Chapter 2 (Freedom and Animals, cont.)


Wendy bonds with her new master

Many Changes:

When I became separated from Al, we went from feeling we had to change to keep each other happy, to relaxing and being ourselves, and remained--or became--best of friends. We would even talk to each other about our dating. We had never celebrated our anniversary, so six months after I married Tom, when I came up to pick up Alby, I was wondering why Al said, with irony in his voice, “Happy Anniversary.” I couldn’t think what he meant. I was in a kind of a state of shock, as on my way to pick Alby up, I had hit a dog on Route 26. A plumber’s truck was parked on the highway, and the road was lit up to that point, and in the complete darkness of where the truck was parked, a shadow of a dog dashed out just as I was passing the truck. I jammed on the brakes, and the car went out of control after hitting the dog. No one was coming from the south… thank goodness, as my car went from the right lane into a skidding U-turn where I ended up in the exact opposite direction as if I had been going north and pulled along the side to stop. My first thought was, “How the Hell did I do that! And… Thank YOU God!” I checked on the dog, and the people hadn’t even known. They found her in their front yard seemingly okay but shaking in fear. I took down their telephone number so I could check later on how she was. I called the next morning, and they had taken her to the vets. She had a broken pelvis, but the vet said it would heal on its own. I was so relieved. I love dogs, and this was a cute Benji looking dog.

When while returning to Tom’s home on Charleston Ave. in Vestal, where I now lived--where Alb was visiting, I was pondering over what Al meant… Happy Anniversary. I finally realized that he meant the signing of the divorce papers one year ago to the day. It was then I realized that he may have been more emotionally invested in me then he or I had known. He couldn’t have told you the exact date we were married in 1962, but he knew the day on which we got divorced. Too bad he couldn’t have been more vested in the marriage than in the split.

By then I had taken poor Wendy home to Charleston Avenue. She was making no big hit with my stepchildren. They and Tom made comments to the effect, “I think she’s already dead and just hasn’t realized it… at least she smells that way.” And when she ate the rest of Trese’s pound of chocolate kiss that she had gotten for Christmas… something Trese was biding her time eating… a nibble at a time, really savoring it… Wendy wasn’t exactly the apple of Trese’s eye. But she settled in and survived the move. I had no idea how much my divorce affected not only my children, but my old puppy Wendy. We were so close, as I had her since she was four weeks old. To her, I was her mother, and had deserted her the eight months I lived in Binghamton, though I took her over there for day visits. Now she had Momma back. She was a happy pup ...no matter what her stepfamily thought of her. But eventually they mellowed and liked her the way she was…the old dog smell and all, and she got to sleep on the floor on my side of the bed where I could give her a reassuring pat every once in awhile.