Chapter 43 Professor Poopy-Pants
Professor Poopy-Pants
SARAH
“You are the biggest steel trap I’ve ever met, Jamie Reilly.”
“Better than that witness on the… what was that show called?”
I laughed. “Murder for Breakfast” It was the first podcast we’d listened to on the three day drive from New Hampshire all the way to Eastern Kentucky.
Why we were going to Eastern Kentucky instead of home was still a mystery to me, but when Jamie told me about it last night, he promised it would be worth it. Afterward, we were stopping at my sister’s place in Cincinnati.
He’d looked hopeful, but also deeply nervous. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t about meeting my family. It was this mystery place we were going to. He kept tapping the steering wheel with his hands. I’d been interrogating him in between podcasts, but he wouldn’t say a word.
Now that we were almost there, he was so anxious I’d offered to drive, and he’d accepted. He put on the extremely slutty little reading glasses he wore sometimes that did things to me—and guided me off the highway and onto a country road.
“Wait!” he exclaimed, just as the phone told us our destination was up ahead—only a numerical address, of course, so his secret wouldn’t be revealed. “Can you pull over?”
I thought he was going to be sick—and I was starting to get worried about how I could possibly like a surprise that made him so worried. But he only wanted to drive so I could close my eyes and miss the sign.
I dutifully put my hands over my eyes, feeling the road begin to bump under us as he turned onto what must have been a country lane.
“Jamie,” I said, getting nervous now too.
“Okay,” he said, pulling to a stop. “Hang on, there’s someone here.”
“Should I uncover my eyes?”
“No! Not yet.”
“Okay, bossy.”
He squeezed my leg, then I heard the window rolling down, a gust of cold air filling the cab.
“Hey there!” a raspy woman’s voice called from some distance away. She sounded older, in her sixties maybe, and like she was a pack a day kind of gal. She sounded, funnily enough, like Shelly. I knew this meant nothing, but somehow it made me relax, just a little.
“Hello,” Jamie called.
“Good to see you again,” she said, her voice getting nearer.
I frowned. “Again?” I asked.
Jamie just squeezed my leg once more. “You too. Is she ready?”
“Professor Poopy-pants? Yeah, she’s ready. Why don’t y’all come on out and I’ll send a message on the walkie to Bud, he’ll open the gate and we’ll see what’s what.”
I did not understand even one part of that sentence. But all I managed was to whisper, “Professor Poopy-pants?”
“Just keep your eyes closed,” Jamie said. His hand left my thigh and I felt more cold air coming into the truck. Then Jamie was helping me out, holding onto my ribs so I didn’t twist an ankle on the uneven ground. It smelled like animals.
“Are we on a farm?” I asked.
“Close, angel.”
Jamie took my hand and guided me around the front of the truck.
A chirp on the walkie sounded and the woman barked into it. “Yeah, they’re here. Get the gate.”
Another chirp. “Roger that. Here you go, Professor.”
A clanking sounded on the other end of the line before it cut out, but under that had been another sound. A bark. It had been hard to hear under the static of the walkie and the clank, but I still froze.
“That sounded like—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Jamie’s warm hand squeezed mine. “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”
At first, all I saw was a field dusted with snow, a giant barn in the distance and trees on either side against a milky sky. Then the barn door opened and a man appeared, tall and skinny with a trucker cap.
But my eyes weren’t on him. My eyes were on the creature, small and black, at his side.
A dog. A dog that was suddenly barking with all her might, sprinting directly for me, in a strange, sideways run.
My insides caved in then. This wasn’t a dog. This was my dog.
“Fritz!” I screamed, running wildly toward her.
We ran and ran and ran and a moment later Fritz was bounding up onto me, yipping and wagging her tail so hard her whole bottom half shuddered.
I dropped to my knees, breaking down completely.
She worked herself out of my arms then bounded back onto me, nearly knocking me over.
“Good girl,” I said between sobs. “My good, good girl!”
Fritz licked the tears flowing from my face as I held her in my arms. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, my brain still not quite believing it was her, while my heart knew. It knew as sure as my sweet girl covering me in kisses.
When I finally managed to come back to earth, I saw we weren’t alone.
I stood, making my way to the collection of people standing few feet away.
I saw Jamie first, his hand on his chest as he looked at us.
Next to him was the tall man, his gray hair askew under the brim of his hat.
The woman I heard earlier was on his other side, with dyed-red hair and a round, deeply lined face.
And a girl maybe ten years old, with nearly white-blond hair, freckles on her nose, and a gap between her teeth who looked, except for the brightness of her hair, like I had at that age.
