“Jake?” Lida says, tears at the edges of her eyes.
“What? And don’t cry.”
Lida lifts her shoulders and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I have a sod cutter,” she says very softly.
Lida and I sit on Billy’s bed. Lucy stretches out, her head on Billy’s pillow. The bedroom door is closed.
There’s a soft knock and Jesse comes in.
“If I open the door, Lucy goes to the kitchen and wants out,” I tell him.
“She’d go to the hospital,” says Jesse.
Jesse sits on the bed, too.
“All right,” says Jesse.
“All right what?” asks Lida.
“All right I’ll help,” says Jesse. “You can’t do it by yourselves.”
No one says anything. Then Jesse adds, “Plus, I want to do it.”
“A pact,” says Lida.
“A pact,” says Jesse. “It won’t be easy.”
“Billy says doing anything worth doing is never easy,” I say.
“Yeah,” says Jesse with a smile. “Billy would say that.”
He holds up his hand. Lida puts her hand next to it. I put my hand up, too.
Lucy gets up and looks at us with wide eyes.
“No,” says Jesse to Lucy. “It’s just us here. Billy’s at the hospital.”
He says it as if Lucy will understand.
Lucy stares at Jesse.
“Give me five, Lucy,” says Jesse.
He holds up his hand, and Lucy puts up her paw, too.
“I taught her that,” says Jesse.
“I taught her that!” I say.
“Wait,” says Lida. “I taught her that!”
We laugh.
Lucy sits down again, rolls over.
She yawns her whiny dog yawn.
It’s quiet again.
10
Angel Dog
Mama brushes her hair. Papa stands by the door, waiting. Lida and Jesse are doing their chores and Papa’s, too. I am going to the hospital to see Billy.
The phone rings. I’m closest to the phone, and Mama nods at me.
“Hello.”
“Jake?”
It’s Dr. Miller.
“Bring Lucy.”
She hangs up.
I stare at the phone for a minute, then I smile.
“What?” says Mama.
“Dr. Miller says bring Lucy.”
“That Billy,” she says.
“Want to go for a ride, Lucy?” she asks.
Lucy’s ears prick up. She runs to the door.
“Take the rope, Jake. I don’t trust Lucy,” says Papa.
Lucy gives Papa a look as if she says, Who, me? Not trustworthy? I’m your best friend.
It’s dusk when we ride to the hospital. I sit in the back with Lucy. She looks out the window eagerly—looking for a man with a bush of white hair, looking for Billy.
When we get to the hospital, Lucy stands up in the backseat and wags her tail. She knows.
I’ve said it out loud because Mama nods.
“She does.”
We get out with Lucy and walk through the front door. It’s a low hospital, only one floor. The hall lights are on.
“Wait!” says the woman at the desk. “That’s a dog. You can’t bring her …”
Lucy pulls loose and runs down the hall—past doctors and nurses and visitors, past a steel cart with medicines—the rope trailing behind her.
“Lucy!” I call, chasing after her.
She turns into a room and we follow.
Billy’s room.
When we get there, Lucy is up on the bed with Billy.
“Well, you found the room without any trouble,” says Dr. Miller, standing next to the bed.
“Lucy did,” says Mama.
Billy smiles. He has oxygen tubes in his nose, and his arm is hooked up to a machine.
He looks tired, but his face isn’t so pale.
Lucy looks up at Dr. Miller.
“No, you can’t stay here tonight,” she says. “Rules,” she adds, and looks at me. “But you can visit tomorrow again. My rules.”
I smile at Dr. Miller.
Before we leave, Lucy visits other rooms—other sick people smiling at her, stroking her head.
“I should hire Lucy,” says Dr. Miller.
“She’s an angel dog,” says Billy. “And don’t you forget that.”
“I’m thinking you’re right,” says Dr. Miller. “I like Angel Dog. She should visit every day.”
“And she will do that, Chickie,” says Billy.
Dr. Miller looks at me.
“He’s better, don’t you think?”
I nod. Billy has called her Chickie.
We watch Billy eat Mama’s chicken soup.
We watch Billy take his medicine.
There’s only one thing left.
It’s night when we drive home again, but the moon is full, lighting our way home. Papa has even forgotten to put on the car’s headlights. Lucy sleeps with her head on my lap, somehow comforted to have seen Billy for a short visit.
When we drive up the dirt road to our house, I see our small tractor in the side field by the slough, its headlights on.
“What’s that?” asks Mama. “Who’s that?”
Papa shakes his head.
“Looks like Lida.”
I smile. I know it’s Lida.
When Papa stops the car, I take Lucy on her rope and run up the hill, past the slough, past the granary.
I stop when I get to the field. Lucy sits.
Lida is cutting sod.
11
Poetry
I sleep with Lucy in Billy’s bed because I promised. She sleeps next to me, sometimes lifting her head to peer at me as if to say You’re not the one I love. You’re all right. But not the one I love. Sometimes she moves on the bed so she can look out the window into the dark. What does she see there?
I wonder if she dreams.
I have many dreams.
My dreams are about Billy.
