Read The Nose Knows for Free Online Page B

about. Bobby’s response surprised me. He meowed softly, saying, “So much pain, but no emotion. Pain hurts. It hurts a lot. Joyce should be crying. Mom needs to know.” He was poised to come off the bookcase and head-butt Mom, but she was quicker than he was. She held up her hand and stopped him. She didn’t need any help.
    Mom spent a lot of time that first session telling Joyce that leaving Hank had obviously been the right choice. It’d taken a lot of courage. And because of that she knew Joyce had courage in her. Mom told her if she was willing to work with her then she could learn how to make more good choices and she could start to feel better.
    Later, Mom dictated that she didn’t think Joyce currently was a suicide risk. She said she might not have much to live for, but her children made the difference. Mom said if a person has just one good reason to stay alive it can be enough to keep them off the edge. Of course, Mom made sure Joyce had the number for her answering service and the assurance that Mom would call her back day or night. A client always got the answering service when they called. Normally they’d only take a message. The exception was when a client’s name appeared on the list that instructed them to page Mom immediately.
    Joyce’s name was now on that list.

I t was a good thing Mom was becoming more proficient at using the zone, because a completely new challenge had entered her life.
    A new man.
    He wasn’t one of her clients. His name was Jacob.
    Mom and I met Jacob at the same time. It was a warm May day and Mom had decided to take a break that morning so we walked to Puppy Park. Jacob was there with his black Lab, Quincy. Ever notice how many men have black Labs? Maybe it has to do with the male fantasy about being the big, brave hunter. Who knows? Males of any species can act weird. But I did sense Jacob had a gentle presence. By human standards, he’d be considered handsome. My first impression was that it was worth investing some time into learning more about the man.
    Mom? Her first impression was obviously positive. Her female scent definitely jumped up a notch or two. Unfortunately, it then plummeted right after her eyes lingered on his left hand. He wore a wedding ring. After that, Mom cooled off. Her scent became neutral.
    Luckily, critters don’t just use their eyes to seek answers. They use all their senses. You humans can see one particular thing and think it tells you the whole story. Example: Wedding ring means married man. End of story. To a critter what we see is just the beginning. This is where we have a huge advantage over you humans; we have “the nose.”
    In Jacob’s case, “the nose” was telling me a lot. Sniffing his pant legs told me that if he was married, his wife had run out of fabric softener or else he’d done his own laundry. You men tend to forget the fabric softener and put in way too much detergent. Usually when I get an overdose of Tide up the nostrils it means a man did the laundry. Then there was the issue of his socks—they were not fresh. Dogs who live with single men have told me about some of you guys who wear the same socks for several days. In a word: ripe.
    Don’t get me wrong, Jacob didn’t smell bad. A human would probably not detect any odor at all. To a critter it’s all about the smells. A good smell, a bad smell it doesn’t matter. The smells of this world tell us many things. The smells of Jacob were no exception.
    The odors from the two different spills on his pants told me he had eaten fast food for the past two days. There was Kentucky Fried Chicken on the right (one of my personal favorites) and the sauce from a Big Mac on the left. Maybe his wife was just a bad cook or maybe she was never home to cook.
    But the most intriguing smell of all was the one that was missing. There were no female smells on Jacob at all. Zilch. Nada. Even if she was away on a trip or hadn’t hugged him recently, there would still be some