Moonlight

Snippet of memory, a dog, and love.

A low growl wakes her, but she does not start. She doesn’t even open her eyes.

The girl lies in bed under thin covers on a warm summer night. Undersized for eleven, she lets a smile draw itself onto her lips. She rolls over. Her hand plops over the bed and touches the light cream and silver German Shepherd.

The dog started sleeping with the girl several nights ago. Standing by the bedroom door, she wedges her nose in its corner and waits for the child to turn the knob. With a click of the latch the dog batter-rams the door open, pounces on the bed, springs off the mattress and circles several times before lying on the floor.

This delights the girl. It comforts her, this new nightly ritual.

The growling doesn’t frighten her. What frightens her is the stalking silence, the approach of creaking floor boards from a vacuous corridor, and the turning of a door knob that she will not remember in the morning.

The dog’s growl reassures the child.

It stops the man’s hand. The girl’s father stands statue still on the other side of the door and lets loose the knob. Bad enough when he had to pull the animal away from the sleeping girl’s door. Now, the dog bares her teeth behind it, and he knows his fine reputation and his badge won’t protect him here.

The dog has to go.  

But tonight the girl is safe. She opens her eyes, spreads her fingers and closes them softly around the dog’s fur. She turns her hand over to cup the moon. Tonight she can sleep.

The dog watches the child by her bed in the moonlight… the way she will watch the bedroom window every night thereafter from the end of a chain in the corner of the yard.

The girl will survive. One day the woman she becomes will remember a dog, its fur through her fingers, the moon in her hand, and she will feel an overwhelming gratitude spill from her heart. She will close her eyes. She will feel the moonlight and her dog’s watchful eyes. And she will sleep.

LiLy (Lee Dee) my sweet silver and cream shepherd who taught me about love. Photo taken in Virginia, August 1968, a year or so after the above piece took place in California.

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From my heart to yours,

Demian Elaine’ Yumei ~ Silent No More