Lida and Jesse and I cut sod every day, shaping the bricks so they are all the same. We cut until we have hundreds. We move them to a wagon, and Lida pulls the wagon with the tractor to where the Russian olive bushes are.
“Why here?” asks Jesse.
I’ve cut away some of the Russian olive bushes. I point to where Billy’s old sod house is. I don’t need to say anything. Jesse knows.
“Billy’s house,” says Jesse.
I nod.
“I’m going to use that corner for the new house,” I say.
Jesse smiles.
“Billy will like that. It’s poetic.”
“Poetic?”
“Old house, new house,” says Jesse. “Poetry.”
I don’t know about that. But Jesse knows. He reads roomfuls of books.
“Poetry?” I ask him.
Jesse nods.
“Poetry,” he says.
And we begin to build, the three of us. There’s still water in the slough. Jesse hauls up water so we can make good mud to put between the sod bricks. Mama and Papa come up to watch, bringing Lucy on her rope leash.
“I can help,” says Papa.
And we let him.
Mama sits on the rock, Lucy next to her, watching.
Jesse, who has read all about sod houses, teaches us to make the walls thick. He teaches us how to pile the bricks in double rows to strengthen the walls. He measures the house print that we have staked out.
“You’ll have room for a bed, a chair, and a stove. Do we have a stove? And two windows.”
“I have some old barn windows,” says Papa, piling up sod bricks and putting mud in between the bricks. “We can buy a stove for Billy.”
“How long will it take to build the house?” asks Mama.
It’s now four feet tall. We’ve left a door opening so Billy can look out over the slough.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“How long will Billy be
in the hospital?” Jesse asks.
“Can we surprise him when he gets out?” asks Lida.
Mama shrugs.
“Dr. Miller thinks three, maybe four more days,” she says.
“Then that’s how long it will take,” says Jesse.
I look at Jesse.
“Poetry,” I say.
“Yep,” says Jesse. “Get to work.”
12
The Secret
Every night I sleep with Lucy. And I come to understand something. Lucy likes me. She knows I like her. But she knows that I don’t need her. Billy needs her. So she waits every day for us to take her in the car to visit Billy.
In the morning she patiently watches the hummingbirds at the feeders. She patiently waits as we feed her breakfast and we eat our food.
At the hospital the rules have changed. Lucy is allowed in the front door and down the hallway to Billy’s room. The woman at the front desk waves her hand and lets us by with Lucy, though I don’t think she likes it much.
“Angel Dog,” says Billy when Lucy comes into the room and jumps up on his bed.
Lucy rubs her head against Billy.
“She’s rubbing her scent on me,” he says. “I belong to her.”
Billy looks better every day.
“What is going on at home?” he asks.
We make up things about home. And none of us—Jesse or Lida or Mama or I—tell him that we’re building him a sod house.
“I’ll be home in two days,” says Billy. “Right, Chickie?” he asks Dr. Miller.
She laughs.
“We’ll see. I want your breathing to be better. We’ll see.”
Dr. Miller knows about our sod house.
“I have to get home. We have a sod house to build,” says Billy.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” asks Dr. Miller. “You can’t build anything for a while.”
“Well, they will,” says Billy, waving his hand at us. “Right?”
Billy peers at us and we are silent.
“Lida, how’s the sod-cutting research going?”
“Fine,” says Lida. “I need a little more time. Rubin is going to lend me his cutter.”
Lida’s lie makes her blush, but Billy doesn’t see it. Rubin’s sod cutter has worked very well. The house walls are straight and very thick and over our head. The roof will come next.
“That’s great, Lida,” says Billy. “Get ready; I’ll be home soon.”
“Oh, we’ll be ready,” says Jesse, his face as peaceful and innocent as I’ve ever seen. “We’ll certainly be ready.”
Billy takes my hand.
“The hummingbirds still there?”
“Yes. I clean out their feeders every other day, like you showed me. Lucy watches.”
“Of course she does,” says Billy, leaning back on his pillows. “Summer’s nearly over. In the fall they’ll go.”
I don’t know why, but I feel goose bumps up my arms.
“They come back, though,” I say quickly.
“They do. Where’s your papa?” asks Billy.
“Chores,” says Jesse.
Papa is home building the wooden frame for the roof of the sod house.
Billy looks at Lucy.
“Chores? What do you know?” he asks. “You know a secret, Lucy? Tell me.”
Lucy looks at me, then at Jesse and Lida. She does know our secret. I stare at Billy, trying to see if he’s kidding or not.
“Chicken soup?” asks Mama.
“You bet,” says Billy.
“You bet,” says Dr. Miller.
The secret is forgotten.
13
A Good Sign
Two days before Billy’s supposed to come home from the hospital we finish the roof rafters. Jesse and Lida climb down their ladders. There is a sudden quiet; even the wind is quiet as we look at the house. No rustling in the Russian olives.
Lucy watches, sitting quietly by the front door of the sod house. She doesn’t need a leash anymore. Mama thinks it is because she goes to visit Billy every day. I think it is because she knows Billy will be in this house soon.
Mama pours lemonade for us all.
“Almost done,” says Papa in a soft voice.
Jesse wipes his face with the back of his hand.
“The roof next,” he says.
