A Novel Idea

Tuck is my wonder dog.  Tuck is my honey dog.  He is also the inspiration for the dog of the same name in the novel.  At the moment, half the advance readers of the draft feel he needs to die for a number of reasons I won’t go into here.  The other half feel as strongly that he must live.  It’s the one and only chapter that people disagree over.  I am working on two versions this week, to discern what “feels” right in the end.

I don’t want the real Tuck to die.  Ever. In some weird way, I may have had him die in the book so that perhaps he wouldn’t have to die in real life. He’s been my best friend and constant writing companion for over 17 years now.  When this novel began, he could still see pretty well, limber enough to jump up into the armchair behind my own chair where I do most of my work.  Because his sight is gone now in one eye and very impaired in the other, he can’t gauge the depth of things, so, after several crashes into a door and onto the floor, he avoids the chair and lies near me in the doorway instead.

He’s also deaf, but his nose still works so he relishes our daily walks at noon, when he reacquaints himself with the wider world through his accomplished sniffer.  Most of each day, however, he naps.  Snoozes, that is, until I move to another room, any number of times per day.  Then, without so much as a whimper, and guessing at the placement of step after step of three flights of stairs, he shadows me as I move from floor to floor in our “treehouse.”

He was sleeping when I wrote the last pages of the book; I was up in a bedroom glider chair, bought for wooing babies to sleep, but used more often when I need to get a change of scenery.  I felt so happy to have finished, and here was Tuck, as always, waking, mystifyingly, the minute I made a move.  I went over to him on the bed and, with relief, announced that the draft was finished.  I realized I’d never told him that he’s in the story, so I did so now.  And I explained quietly that he would always have a kind of immortality.  He looked up into my eyes, but, of course, I figured the words were falling on deaf ears.   To my surprise, however, Tuck began wagging his tail,  perched at the very edge of the bed so that I’d lift him down. As soon as I did, he took off, running.

He raced at high speed up and down the hallway, just as he used to do as a pup after a bath or in games of tag years ago, a veritable speeding bullet.  I gaped in astonishment while he just ran and ran — every so often offering up a deliriously happy yip.

Obviously jubilant… over what, exactly?  News of the finished book?!  As he nuzzled into me and I returned the favor, kissing his velvety forehead and sweet nose, I understood more than ever how well he has read my every mood all these years — more partner than pooch.  And I like to think that my telling him he rated a role in the work-in-progress is what really put him over the moon.

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