Gloria asks me over to her house to tell me about how her dog, Rusty, died last year. I go over there around 7:00 p.m. She invites me in and gives me a cup of black tea and a piece of caramel. Her black cat sits next to me as she tells her story.

I hope you like caramel. My George used to give these candies to me when we were dating. I’ve become rather fond of them this past year. Anyway, on to the story – which is what you came to hear, not an old woman babblin’ about the past.

The evening before it happened, I came home from work around 5:15. It was just like any other night. I passed the Presbyterian church on 5th, then hooked the corner onto Main and made the straight shot home. I came up to my door and noticed my porch light had gone out. Nothin’ too peculiar about it, just obnoxious I’d say. I could hear Rusty from inside… He always got so excited when I got home. I hated havin’ to leave him there all day. Such a sweetheart shouldn’t have to be alone, but I couldn’t help it. Since my George passed, I had no one to take care of me. I had to come out of retirement when he died. I used to teach, but I couldn’t go back into it. Once you get outta the swing of somethin’, its hard to get it back. Plus, there are no jobs teachin’ anymore since the county closed the school down. Seems like that’s happenin’ more and more these days… The big town schools are eatin’ us all up. Makes sense I guess with our low population and low standin’.

But anyway… what was I sayin’? …. I was commin’ down Main and… Oh yes, I was tellin’ you about the day Rusty died. So I came home from workin’ at Chrysler… I worked there on the assembly line. I had to quite just a few months ago cause of my achin’ arthritic hands… Haha, this poor ol’ girl ain’t what she used to be. From academia to a lowly cog in a factory assembly line. Anyway…. so uhhh…. Yeeaah… So I came home to that yelpin’ dog – I could hear him from outside. He was so excited. I opened the door and up he jumped. Never could teach him not to do that, but I guess I kinda liked it. It felt nice to be loved so much that he couldn’t help but give me a hug. So I’d just hug him right back… He was a good dog.

That night, I made myself a frozen dinner. I think it was a chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy and beans. I ate some, then gave ol’ Rusty the rest. He and I watched some T.V. There were some liberals talkin’ about birth control and some such… I don’t really remember. I fell asleep on the chair. I did that a lot. Workin’ on your feet all day really takes it outta ya.

Anyway… a few hours later I woke up, stiff as a corpse, to the sound of Rusty barking in the bathroom. My eyes opened and I could see the blurry light from the T.V. flashin’ and flickerin’ on the ceiling. I reached for my glasses on the coffee table’n put em on. As I did, I thought I saw some shadow pass right in front of the T.V. I’m not really sure now if there really was a shadow, since I was half awake and in the middle of putting on my glasses. But it did seem like somethin’ blocked the T.V. for a quick moment.

I sat up in the chair and hollered at Rusty. “Rusty,” I said. “Rusty, you get away from that window, ya hear?” He used to go into the bathroom and bark at the passin’ headlights. There’s a frosted window in there and the lights look all distorted and fuzzy and he thinks they’re some kinda flashlight or somethin’. Buuut anyway… So I hollered at em, like I said, and he wouldn’t stop. He kept barkin’ and snarlin’ and growlin’ and carryin’ on like you wouldn’t believe. It wasn’t like him to continue on and not obey. So I got outta the chair to put my slippers on, and as I did, a wrapped caramel candy fell off of my lap and onto the floor. I don’t remember eatin’ any of those before goin’ to sleep. But I didn’t really think much of it cause Rusty was goin’ so wild… So I proceeded to put my slippers on and went to the bathroom.

When I got there, I saw that the door had been shut, which isn’t too farfetched. It opens inward toward the bathroom, so I can see how Rusty could’ve pushed it closed on himself if he was excited and movin’ a lot. But then I went for the handle. It wouldn’t turn. Somehow, it had locked from the inside. “Rusty,” I yelled. “Rusty, you hold on one minute baby. Momma’s gonna get you outta there.” The knob had a locking mechanism that could be triggered from the outside if you had somethin’ small and skinny like a paperclip or a pen. I turned to walk to the kitchen to get one, but as I did, I thought I heard a man’s voice coming from inside the bathroom.

