DOGS: COMING TO TERMS WITH GUILT AND SADNESS

DOGS: COMING TO TERMS WITH GUILT AND SADNESS

"It’s not your fault, it’s my fault. Don’t you see, Hotsie? God, out buying pots…”

This is the opening of my novel, Just Bill. The speaker is a young woman, just returned from shopping at the Coastland Mall in Naples, Florida. Hotsie is the familiar form for Hotspur, her dog. He “sits opposite, bolt upright on Cliff Gilmore’s Barca Lounger. His black coat glistens under track lighting, chest and muzzle pure white. As if to console Glenda, the border collie raises a paw."

Console her for what? Glenda was shopping for cookware, the pots she refers to. Before she married Cliff Gilmore, Glenda was a catalog model, mostly for Lands’ End. She never knew how to cook, but recently decided it was high time she learned. When she got home, the light was blinking on the answering machine. That’s how she learned Cliff was dead.

“It’s not your fault, it’s my fault.” Cliff died while playing Frisbee with Hotspur, on the tennis courts at Donegal Golf and Country Club.

Glenda's suffering is real: she loved her husband. Cliff was much older, which is one of the reasons Glenda is resented by other club wives. But that’s just one of the reasons: she’s very good looking, and much younger than every other woman at Donegal.

In part, the resentment is why Glenda is holding herself responsible for what happened. Of course neither she nor Cliff’s dog is responsible. No one is. But just now it feels as though someone must be. Effects need causes. Otherwise, life is lived in a random universe, and that won’t do. Especially at times like this one.

The need to know, to establish pattern and order--that's why Glenda is confessing to her dog. Throughout Just Bill people do this. In fact, the most important feature of the lives my characters share with their dogs—a bichon frise, a poodle, a schnauzer, two dachshunds, Hotspur and Bill-- is the speaker/auditor connection.

I’m sure it’s true for all dogs who serve as companions. Certainly, it’s true at the golf retirement community where much of Just Bill takes place. All the nests are empty at Donegal, and many of the residents are widows or widowers. Because loss has diminished order and meaning, their pets have become more important to them.

In the absence of Hotspur, Glenda Gilmore—resented, mistrusted, thought to be a gold digger-- would be talking to herself. Were she alone, imagine how much worse things would be.
HERE'S THE BOOK