Half smiling, he put his hand under my chin. I turned my head and pressed my cheek into his palm. With my eyes closed, it felt as if I were absorbing his sadness, taking it into a place in myself where it couldn’t hurt him as much. Was this what dogs did? And what I gave back, what I exchanged his sadness for, was simply love.

He took his hand away and stared. His eyes were alert, puzzled.

Sam. Sam, it’s me, Laurie. I put a paw on his knee, not letting him look away. Do you see me? Help me. Rescue me. For an instant, I swear he knew.

But then time moved, “reality” returned, and he laughed-uneasily-and gave a tug on my ear. “Come on, Sonoma. Bedtime.”

In the kitchen? I couldn’t believe it. He wanted me to lie down on the brand-n ew, corduroy-covered dog bed he’d bought on the way home from the vet’s that still smelled of the plastic wrap it came in. Pew. He gave me a few per functory pats and stood up. So did I. We went through that a few times-“No, lie down, lie down. That’s it. Good girl”-until I gave up. And then, then, he turned out the light and closed the swinging kitchen door. Didn’t even leave a radio on for me.

I waited for about half an hour, listening to Sam upstairs in the bathroom, then the creaks and cracks of the house settling, the next-door neighbor smoking his last cigarette on his screen porch, the occasional car purring by. I even heard Sam turn his bedside lamp off-amazing. He’s a good sleeper and he conks out fast; I waited ten more minutes. Then I nosed the door open and escaped.

Treading quickly on the rugs, carefully on the hardwood so my toenails wouldn’t clack. New instincts were kicking in. I felt like a huntress.

That earthy, humid, little-boy smell in Benny’s room was stronger than ever, as if it had been fermenting in the dark. Bath time must be in the morning under Sam’s regime. I went to the source, creeping onto my son’s low bed with such grace and precision, he never stirred. As usual, he’d thrown his covers off. He lay on his stomach, arms flung out as if he were flying. The soft, quick sound of his breathing kept time with my heartbeat. I wanted to taste him, lick all the skin his hiked-up pjs exposed, but settled for discreet snuffling, deep, silent inhales of his calves, his feet, the delicious back of his neck. I settled myself along the length of his leg, touching as much of him with as much of me as possible. And guarded him.

Time passed-I didn’t know how much. The numbers on Benny’s Spider-M an clock ran together; I couldn’t make sense of them. Sometime deep in the night, I gave him a last nose caress and crept out of his room.

Into Sam’s. Where the smells were much subtler but equally intriguing. More so, in their way. Our bed was higher than Benny’s. I put my front paws on the foot of the mattress and cautiously raised myself so I could see Sam. For a long time I just watched him, asleep on his back, one arm over his eyes. The sheet covered half of his bare chest; under it he’d have on his running shorts-his summer pajamas. In the light from the streetlamp his skin looked hard and bluish pale, like marble. God, I’d missed him. I missed him right now. Quiet as a ninja, I got all four feet on the bed and curled up on my wide, empty side of it in the smallest ball I could manage. And fell into the second-deepest sleep of my life.

I’m sealed in icy water, trying not to breathe. If I breathe, I’ll die. Darkness is closing in. I can see only through a narrowing tunnel. I flail my limbs, knowing it’s useless, unwise, but the fear is too strong. Help me! (Did this happen? Is it real?) When I can’t bear it any longer, my mouth opens and I suck in-water. Panic devours me. I scream, but there’s no sound because there’s no breath. I have one last clear thought: This is so stupid. The last emotion is fury-I kick, I punch, I push-

“What the hell?”

I wake up.

Back to the kitchen. I didn’t protest. Bad dog, caught in the act. Sam was so groggy, I couldn’t tell if he was mad or amused because his new dog had kicked him awake. Except for “What the hell?” he had nothing to say. But he made his point when, after closing the kitchen door on me, he pulled a dining room chair in front of it.

I see now that there was still a part of me that believed this whole thing was a hallucination. It died a tragic death when Sam dragged that chair in front of the door. This isn’t funny anymore, I thought. I have got to get out of this. The fact that I had no idea what “this” was didn’t daunt me. I had spent my first and last day as a dog. Tomorrow: liberation.

I figured out where we were going on our walk when we got to the bottom of York Lane and turned right on Custer Road. Monica Carr’s house. Benny and her twins were the same age, and they played well together. When I had been working (which was most of the time) and Sam had had something urgent to do (which was not very often), Monica was good about taking Benny, even on short notice. Monica was pretty good about everything, truthfully. I would hate to think that’s why I had never much liked her.

“Morning!” she called from the doorway of the renovated two-story brick colonial she got to keep in the divorce, waving, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “My goodness, who’s that?” Me, she meant. Benny dropped Sam’s hand and ran toward her, already launched on a complicated explanation of the origins of his new dog. “Ethan, Justin, Benny’s here!” Monica called back into the house. And then she squatted down in her skintight biking shorts and put her arms around Benny and kissed him, and he stopped talking long enough to hug her back.

What? What?

Ethan and Justin were adorable, two blond-haired angels with mischievous senses of humor and hilarious laughs. When they saw me, they fell all over me, thrilled and fearless. What fun children were! Human toys. Benny started the Sonoma saga over again for their benefit. Ethan and Justin always made me soften toward Monica; she must be doing something right, I’d think, usually after some less charitable assessment. But the truth was, Monica did almost everything right, and I was just never saintly enough to find that endearing.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Their tones, Sam’s and Monica’s, pulled me up short. I stopped roughhousing with the boys and moved closer on my leash.

“How have you been, Sam?” Such sympathy she put in the simple question; it sounded like a caress. An extra caress, to go with the solicitous hand she had on his arm. “How are you holding up?” She tossed her head to shake the glossy black bangs out of her eyes. She smelled of delicate sweat, if there was such a thing, and also of cinnamon, yeast, something fruity… Raisin muffins, that was it. From scratch, of course, probably very high in fiber, and she’d made them either before or after her five-m ile morning jog. What time was it, eight? “Have you got a minute to come in? I have a coffee cake ready to come out of the oven.”

Coffee cake, same thing. Sam said he wished he could, but he was in a bit of a hurry, didn’t want to be late for his appointment. No, no, she agreed, it wouldn’t do to be late for that. What appointment? Nobody told me anything.

Monica offered to keep me as well as Benny, but Sam said no, thanks; that was nice of her, but Benny would be enough for her to handle. All three boys groaned their disappointment. I felt let down, too; I’d been looking forward to some time alone with Sam, but if he was going out anyway, I’d much rather have stayed at Monica’s with Benny. So much for what I wanted, though. “It’s a dog’s life”-I was never sure if that meant you had it hard or you had it easy. But it’s neither. It means you’re a slave, with no rights, no privileges. Why don’t dogs rise up and rebel? Instead they love us-that’s all they do. It’s a mystery.

I couldn’t believe it when Sam shut me out of the bathroom while he took his shower. Something else I’d been looking forward to was seeing him naked, although I hadn’t quite realized it until the opportunity was snatched away. At least he came out in his shorts, all clean skin and wet hair, smelling of soap, shaving cream, deodorant, toothpaste. And at least he let me watch him get dressed. Ten years ago, when we were first married, he had lots of suits, and he wore them to his job as an actuary in a large downtown insurance company. These days he was down to one suit and a few sport coats, and he rarely wore any of them. No need when his main job was to take care of Benny and his other job called for a tux.