The house at 322 Dixon Road looked much like all the others in the neighbourhood: semi-detached, two-story, brick — painted white, dark grey door, enclosed front porch, with a bedraggled end-of-March-looking front yard covered in dead leaves, depleted-looking soil and straggly shrubs with the odd snowdrop peeking above ground as if to say, “Don’t give up.”
322 Dixon was not at all the type of house one would think of as special or magical or particularly captivating in any way whatsoever.
As she knocked on the front door, Nicki could see the enclosed porch was littered with coats and shoes, bikes, scooters and toys, empty beer bottles, garbage and recycling bins, and an odd assortment of tools including a hammer, vice grips, and a bike pump.
When no one answered her knock, Nicki thought perhaps this Mr. Harrison had told Mrs. O’Brien he didn’t need a dog walker. Maybe he’s taken his children to school and now he’s walking his dog himself.
Mrs. O’Brien was the neighbourhood busybody, and it was she who had suggested to Nicki that she offer her dog walking services to this ‘poor man who lost his wife a few months back and is on his own with two young boys.’
As Nicki stood wondering if she should knock again, she thought how much she hated that expression “lost his wife.” After her parents died, people would say “Sorry to hear you lost your parents. How are you coping after your loss?”
Where the hell do they think I lost them, on the beach, at the grocery store, at Walmart? Do they think they might show up like lost keys? Why don’t they have a special word for people who have left this world? It shouldn’t be the same word we use for everyday things like lost cell phones and lost umbrellas. Nicki thought this as she knocked one last time on the door.
She was like that with words. She also thought the word ‘love’ was stupid and had no meaning. “It’s ridiculous, you use the same word to speak about your mother, your sister, chocolate cake, or the latest fashion craze,” she would say in all earnestness. Nicki especially hated it when people she barely knew, would shout ‘lov ya’ and blow a kiss as they raised a hand in farewell. Bullshit, Nicki would think to herself and she would usually give a little wave back but she never repeated the ‘luv ya’ bit.
When Nicki was six she was adopted by her foster parents whom she’d been living with since she was four years old. Knowing how much she wanted a puppy, the day the adoption papers were finalized her parents surprised her with Katie – a four-month-old Corgi. For the next twelve years almost everywhere Nicki went, Katie went. Katie died when Nicki was 16.
Three years ago, Nicki’s parents had been in a horrific accident on Highway 401, just outside of Oshawa. An eighteen-wheeler truck had jumped the barrier causing a major crash involving numerous cars one of which was Nicki’s parents’.
To help deal with her grief and the horrendous feeling of loneliness, Nicki got another dog, another Corgi whom she named Lily, short for Lilibet. She thought if Lilibet was good enough for Prince Harry and Meghan to name their daughter, then it was good enough for her to name her puppy. Of course, Lily reminded Nicki of her dog Katie and this brought back many happy childhood memories, helping her through the grieving process.
Nicki had been a dog walker now for about a year. She’d previously worked as an admin assistant but with COVID she’d lost her job. At the time, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do for money and was starting to worry when she saw a help-wanted posting for a dog walker on the notice board at the local pet store. Sounds perfect she had thought. I’ll be surrounded by dogs, making some money and, at the same time, I‘ll be able to think about my life and where it started and where it’s going. She always did her best thinking while out walking Lily.
Nicki didn’t really want another client. She already had four dogs on her roster — Louie a bouncy, fluffy, very good-looking Aussie Doodle, Cora a sweet wee miniature Pomeranian-mix who could hold her own with any of the other dogs, Lollie a hilarious brown and white terrier, and Shea, a mix that probably included Greyhound or Whippet because given half a chance she could run like the wind. Nicki had recently turned away two other potential clients. But for a reason she couldn’t quite explain, even to herself, Nicki felt drawn to Mrs. O’Brien’s suggestion. She wondered what the attraction was; what was this pull? It wasn’t, she argued with herself, because he was a man alone, it wasn’t that he had two motherless boys. For goodness sake, she didn’t need a man and certainly not one with children. It wasn’t because his dog needed a regular walk. It just felt like the right thing to do. Like a moth must feel when it’s drawn to a flame.
As she turned to walk back to the street, a man appeared from the side of the house.
“I’m so sorry, you must be Nicki. I completely forgot the time.” And then he stopped speaking for a moment, looked at Nicki and asked, “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” said Nicki. “Maybe you’ve seen me around the neighbourhood”.
“It’ll come to me,” he said. “Anyway, Mrs. O’Brien thinks I’m badly in need of your dog-walking service. Actually, it’s our dog Asha who she thinks requires the service”, he said with a laugh.
“My name, by the way, is Dave and, to tell you the truth, things have been very difficult since my wife died and Asha’s walks probably get left off the to-do list more often than they should. Would you like to meet her – Asha I mean?”
