They laughed again. “That was my mother.”
“I was madly in love with her.”
Pete turned away. He had stunned Elv with this admission and with his obvious grief. She felt herself soften toward him.
“Well, good,” she said. “I’m glad. She deserved that.”
AFTER A YEAR of working in the laundry, Elv’s hands were chapped and her fingernails were split from hot water and soap. She filled out the application for the canine training class because her arms ached from lifting heavy towels into the driers. She had a true aversion to the scent of bleach. She went to the basement exercise room for the first session thinking she’d managed to pull a scam to get out of real work, as she had at Westfield when she’d been assigned to the stables.
The dog Elv was given was known as Pollo—they’d dubbed him Chicken on the street because he had to be forced to fight. But once provoked, he was a gladiator. If he bit down, he wouldn’t let go. He was white with dark scars across his body and face. His legs had been broken when his owner beat him after a loss. Even after surgery he limped. He was hugely bowlegged. Laughable if you didn’t know the reason why. He didn’t look at Elv when Adrian Bean, the trainer running the program, matched them up. Pollo was the only one with a quiet demeanor, which made him seem even more dangerous. The other dogs stayed away from him, as the women stayed away from Elv. He was the ugliest dog in the bunch. Just her luck. The other women had German shepherds or puppies or fluffy mixed breeds. The dogs had all been abused or abandoned, found wandering on highways or city streets. Most were terrified of thunder, footsteps, cars, human beings. Several were vicious. The slightest provocation could cause them to attack.
Adrian told the women in the class that they were the alpha dogs and their students’ futures depended on their success. If rehabilitated, the dogs would be adopted. If not, they would be put down.
“Fuck,” Elv muttered. She didn’t want to be responsible for some dog’s death because she’d failed him somehow. Pollo turned to glance at her when she spoke. He must have recognized the f-word. They looked at each other. For an instant Elv was shocked to see something she recognized. He had yellow-green eyes, like hers.
When the training began everyone clipped a leash on her dog. Pollo refused to move. He wouldn’t even accept a biscuit set down on the floor. He ignored it until a hapless puppy approached, then he snarled and gobbled it so fast he began to choke. Without thinking, Elv patted his back. Pollo turned, lips drawn. He was about to bite, but Elv quickly withdrew her hand, more for his sake than hers. If he bit her, he’d be euthanized.
“You are one stupid fuck,” she told him.
Pollo looked up. That was the single word he seemed to recognize. Elv saw inside his yellow eyes. He wasn’t a chicken. He was broken. She put another biscuit down, even though they weren’t supposed to give their dogs treats unless a command was obeyed.
“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Adrian told her when she spied the breach in training etiquette. “I’m serious, Missy. Anybody ever help you out by feeling sorry for you?”
ELV SPENT SIX months working with Pollo, five hours a day. He’s the smartest of the dogs, she wrote to Natalia. When you talk to him, he really listens. Her loneliness abated when she worked with him. He had emerged from the savagery of his life with great dignity. Elv felt like weeping in his presence. When she looked at his scars, she was ashamed of the human race. She went to the library and found out everything she could about pit bulls and American Staffordshire terriers and bull terriers and the history of dogfighting. She researched wolves and their styles of communicating. She borrowed volumes of psychology, especially methods of behavioral training. She read B. F. Skinner and My Dog Tulip and Lad a Dog and Travels with Charlie and Lassie. She hadn’t read since Westfield. She’d forgotten how much she’d loved The Scarlet Letter, how it had given her such hope in the New Hampshire darkness.
The librarian who came to deliver new books every two weeks began to set aside ones she thought Elv might like.
“You’re a serious reader,” the librarian observed. Elv had grabbed a copy of Oliver Twist because there was a photo of a bull terrier on the cover. She recalled that Meg had read all of Dickens one year.
“My sister was the reader,” Elv told the librarian. “Not me.”
For the last two months of his training, Pollo slept beside Elv’s bunk. Elv’s cellmate at the time, who went by the name of Miracle, was in on charges of drug possession, prostitution, and forgery. She wasn’t afraid of much, but she had been terrified of Pollo at first.
“You know I hate dogs, Missy,” she said to Elv. “I bet he’s going to give us fleas. And what if I step on him in the middle of the night?” Miracle wanted to know. “Maybe he’ll freak out and bite me. I don’t even know how he can be so ugly.”
“I know he looks ugly,” Elv agreed. “But he’s not. His inside is different from his outside.”
Miracle was overweight and had problems with her teeth. She knew what it was like to be called ugly. She gazed at Pollo and reconsidered. “Okay. But the first time he starts scratching, he goes. You know he’s just a substitute.” Miracle nodded to the wall where Elv had taped up several photos of Lorry.
“No one’s a substitute for him,” Elv said.
“Yeah. Right. Wait till you start talking baby talk to that dog.”
Being together twenty-four hours a day was part of the bonding Adrian insisted was necessary for a dog’s rehabilitation. But perhaps it was too much for the human side of the equation. Elv would reach out at night and feel him there. “Hey, baby,” she whispered, not wanting to wake Miracle or prove her right. For the first time since she and Lorry had been apart, Elv felt consoled. She’d done such terrible things no one could forgive her, except perhaps for another sorrowful creature who understood the effects of human cruelty, who could lie down beside her and know she hadn’t meant any harm.