Travis paused in his cooking to watch the dog take the quiz.
Nora said, “First—when Frog came to see Toad on a winter’s day, Toad was in bed
and did not want to come outside. Is that right?”
Einstein had to sidle around on his chair to free his tail and wag it. Yes.
Nora said, “But finally Frog got Toad outside, and they went ice-skating.”
One bark. No.
“They went sledding,” she said.
Yes.
“Very good. Later that same year, at Christmas, Frog gave Toad a gift. Was it a
sweater?”
No.
“A new sled?”
No.
“A clock for his mantel?”
Yes, yes, yes.
“Excellent!” Nora said. “Now what shall we read next? How about this One.
Fantastic Mr. Fox.”
Einstein wagged his tail vigorously.
Travis would have enjoyed taking a more active role in the dog’s education, but
he could see that working intensely with Einstein was having an enormously
beneficial effect on Nora, and he did not want to interfere. Indeed, he
sometimes played the curmudgeon, questioning the value of teaching the pooch to
read, making wisecracks about the pace of the dog’s progress or its taste in
reading matter. This mild naysaying was just enough to redouble Nora’s
determination to stick with the lessons, to spend even more time with the dog,
and to prove Travis wrong. Einstein never reacted to those negative remarks, and
Travis suspected the dog exhibited forbearance because he understood the little
game of reverse psychology in which Travis was engaged.
Exactly why Nora’s teaching chores made her blossom was not clear. Perhaps it
was because she had never interacted with anyone—not even with Travis or with
her Aunt Violet—as intensely as she had with the dog, and the mere process of
extensive communication encouraged her to come farther out of her shell. Or
perhaps giving the gift of literacy to the dog was extremely satisfying to her.
She was by nature a giving person who took pleasure in sharing with others, yet
she had spent all of her life as a recluse without a single previous opportunity
to express that side of her personality. Now she had a chance to give of
herself, and she was generous with her time and energy, and in her own
generosity she found joy.
Travis also suspected that, through her relationship with the retriever, she was
expressing a natural talent for mothering. Her great patience was that of a good
mother dealing with a child, and she often spoke to Einstein so tenderly and
affectionately that she sounded as if she were addressing her own much-loved
offspring.
Whatever the reason, Nora became more relaxed and outgoing as she worked with
Einstein. Gradually forsaking her shapeless dark dresses for summery white
cotton slacks, colorful blouses, jeans and T-shirts, she seemed to grow ten
years younger. She had her glorious dark hair redone at the beauty salon and did
not brush out all the styling this time. She laughed more often and more
engagingly. In conversation, she met Travis’s eyes and seldom looked shyly away
from him, as she had done previously. She was quicker to touch him, too, and to
put an arm around his waist. She liked to be hugged, and they kissed with ease
now, although their kissing remained, for the most part, that of uncertain
teenagers in the early stages of courting.
On July 14, Nora received news that lifted her spirits even higher. The Santa
Barbara District Attorney’s Office called to tell her that it was not going to
be necessary for her to appear in court to testify against Arthur Streck. In
light of his previous criminal record, Streck had changed his mind about
pursuing a plea of innocence and waging a defense against charges of attempted
rape, assault, and breaking and entering. He had instructed his attorney to
plea-bargain with the D.A. As a result, they dropped all charges except assault,
and Streck accepted a prison sentence of three years, with a provision that he
serve at least two years before being eligible for parole. Nora had dreaded the
trial. Suddenly she was free, and in celebration she got slightly tipsy for the
first time in her life.
That same day, when Travis brought home a new stack of reading material,