bound

 

i want to tell you about the dog in the longwood complex where my grandmother now lives alone, editing her book and cooking chickens from the russian butchery. it knows what floor to get off. we stood in the elevator together, shivering and wet, december, its dopey eyes looking up as if, i thought, in need of guidance. but when the elevator doors opened, it trotted out onto the turquoise carpeting  without hesitation and at the end of the long line of doors i saw one open, a child standing in a blanket with a smile. i don’t know my way home so well.