Emily was the kind of person who could quiet a tense room without embarrassing anybody in it. She worked long days, kept a tidy kitchen, and could tell when I was carrying work home by the way I organized the shoes beside the door. She loved old movies, made lists on scraps of paper she could never find later, and thought my habit of labeling storage bins was evidence that the military had done permanent damage to my personality. She was also patient enough to tolerate a household that included a young black Labrador named Odin.
Odin wasn't our dog in the usual sense. We volunteered with an organization that raised and socialized future service dogs, and he was staying with us during a stage of his training. Six months old, shiny black, and built like a collection of springs disguised as a puppy, he was intelligent enough to learn something new every day and mischievous enough to forget it the moment a leaf crossed his path. On good days he walked neatly at heel, settled beside our feet, and ignored tempting distractions. On bad days a discarded napkin could undo an hour of patient training.
The organization had given us guidelines, a schedule, and a long list of experiences he needed to encounter calmly: busy sidewalks, unexpected doors, shopping carts, car rides, people wearing hats, and sudden noises. Living in the condominium complex offered plenty of practice because the place was filled with small, ordinary interruptions that a future working dog would have to ignore.
It also gave us our first encounter with Linda.
One Saturday morning, Emily and I were loading the car for a visit to her parents. I had stacked a few bags neatly in the trunk while she checked that we had remembered the gift she'd wrapped the night before. Odin needed one last bathroom break before we left, so we walked him toward a patch of grass near the parking lot. He finished his business, I cleaned it up, and I handed the leash to Emily so I could carry the bag to the dumpster.
There was nothing dramatic about it. Odin sat beside Emily, his tail occasionally tapping the pavement. The leash was clipped to his collar and held securely in her hand. The dog was calmer than most adults were during Monday morning traffic.
I had walked perhaps twenty yards when somebody shouted, "You with the dog!"
I turned to see a blonde woman standing near the sidewalk, pointing in our direction as if she had just discovered a serious public danger. She wore exercise clothes that looked too crisp to have been involved in exercise, and her expression suggested the morning had presented her with an offense she couldn't possibly ignore.
"That dog needs to be on a leash," she called.
I looked at Odin. Then at the nylon line running from his collar to Emily's hand. I walked back, carrying the tied bag carefully away from my leg.
"Good morning," I said.
"County law requires dogs to be leashed," the woman announced. "If I catch you letting that animal run loose, I'll call animal control."
"Did you look at the dog?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"He's on a leash."
She looked down at last. Emily raised the hand holding it just enough to make the situation unmistakable.