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contains a concoction of herbs and vegetable juices.
    Ted, who has been peering at the plastic bottles in his very own medicine cabinet, selects one and tenderly offers it to his wife. “Do you want to try Sonata?”
    “Thanks,” says Eumie, “I’ve tried it before, and it just doesn’t work for me.” Studying the vial she is holding, she asks, “What’s Paxil? It’s an SSRI, isn’t it? Something like Zoloft.”
    “Eumie, those things take time to kick in. They aren’t going to do a thing for you tonight.”
    “Depakote,” Eumie says. “Is that slow, too? I’m a little volatile. Maybe that’s—”
    “Have you asked Dr. Youngman about sleep? Addressing the, uh, sense of volatility is one thing, but you need something for sleep.”
    “What are you taking?”
    With heartfelt affection, Ted says, “Good old Valium.“
    “Valium! I’d almost forgotten about it. Can I have some?”
    Wordlessly, Ted shakes three yellow tablets into the palm of his hand, gives one to Eumie, and dry swallows the other two. After closing the cabinet doors on what are almost like twin wine cellars, Ted and Eumie companionably brush their teeth and enter the bedroom, where Dolfo occupies the center of the king-size bed. Like Dolfo, the comforter is multicolored and expensive. The resemblance is no accident. Eumie chose the comforter to match the dog’s coat. At the sight of Ted and Eumie, Dolfo beats his peculiar tail, leaps to his feet, bounds off the bed, sniffs a corner of it, and, with a goofy smile on his face, lifts his leg, and empties his full bladder on the comforter.
    Ted and Eumie exchange little smiles and shakes of the head. Eumie reaches for a spray bottle of odor-neutralizing enzyme solution that sits ready on the top of her dresser, sprays the drenched corner of the bed, returns the bottle to the dresser, and settles herself in bed. Ted is already under the covers. Dolfo jumps onto the comforter, turns around twice, and lies down between Ted and Eumie, who turn out their lights and wait for their medications to act. Dolfo, however, falls immediately to sleep. Or so I imagine.
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    At three o’clock on Friday afternoon, I managed to find a parking space only a half block from the address Eumie Brainard-Green had given me that morning when we’d set * the time for our meeting. I’d spent the day indoors working on a reminiscence of my late mother for the official publication of the American Kennel Club, the AKC Gazette , which was planning an issue focused on the golden retriever. Both of my parents bred and showed our goldens, but my mother was a grande dame of the breed. My father, I thought, would be pleased with what I’d written about Marissa, and I’d tried to avoid saying anything that would distress his second wife, Gabrielle, whom he’d married only a few years earlier. As I’d taken pains not to mention in the article, my mother was a hypercompetent martinet who set high standards for her dogs and for me, and who vigilantly monitored our performance with the intention of correcting deviations from perfection. In contrast, Gabrielle was warm and easygoing. I not only adored her but felt grateful to her for marrying the most impossible person I’ve ever met, thereby relieving me of the burden of worrying about him all alone.
    Anyway, I’d squandered a beautiful spring day by spending it indoors, and as I took care not to trip on the uneven brick sidewalk, I mulled over my goals for the meeting with the Greens and Dolfo, the principal goal being to do whatever we did outside in the sun and fresh air. In the universal manner of overconfident fools, I assumed that my experience and expertise would carry me through; except to pack a tote bag with a collar, a four-foot leash, a clicker, and six different kinds of dog-delicious food treats, I’d made no preparations. If the animal-loving forces that govern the universe had wanted to reward me for my efforts to improve the lot of the