House Keys

In recent weeks, I've had to locate my house key. Only a fool would have entered the house with a hundred pound black dog lunging and barking furiously at them ala Hound of the Baskervilles, so keys became a moot point and the back door was always open. When our oldest boy first came to live with us (adopted from the foster care system and hence a traumatic early life), he constructed numerous booby traps day after day in preparation for "when the bad guys come." One evening I said, "Do you think any bad guys can actually get in our house?" His eyes narrowed as he turned to glare at me. "I mean, they'd have to get past Nicholai." His eyes widened. He looked at Nicholai, then back at me, considering. "Really, B, he hears people walking by in the street. No one can get in without us knowing." Very slow to trust adults – and people in general – he regarded me again with suspicious eyes, studied Nicholai then shoved his pile of rope and sticks and duct tape and miscellaneous pieces of plastic broken stuff back into his toy bin. A wide smile spread slowly across his face.

A year later, Nicholai woke us in the middle of a summer night with furious deep-throated barking. I looked out through the guest room window to see a dark figure attempting to force open the front gate. "We're going out," I hollered to my partner, then "come on Nickle!" I glimpsed the mysterious hands begin to push the gate closed again. Nicholai bounded ahead of me when I opened the front door and charged the gate with fury. I followed behind, baffled as I watched a car back out of the neighbors' drive, slow while a young man in the street jumped in, and then speed away. The next morning I learned from a police officer visiting our neighbors that genuine bad guys had been cruising the area the night before, breaking into cars one by one and cleaning them out. Nicholai's barked warning and our charge to the street had ended their spree. Nicholai gained credibility and respect that day as a bona fide guard dog and both boys slept better knowing he was watching out for us.
Watching

Now he's gone and I have to find my house keys, lock the doors, and stop leaving my wallet or other valuables in plain sight in the car. Tim frets at night, tosses and turns, and says, "I miss my protector dog." Out on the trail all alone, I have to put my sixth sense back in gear for the girls are not protectors, they are fetch-nuts.

Everything happens as it should. I needed a guard, a protector and a quiet confidant this past decade – and life sent me one. His departure begs a question; how will life change now? I feel an opening, to what I am not sure. But my body guard has left, making me more available, and so I wonder, available to what?