Not a single one of them had dry eyes.
My heart swelled as I looked back at Jamie and his wet cheeks. “Always knew you were a cryer,” I said, feeling so full of gratitude for this man I could hardly breathe.
“Windy out here,” he grunted, and everyone laughed, even me; even Fritz in little yips.
We both gave him hugs, and Fritz even jumped willingly into his arms.
“Not too often we get a reunion,” the woman said, dabbing at her eyes.
The man explained this was a rescue and rehab sanctuary for older, special needs, and abandoned animals.
He also explained that they named Fritz “Professor Poopy-pants” because she was so anxious when she first arrived she was incontinent.
“But still walked around with her nose in the air like a little lady.”
“Sounds like her,” I said, laughing, as Fritz leapt back onto me.
“I wanted to call her something else,” the girl said, “but Grandpa said it and it just stuck. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I smiled at this girl, that strange doppelg?nger feeling only increasing. “I can see how that would stick.”
I finally stood up, letting Fritz bound in circles around all of us before she leapt into my arms once more.
We chatted a bit more, the man telling us how they’d come to have her.
Ted apparently hadn’t been lying about giving her to a colleague on a farm, but they’d turned her over pretty quickly to the ASPCA—probably because she’d started anxious-pooping. Then another agency. My poor girl.
Jamie, meanwhile, told us how he’d followed that trail—by visiting all the animal shelters within a hundred mile radius of Cincinnati with a hand-drawn sketch of Fritz based on memory alone.
As they moved on to talking about the history of the farm, I drifted out of the conversation. I was too occupied with nuzzling my face in Fritz’s fur. She smelled just as I remembered. Like a sweet little thing. Like my girl.
I felt eyes on me as Fritz nestled into my neck, and looked over to see the young girl looking at us with a slightly melancholy expression.
My stomach twisted as I realized this reunion probably wasn’t happy for all of us.
“Are you sorry we’re taking her away?” I asked softly.
She looked startled when I spoke. “No! I mean I’ll be sad, but she’s your dog.” She smiled shyly. “She loves you the most.”
Fritz sighed contentedly, as if underscoring the words, and we both smiled.
I was relieved to discover I believed her.
“Is it hard being here,” I asked, “falling in love with animals you might not get to love for too long?”
“Sometimes. But I love it too. I miss my dad, and my friends”—her eyes fluttered a moment like there was a lot more behind that sentence—then she smiled again and it was gone.
“But this place is really special. I don’t ever feel bad about loving any of them, even if they’re grumpy, or even if they don’t live too long. ”
I didn’t know anything about this girl’s story, but I did know she was wise beyond her years. And when I glanced over at Jamie, I saw he’d heard everything she’d said too, because that wind had acted up again, making his eyes stream wet.
On the way back home, with Fritz snoring in my lap, I couldn’t stop staring at both my dog and Jamie, in turns. I made him repeat the story again of how he’d tracked her down.
Then, after seeing something flash across his face, I’d gotten out of him that he may or may not have accidentally stumbled upon my ex’s new address in his search. “I’d be happy to subscribe him to Erectile Dysfunction Quarterly if you want.”
“Maybe a good old fashioned flaming bag of dog shit on his stoop.” I said, laughing. “I’ll write Love from Fritz on the bag.”
I loved him for it, but I was well beyond wanting to do anything petty to Ted. I got the feeling that his life would continue to disappoint him.
He’d done this for me. He’d driven all the way here to see Fritz in person in the three days we’d been apart.
On icy roads that were just now starting to thaw.
He’d tracked her down through calls and in person visits, and by some miracle, found her.
Then he came in person to make sure she seemed like the dog I’d told him about.
That’s why he’d nearly had a panic attack on the way over here.
He didn’t know if it was her. He hadn’t wanted to let me down.
“What would you have done if she wasn’t Fritz?” I asked.
“I’d keep her anyway. Just in the hopes you fell in love with her, too. And maybe me.”
“I’m already in love with you.”
“Thank goodness it all worked out, then.”
His lips tugged up as he glanced over at me, and I think that’s the moment I truly knew. The last of the tiny shred of reservation I had about loving again, about loving him—it fell away, whispering into the dust like an old piece of string.
I didn’t exactly know how things were going to work out—I was going to have to move, Jamie would have to keep Fritz at his place, but what about Stu? And then there was Zwicky, tucked back into his bag in Jamie’s shirt for the ride home.
But I knew we’d figure it out together. Because I knew I loved this man, and I had not a single doubt that he loved me too. And that love, I knew as clearly as the stars out the window as we drove home together, was the real magic.