And so after a few minutes of chatting and playing with Asha, who was another wee Pomeranian, Dave said, “Would you be willing to start on a trial basis and see how it goes?”
Together they settled on a 20-minute walk at noon each day from Monday to Friday, starting the following Monday on trial for the next four weeks. Dave gave Nicki the keys to the house and said he’d clean up the front porch so she wouldn’t break a leg trying to get in the front door.
March turned to April and April to May. The baby snowdrops and the purple crocuses left and bright yellow daffodils and multi-coloured tulips arrived. Soft green leaves appeared on the willow trees and planters full of cheeky-faced pansies showed up on front porches up and down the streets. Even the yard at 322 Dixon began to look a little less abandoned. Nicki suspected this was more by luck than Dave’s gardening skills as he probably had far too much on his hands and his mind to worry about things like the state of the garden.
Nicki continued to walk Asha, and Dave continued to leave the money on the kitchen table every Friday. Asha got along well with the rest of Nicki’s pack. And while the dogs romped on the beach Nicki spent the time deep in thought. Round and round her mind would go, just like the dogs chasing each other in never-ending circles.
Nicki had never been one to give much thought to her birth mother and certainly not the person who had fathered her. Little information had been made available to her adoptive parents who had shared with her what they knew but, since the death of her parents, Nicki had found she couldn’t stop her mind from asking questions and wondering about the possibilities of her biological family.
“I wonder if I have any sisters or brothers. I wonder where I get these brown eyes from, I wonder why I’m so tall, I wonder why I’m such an introvert when both Mum and Dad were so such extroverts? I wonder why I’m so sensitive and overreactive when I know deep down I don’t need to be? Is that some sort of trauma or PTSD ‘cos I was taken away from my birth mother? Then again, was I taken away or thrown away? I wonder if I have siblings. I could have hundreds of them if my birth mother played fast and loose. Maybe she had no option but to get paid for sex. Did she keep the others? I wonder.
On May 10th, which happened to be Nicki’s birthday, as she took Asha inside, a voice called out, “Hello is that you, Nicki? I’ll be right there.”
And a tall woman about Nicki’s height came down the stairs and into the kitchen, put out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Trish, I’m Dave’s sister-in-law. I’m here visiting from Vancouver. Dave told me to expect you and Asha back around this time.”
She stopped speaking for a second and looked surprised, “My goodness,” she said, ‘We do look alike, don’t we? Dave said you reminded him of me. It’s not often you see your own likeness in someone else, even if others do.”
Nicki laughed and said, “Aren’t we lucky to have such a common face it shows up on both sides of the country.”
Trish replied, “Absolutely when it comes to faces, we won the lottery NOT! Frankly, I always hated my brown eyes. I was the only one in the family with brown eyes. Jan, Dave’s wife, had the most beautiful blue eyes you ever saw in your life. I was jealous. I thought they were blue because God was looking down smiling on her from heaven. You know down through the blue sky.”
“Hey I’ve just put the kettle on, would you like a cup of tea?”
Nicki said, “That would be great. I’ve taken all the dogs home I only have Lily with me is it OK if I bring her in? She and Asha get along well.”
“Absolutely, bring her in. I love dogs,” said Trish. “My pooch is home in Vancouver.”
“Did you grow up there?”
“No, I grew up in Hamilton. I’d like to come back to Ontario but my job keeps me out west for now. You take one milk, one sugar in your tea?”
“How did you know that?” asked Nicki.
Trish laughed, “Oh I’m psychic. My family always said so. I wonder sometimes where I got this so-called gift from. I guess I’ll never know. My parents adopted me when I was a baby. Dave’s wife was their birth child, so she is my sister. They gave me a great life, and still do, but there are so many unanswered questions.”
Nicki sucked in her breath, her heart pounded and her head spun. She said nothing but her mind was racing. On the surface, she appeared calm as she and Trish enjoyed a friendly chit-chat while the dogs romped on the floor.
“Well, I really must be going,” said Nicki, after about fifteen minutes. Thank you so much for the tea. When do you go back to Vancouver, maybe we could do this again?”
“I’m here for 10 days,” said Trish, “and would love to get together.”
As Nicki walked the few blocks back to her apartment she started talking to herself, or more to the point, asking herself questions.
Is it possible, could we be sisters? Is that why I was so drawn to the house? Is it a case of ‘meant to be’ or ‘God’s will’ as some would call it? Stop being stupid. Lots of people look like someone else, think of all the cases of doppelgangers. Should I tell Sandi I’m also adopted, or should I just leave well alone?
Throughout the night Nicki wrestled with the ‘should I or shouldn’t I’ questions. By morning she’d decided to leave well alone. And she ran her decision past Lily.
“I’ll trust in the universe,” she said. “And if Trish and I are indeed sisters, then the universe will show us.”
“Whatever will be, will be. Isn’t that right Lily?”
