there are cows. Ellie lifts her nose and sniffs the air that is their air.

  “Good girl,” I say.

  At the end of Henry’s driveway is a small white sign that says DR. HENRY BELL. Ellie and I walk up the driveway until we get to Henry’s house. There is a blue door.

  “This is Henry’s house,” I say, feeling strange telling her this. “Henry,” I repeat.

  The blue door opens, and Henry is there.

  I wonder if Ellie thinks this is magic and me saying his name has called him out.

  “Hello, Kiddo,” says Henry. “Hello, Eleanor. Come in.”

  Ellie wags her tail but looks up at me.

  “Go ahead,” I say.

  Ellie runs up to Henry.

  We walk out of the sun into the cool of Henry’s house. It is filled with books and a few paintings of boats on the sea. I walk to the back window and look out. There is a large pond there.

  There is a red boat at the edge.

  “Your sailboat,” I say to Henry.

  “My canoe,” he says.

  “I’m training Ellie today,” I tell Henry. “So I can be an alpha.”

  “You’re already an alpha, Kiddo,” says Henry.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In some ways you’re more alpha than your mother and father,” says Henry. “Think about that.”

  I think about it. I don’t say anything for a moment, then I remember.

  “Maddy asked me to tell you to roast a chicken tonight.”

  Henry laughs.

  “I saw that chicken yesterday,” he says.

  I grin at him.

  “You’re kind of an alpha, too,” I say.

  Ellie and I walk home together, no leash, Ellie close to me. Ellie doesn’t chase dogs. She looks at a cat but doesn’t bark or run after it. She sniffs the cows we passed before.

  I lean down and kiss Ellie on her head.

  I may be the very best alpha in the world.

  Ellie’s a good dog, too.

  There’s that.

  It is still light when we eat Henry’s roast chicken.

  “So, you had a good day of training?” asks Maddy.

  “I was very good,” I say.

  I think a bit.

  “The truth is, Ellie was good.”

  Maddy nods.

  “Someone taught her well when she was younger. But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t a good trainer, too.”

  Maddy doesn’t own a television, but she has a small radio that is turned on. Music plays softly.

  Suddenly I look up.

  “Schubert,” I say.

  Maddy and Henry are silent.

  “I know that music,” I say. “Death and the Maiden.”

  I hear the sweet, sad violin. I drop my fork and get up and stand by the radio. The violin plays. The violin I know well. The violin I hear all through the days at home and into the night.

  “My mother,” I say very softly. “She worked hard on that piece.”

  Ellie comes over to stand by me. Maybe she remembers, too.

  I stand there until the violin solo is finished and the quartet ends. There is applause.

  The announcer’s soft voice comes on, the continued sound of applause behind him.

  “That was the Allegro Quartet playing Schubert’s Death and the Maiden in London. Judith Sanders, first violin; David Chance, second violin; Robert Sanders, viola; and Marybeth Dickinson, cello.”

  “My mother,” I say again.

  Still no one speaks.

  “She loves that violin,” I say in a whisper.

  “You can hear it.”

  Maddy gets up from the table and comes over to put her arms around me.

  “She loves you, too, Robbie,” she says. “She just doesn’t know you as well as she knows that violin.”

  We stand there for a long time.

  After a while Ellie leans against me.

  7

  Up the Hill and into the Woods

  Every day Ellie and I walk together, no leash. We walk up and down roads we’ve never walked before.

  Sometimes people talk to Ellie and pat her: people walking, people in their yards. Sometimes Ellie and other dogs walking sniff noses and wag their tails. Ellie loves the attention. She even meets an escaped chicken once, and though she might want to eat that chicken, she doesn’t. She looks up at me and doesn’t move.

  We walk to Henry’s house every day.

  “Henry,” I say every time. “Henry.”

  Ellie looks at me, I think, as if to say, “I know, I know!”

  Sometimes we walk down to the pond when Henry’s not there. Once we sit in the red canoe and watch the summer light come through the leaves of beech trees.

  My mother and father are in France now, playing quartet concerts. They haven’t written yet, but I can follow them through the music sections of the newspapers. At one concert David Chance gets special praise as the new second violinist. I wonder if my mother is pleased because she chose him. Maybe. Maybe not.

  My friend Jack writes me a letter.

  Dear Robert,

  HELP! SAVE ME! I don’t like camp. We have to swim early every day in freezing water. Today I think I saw an iceberg.

  Lizzie hates it, too. She fell off a horse yesterday.

  Jack

  Jack’s letter makes me laugh out loud. It makes me happy I’m spending the summer with Maddy.

  And then one morning after Ellie and I come back from walking, Maddy has packed up food. She has packed up water. She has packed up a tent.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  “It’s time,” says Maddy.

  “Time?”

  “To go camping,” says Maddy.

  Ellie sniffs the basket of food.

  “You mean tonight?” I ask.

  “Tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “Up the hill and into the woods,” says Maddy.

  The woods.

  My nervous feeling comes back. I think about Maddy’s stories about her wild-animal friends.

  “Is Henry coming?” I ask.

  I know the answer.

  “Of course not. Henry doesn’t like to camp,” says Maddy. “It’s us. And Ellie.”

  Maddy hands me my sweater.

  “It gets kind of cool at night. Ready?”

  I look at Ellie, who looks right back at me as if she knows all the things I don’t know.

  “Okay,” I say.

  I pick up Ellie’s leash, just in case.

  Outside, Maddy puts the tent and sleeping bags and food basket in a big garden wagon with thick wheels.

  “We can take turns pulling the wagon,” she says.

  The phone rings.

  “Answer that, would you, Robbie?”

  I go inside and pick up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  There is the thin sound of a place far away on the line. I know who it is.

  “Robert?”

  My mother’s voice comes into my ear.


  “Hello.”

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “I’m fine.”

  There’s a pause.

  “And how’s Maddy?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Another pause.

  “Well, your father and I are very busy.”

  She sounds shy, as if talking on the phone is hard for her.

  Another pause.

  “I heard you play,” I say.

  “The Schubert?” asks Mother, suddenly more interested.

  “I knew it was you,” I say. “I knew the sound of your violin. I miss it,” I say softly.

  My mother is not interested in that.

  “How did I sound?” she asks.

  I close my eyes. There is silence, except for that sad sound of no one talking.

  “I mean that I’m glad you knew it was me playing,” says my mother suddenly, trying to be kind.

  “I miss you,” I say very softly.

  I wait for her to say she misses me.

  I wait until I realize that she’s not going to say it.

  “Robert?” she says.

  “I can’t hear you,” I say. “I think the connection isn’t good.”

  “Robert?”

  Very quietly, I hang up the phone.

  I go out to where Maddy waits.

  “It was my mother,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  Maddy looks at me for a moment, then silently, neither of us talking, we pull the wagon up through the grasses, on a path through the woods, up to the top of the hill. Ellie noses my hand once as if to remind me she’s there.

  It is beautiful at the top of the hill. The sun is setting, leaving a rose sky. We set up the tent together in a clearing. Maddy builds a small campfire in a stone pit, and we eat our food. There are two logs to sit on. I stare at the logs, remembering Maddy’s story about eating corn bread with a bear, both of them sitting on a log. But I don’t ask Maddy about it. Ellie curls up next to the fire after she eats. The air feels good. The woods have a sweet smell.

  “I don’t want to talk about my mother’s call,” I say to Maddy.

  “Neither do I,” says Maddy.

  I almost smile.

  When we’re tired, we both go into the dome tent and go to sleep. Ellie curls up next to me, her hound body shaped to my body.

  It is the next day, early morning, when the animals come.

  8