Someone Who Hurts the Dog

By Elwen Bernard-Kostadinov

​At first the dog barks at me. I pet her and my host says, Pet her. Be aggressive about it.

I’m sorry she keeps doing this, she says. It’s disturbing.

No, it’s fine, I say, I’m sorry to be making her anxious.
 
She has to get over it with somebody. You’ve never had a dog, have you?
 
No. The smell and the mess. And they like you before they know you, which means they don’t like you.
 
The dog stops barking and starts leaving the room when I come in. She won’t come downstairs if I’m downstairs. She won’t walk past my chair.
 
I’m sorry. This is so disturbing, my host says.
 
I think it’s worse for her than it is for me, I say.
 
Something must have happened in her past. She was with another family before.
 
If she wonders if something’s happening now, she doesn’t say it. There’s no reason to wonder; everyone knows I am the sweetest mildest quietest shiest gentlest. But wouldn’t someone who’s hurting the dog foster that image, too? You never know who it’s going to be.
 
I pet the dog, who cowers.
 
I asked the woman who was fostering her, my host says. There was a man in that house who always wore glasses and a hat. I think something must have happened with him. I have glasses. Depends what biological metric the dog is using for man. Vocally, yes, absolutely, I’m a bass now; chromosomally no; hormonally, not right now. I give my host and the dog a sympathetic frown. But it’s what I’d do if I were hurting the dog, too, so it doesn’t make me innocent.
 
I could take off my glasses, I offer. Maybe too grand a gesture, something only someone who is hurting the dog would think of.
 
Don’t. She needs to get used to it.
 
Maybe she wonders but is still gathering evidence. Maybe it hasn’t occurred to her but she’s telling her friends about this weird thing with her houseguest and her dog, and they’re setting their coffee aside and asking her delicately if it might be that I’m doing something to the dog.
 
A week, a month, she gets more skittish.
 
My host tells me to give the dog a treat. She watches over my shoulder as I crouch and hold out my hand. Only when it’s touching her mouth does the dog give in and take it. Slimy spikes of fur on my palm. I do very well: I don’t gag.
 
When I’m washing the dishes she shouts for the dog to come eat. Good. No, stay! Stay, Emma! Emma, no! Dinner! Come eat dinner! Emma. Emma! Come here. Here. Here! Emma, dinner! Emma! Come here! Come! She’s not shouting at me, she’s not even in the same room, but I freeze.
 
At her direction I excavate a pet gate from my closet so she can force the dog to stay downstairs with me.

I walk by the bedroom while my host is out. I should pet the dog. I imagine her biting me, surely that would be implication enough that I’m hurting her. I would have to hide it.
 
Safer to avoid the dog. Which is easy: she avoids me. Some days we see each other only at dinner, when my host tells me to wait and gives me two sets of treats to feed her. Something must have happened in her past… with a man with glasses, my host says. Why doesn’t she suspect me?
 
I dream that I hurt the dog.
 
People ask how it is living with my host. It’s good, I say. Mentioning the dog would be getting my version of the story out there, and that’s what someone who’s hurting the dog would do.
 
This is so disturbing, my host says. She gives me treats to feed the dog. I do a funny voice and make the treats appear one at a time. My host likes that. I think something happened to her, with a man who wore glasses! she says. I wish she’d get over this.
 
She’s gotten better, at least, I say. She doesn’t bark at me anymore.

Oh, did she, when you got here?

My heart sinks. The only evidence in my favor might as well not exist, if she doesn’t remember it. I am taking advantage of an eighty-three-year-old’s thin recollection to seed my narrative. I could tell her anything.
 
The dog sees my fistful of treats and perks up, stretches her neck to take them. She’s clearly responding positively to you, my host says. I step back and the dog bolts up the stairs. My host shouts, No! Come here! Come. Come! Emma!
 
Now, I got in contact with the family that had her before. And there was a man in the house with her who would always wear glasses and a hat. I think something must have happened with that man, she muses.

I go upstairs and the dog scrabbles out of my host’s bedroom and puts a whole empty floor between us.
 
She’s getting more scared in the months I’ve been here. It’s only a matter of time until my host starts to wonder.
 
I envision becoming desperate to understand the dog’s fear and hurting her so at least it makes sense. I remind myself that my brain wouldn’t make me think it if it didn’t upset me.
 
I linger downstairs or upstairs; I dread passing the bedroom.
 
See, she responds positively while you’re giving her treats, my host says.
 
It’s definitely progress, I say, because I need her to keep in mind that the dog has been afraid since the day I got here, before I could have done anything to her. I mean, at least she’s not barking anymore.
 
Oh, did she?
 
Remember? I’m going too far. I’m doing this on purpose, knowing she doesn’t remember and doesn’t want to admit it, knowing she will accept anything. This is exactly what I’d do if I were hurting the dog. I could be lying. I might as well be lying. Still she shows no signs of suspecting.
 
The dog starts barking again.

---

​Elwen Bernard-Kostadinov is a writer, artist, translator, and former library clerk from Cliff Island, Maine, Eastern Abenaki territory. His work has most recently appeared in Seedlings. He can be found sporadically at @easternspicywintergreen on Instagram.