Dog dreams

Last night, I was sitting in bed reading Love Medicine and trying to quiet my thoughts. I'd just seen something terrible on Facebook -- so terrible that I thought I might be sick. I prayed briefly and then opened a book, hoping the Kashpaw family struggles would deliver me to safety.

Suddenly, Matt jumped up and asked, "Where's the dog?"

We don't have a dog.

Sweet man. He looked at me with a mixture of dread and confusion, like when you walk out of a movie theater from a film like Fargo or Pulp Fiction, and you can't find your car because your head is still full of blood splatters.

These night mixups -- my man has them about once a month. Occasionally there's a spider on the ceiling or an intruder at the back door, but the worst ones, for me, occur when he doesn't know who I am. When the face looking at me is pinched in alarm because he doesn't understand why a strange woman in his bed is desperately trying to reassure him that all is right with the world.

Because sometimes all is not right with the world.

I first saw Matt on the last Sunday in March in 2009. He met me at the entrance of the Fashion Square Panera, and I thought, "Oh, no. This man. My heart is in full danger."

I don't think I will ever forget his face that day, or the day he picked me up and set me on my ottoman so he could promise me his devotion while looking at me eye-to-eye, or the day he told me I had breast cancer, or today, as he sits across from me squinting at the Sarasota Herald Tribune in the early morning light.

When he doesn't know who I am, the ground tilts, and I am instantly transported back to the week when he was dumb, as boys sometimes are, and I was needy, as girls sometimes are, the week when our fear was bigger than our love.

Last night, I reached tentatively for his hand. I moved slowly, so I wouldn't spook him. I said, "Hey, you. We are in Longboat. Our girls are here with us. We don't have a dog. But we can get one if you like."

Because I would buy this man a whole kennel full of dogs if that's what his heart desired. 

He continued to glare at me suspiciously, and then his eyes darted around the room, hoping to alight on a reassurance. And then, finally, the bones under his freckles smoothed. He closed his eyes and smiled. He mumbled, "Cute woman" and drifted back to sleep.

My own terrors took longer to settle. Love Medicine was no medicine at all. Prayer wasn't erasing the bloody image. And then I realized.

The terrible thing on Facebook concerned a dog. 

Matt's love is as deep and wide as my own. Although his eyes couldn't see, his heart surely knew.