“Leave one piece,” says Mama quietly.
We all look at her.
“For Billy.”
Lida nods.
“I hope,” she says, imitating Billy’s voice, “the roof sod grass is pointing to the sky!”
She sounds so much like Billy that Lucy looks up at her, tilting her head.
Later that morning we nearly finish the roof. I’ve stripped the leaves off the Russian olives I cleared so that I can climb up to put a layer of branches over the sod. Now Mama can whitewash the walls we’ve made smooth inside.
We all go inside and stand in the sod house. It is empty except for us and the little yellow woodstove Papa has bought.
“You visit Billy without me today,” Mama says. “Lida and I have finishing work to do.”
“Finishing? What do you mean?” I say.
“You’ll see,” says Mama. “Shoo, shoo.” She waves us off.
This makes Lucy bark, and we laugh.
“Laugher in this house,” says Mama, smiling. “That’s a good sign.”
We laugh more. A good sign.
At the hospital Billy is feisty. At least that’s what Dr. Miller says.
Billy is sitting on the side of the bed, his legs dangling, petting Lucy.
“Bring that man some clothes tomorrow and take him away,” Dr. Miller says.
“You love me, Chickie,” says Billy. “You know that.”
“I do,” says Dr. Miller, “along with my husband, my two children, my dog, and my goat, Rosemary.”
“You never told me you have a goat!” says Billy, making us all laugh.
Billy walks down the hospital hallway in his bathrobe with Lucy and his cane, looking into rooms, waving at people.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says. “You’ll miss me.”
“Did you finish the house?” whispers Dr. Miller.
“Yes,” I whisper. “We left the last piece of sod off the roof. For Billy.”
Dr. Miller smiles.
“Good thought,” she says. “I’ll come out tomorrow afternoon to check on him.”
“And to see the sod house,” I say.
“Of course to see the sod house!” she repeats.
When we get home, Lucy jumps out of the car and runs up the hill to the sod house as if she knows something. And she does.
The sod house door is open, and when we step inside, we see that the walls are smooth and white. Mama and Lida have hung two pictures: an old one of the farm when Billy owned it, and one of the slough. There is a bed with a yellow quilt, a small table with an oil lamp on it, and a vase of flowers picked from Mama’s garden. The rocking chair Billy’s mama brought all the way from Europe sits near the door so Billy can sit in it and look at his slough. On the floor is Mama’s favorite red Oriental rug with green trees and golden deer on it.
The sod house is beautiful.
Lucy lies down on the rug as if she’s home.
And she is.
14
Rusty Cage
The day.
Somehow Lucy knows. She wakes with the hummingbirds, scratches at the bedroom door; and when I let her out, she runs to the car. She sits in the sunlight, looking at me.
“Breakfast first,” I call to her.
Slowly, Lucy comes back into the house and waits by her breakfast dish.
Mama is surprised to see me in the kitchen.
“I’ll bet Lucy woke you,” she says.
“Good bet.”
I pour cereal into my bowl.
Mama spoons food into Lucy’s dish and sits down at the table.
“You did it, Jake,” she says.
“We all did it,” I say.
?
??But you made it happen,” Mama says.
“We’re kindred souls,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
Mama smiles. “You are.”
Lucy gets up and sits next to Mama. Mama pets her.
I eat my cereal.
The phone rings.
Mama answers.
“Hello?”
Mama laughs.
“Okay.”
She hangs up.
“Billy says, don’t forget his shoes.”
The phone rings again.
Mama raises her eyebrows at me and answers again.
“Hello?”
She grins at Lucy.
“Of course.”
She hangs up.
“Don’t forget Lucy,” we say together, laughing.
At the hospital Billy dresses faster than I’ve ever seen. He slicks down his white hair so that even Lucy stares at him.
“Yes,” I tell Lucy. “It’s really Billy.”
“Where’s everyone?” asks Billy.
“They’re at home, working,” I say.
“Working at what?” asks Billy with a sly smile.
Mama and I don’t say anything.
“Working at what?” Billy repeats.
“All right,” I say. “I confess. We have staked out the sod house.”
Billy slaps his knee.
“I knew it! Let’s go. Have to get home and build it. Lottie, if you just get one of those old lawn chairs out, I can sit there and tell them how to do it.”
Mama smiles.
“I can do that, Billy,” she says.
Dr. Miller pokes her head in the doorway.
“Go home, Billy,” she says. “I’ll be out to see you this afternoon.”
“Bye, Chickie,” says Billy.
And we’re off, Billy waving good-bye to the woman at the front desk, who is glad to be rid of him and Lucy. Billy sits in the backseat with Lucy, both of them looking out the windows.
“Turn on the radio, Jake,” says Billy. “We need some music.”
And we ride all the way home to the music of Johnny Cash singing:
“… gonna break my rusty cage and run …”
Billy smiles.
“I like that song,” he says.
We turn down the long dirt road past our meadows, past the cows and Billy the calf, past the horses. We come into the yard, and Billy opens the back door before we’ve stopped.
“Let’s go,” he says.
But Lucy jumps out ahead of Billy and starts up the hill to the slough. She turns and waits for him.