I stopped cold. I felt goose pimples poppin’ up all over my arms and legs. I turned and slowly walked back to the bathroom – Rusty still causin’ all sorts of havoc – and put my ear to the door. Sure enough, I heard that voice speakin’ again. I also heard the water running in the bathtub. So uhh… I was pretty scared at that point. I walked away, trying not to make a sound. I went to the kitchen and tried callin’ the police on the landline. But I found that my phone had been disconnected.

At that point, I didn’t know whether I should get out of there or stay and try to…. try to… I don’t know… scare the man away. I don’t know what I could’ve done to scare him – maybe threaten him with a butter knife. It all sounds so absurd now that I say it out loud. But I decided I needed to get out of there. So I hung up the phone and I went over to my neighbor, Pete’s house and asked him if I could use his phone. He let me in and I called the police. They told me they’d be there right away, which they were. Bein’ in a small town, the police station is no more than five miles from anyone.

I stayed over at Pete’s worryin’ to death about my Rusty. He and I sat by the window and watched the police arrive, their lights flashin’. I felt like I was in some kinda movie. There’s really not much that goes on around here. Anyway, I saw the police get out of their cars and run up to the front door. I told them on the phone that I left it unlocked so they could just walk right in. I saw them enter. Then, after about, oh say, 15 minutes, Pete’s phone rang. I jumped about ten feet in the air at the sound of it. It was the police callin’ from my home phone. They told me I could come over if I wanted to.

Pete came over with me. He was so sweet through the whole ordeal. We entered the house and saw that the carpet was completely soaked. Our feet sloshed about and made footprints in the fabric as we walked in. I noticed right away that Rusty was no longer barking and that it was fairly quiet, save for a few police officers talkin’ to each other. One of them met me as I came in. I asked him if they were able to find the man. He told me to come over to the bathroom. As I approached, I could see the door opened and my poor Rusty layin’ there in the hall with his tongue hangin’ out of his mouth. He was drenched and lookin’ rather petite and pitiful. At that point, I broke down and cried like you wouldn’t believe – right there in front of everybody. One of the officers came over and gave me a tissue that was wet and it crumbled in my hands. Bless his heart. He meant well.

I slowly went over to my chair and sat down and just cried some more. I think I cried about as much for that dog as I did for my own George. That dog was one of the last living things in my life connected to that old man. So I did feel rather heart-broken over losin’ him.

One of the officers came and sat next to me. I asked him if he knew what happened. He took off his hat and said that the bathroom was completely flooded from floor to ceiling and that when they opened the door, it came pouring out into the rest of the house; Rusty along with it. He said they didn’t see any trace of someone else being here, nor any trace of a break-in. The bathroom door wasn’t locked and the phone worked just fine when they arrived. It was as if this all happened on its own, like some sort of nightmare.

I thanked the officers and they left. Pete gave me a hug and told me to call him if I needed anything. I told him I would and walked him to the door. After he left, I brought out the few fans I had and blew them toward the walls and ceiling where the most water damage was. I brought Rusty outside and laid him on the back porch. I went back into the house and began mopping up in the bathroom. My mop hit something under the toilet that went shooting across the floor and under the tub. I bent over and saw a light shining off of something. I grabbed it and brought it out in the open. It was another piece of wrapped caramel. As I was looking at the candy, I thought I saw another shadow pass behind me in the hall. I turned around but didn’t see a thing. Let’s just say I didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, I grabbed one of George’s shovels from the shed and carried it along with Rusty’s body out to the flower bed in the back. I dug a hole and laid him in, said a prayer and went inside. I went to the kitchen sink and washed my hands. And…. lo and behold, as I was washin’ my hands, I looked up at the calendar in front of me and the day jumped off the paper. It was July 2 – two years to the day of my George’s passin’. God rest his soul. Then, I looked past the calendar out the window and saw a man standing over the dirt pile that was Rusty’s grave. I turned off the water and ran out the back door. But when I reached the grave, the man had disappeared. I looked around but didn’t see a single soul. I took a deep breath and looked down at Rusty’s grave. It was then I saw something shiny in the dirt that caught my eye. I bent down and dug it out. It was a single piece of wrapped caramel lying on top of the dirt.

I think it was George all along helpin’ me move on from his passin’. Since then, I still think of him often, but not in the same way. I think of the memories, not the loss. THAT, I truly believe, was buried with my Rusty.