Home is where you hang your hat, park your shoes, make your bed. It’s the place you boomerang back to. Barn. Stable. Coop. Cage. It’s the place where your belongings belong.
I live in a townhouse community in Coconut Grove, a suburb of Miami. The more expensive homes sit right on the bay. The location is postcard pretty. Sailboats glide on the water. Pelicans swoop and seagulls caw.
We have no idea how the duck found its way here. Ducks are freshwater birds. They live near ponds and lakes and canals. Somehow the duck ended up miles from her kind. Without a mate, she’s a little bit lost and a lot alone.
***
I’ve lived in this community for fifteen years but only know a few neighbors. Miami’s a transient city. People come. People go. I walk my dog up and down our one main street and say hello to anyone who’s friendly.
A few of my bayside neighbors are animal lovers. Roberta feeds wild squirrels buckets of peanuts. Though she’s well-intentioned, her efforts have backfired. We have the fattest squirrels you’ve ever seen. People find peanuts buried under their begonias. Walking the pavement, our shoes crunch on the shells.
Next door to Roberta lives another animal lover. Carmen owns a pair of English mastiffs. With our postage-stamp backyards, who knows where these beasts run and romp? Like the mad wife in Bronte’s novel, the dogs stay furtively locked inside. Rumors fly and stolen glimpses abound. Low growls. Swinging jowls. Shark-sized jaws and talon-like teeth. We live in daily fear of their escape.
Last year, a pit bull jumped off a boat and surfaced on the riprap behind Carmen’s home. Cielo is ninety pounds of insecurity. After examining the scars crisscrossing her back, the vet determined that Cielo was used in dogfights. He begged Carmen to keep her. I don’t know where she came from, he said, but she sure as hell shouldn’t go back.
On the other side of Roberta’s townhouse is a home with the world’s smallest pool. They call these miniature pools soaking tubs. The soaking tub has become the duck’s place to swim.
Each day, Daisy—for that’s what they named her—follows a schedule. She splashes in the pool, waddles through Roberta’s yard and ends up at Carmen’s. Then she feasts on an elevated tray of duck food and a bowl of water. By eight o-clock in the evening, she heads to Jeff’s.
Jeff’s Cavapoo died a few months ago. Nikko was quite the digger, the sort of dog who needed to paw, pummel, and excavate his way through life. There are pockmarks in the grass, rips in the fence, a thicket of broken branches. Daisy found a nice large hole in Jeff’s podocarpus hedge, hung up a shingle, and carved out a bed. Looking at the hedge, you’d never guess she’s there.
The duck seems content. But who knows? A soaking tub. A bowl of food. A burrow tucked inside a bush. Her world is confined to these four backyards. How did she get here? Did she make a calculated decision? Or was it just a matter of luck?
***
Though I know some of my neighbors by name, mostly I know their pets. I have no idea if Roberta or Carmen have children. I have no idea if they hold jobs. Our conversations are as quick and superficial as a phony smile. How are you? Nice morning. Looks like rain.
Lately, I’ve been walking the community more often. We have a new puppy, and like all new puppies, Pickles needs exercise. He’s ridiculously cute. And even though he’s a purebred miniature poodle—the descendant, I may add, of champion stock—Pickles is unaware of his lineage.
The dog is goofy. He chases leaves, gobbles poop, pounces on lizards. Pickles wants to play 24/7 with whomever is willing. He barks at himself in the mirror and wonders why the mirror doesn’t bark back.
Curtailing his energy has become a primary focus of my life. And at the age of seventy, I’m too old to take him on a jog. Instead, Pickles and I walk up and down our one main street six seven eight times a day. Who’s counting? He pulls and I follow.
Our routine seldom varies. Each driveway is inspected, and every plant is sniffed. He greets every person we meet. He leaps in the air when he spots another dog. But while Pickles hungers for a friend, he’s friendless.
The two Schnauzers in 204 would sooner snap his head off than say hello. The Belgian Malinois in 706 would eat him for breakfast. The doodle across the street pees on his head. Still Pickles persists. Each stray cat receives a play bow. He once foolishly engaged a hermit crab.
***
Though we pretend to be friends, my neighbors and I are strangers. We judge one another by what we have or how we look. The cars in the carport. The clothes we wear to exercise. The purse we swing. I can just imagine the picture I present—a grandmother with frizzy gray hair and bargelike sneakers, bulging with a fanny pack filled with dog treats. I’m the opposite of flashy, the converse of cool.
Of course, the me they see is a deliberate choice. Most ladies my age play mahjong or canasta. They golf or try aerobics in the pool. But I’m a writer. I sit at my computer, churn out stories, thumb through the dictionary for just the right word. Instead of socializing, I witness. Instead of engaging, I record. I suppose writers by nature keep to themselves.
How are you? Nice morning. Looks like rain. Guest parking is really crowded today. The cocoplum needs to be pruned.
***
Pickles lives for our evening stroll. Around five o’clock I give him dinner. Together we watch the news with one ear and listen to the outside world with the other. We hear doorbells ring and car doors slam. Delivery people are delivering food. Briefcases are traversing driveways. Bicycles are negotiating the last moments of light.
Then finally it’s time. When the sun meets the horizon, Pickles and I take our final walk. The neighborhood has tucked itself in for the night. The street’s empty, our pathway clear. Pickles knows exactly where he’s heading. He steers me to Carmen’s house and circles toward her backyard. Pull, pull, pull, tug, tug, tug, trampling over plants and desecrating flowers, he arrives at his destination. Then he sticks his head through Carmen’s wrought iron fence and looks around. Daisy is perched near her feed box. They make eye contact. Then they both stay statue still and stare.
She’s an ugly duck. A red warty face, black feathers the color of dirt, her body a dishwater gray. Slowly, she inches closer to Pickles. Meanwhile the dog doesn’t move, doesn’t bark, doesn’t breathe. Ya wanna play? Hey you! Ya wanna play?
No one else is around. Roberta. Carmen. Jeff. I hear the wind rustle. I hear the water in the bay lap against the rocks. It’s a quiet I’m used to. I admit I’m not always approachable—what with the dog tugging, my knees bracing, my one free hand outstretched for ballast. But sometimes a longer conversation would be nice.
Meanwhile Pickles is quivering with effort. The universe has been condensed to the duck and the dog. Seconds seem like minutes. Then suddenly Daisy tilts her head and appraises the situation. It’s like the weight of the world is on her shoulders, like she’s solving the Mideast crisis or ruminating on a cancer cure. And even though Pickles is trying his hardest, even though he’s perfectly still and on his very best behavior, there are distractions. Maybe ten feet away, there’s an awful commotion. The mastiffs and the pit bull are jumping on walls and barking full throttle. The duck flaps her wings. She both wants and doesn’t want to stay.
We’re stuck at an impasse while the three of us wait wait wait. Then finally, as the sun is swallowed by the sky, Daisy makes her move. A rustle of feathers and she’s gone, flying overhead, making her way to Jeff’s house. Then she disappears inside her bush. Somewhere I hear voices from a television. Somewhere a phone rings. Everyone’s ensconced in their homes with the shades drawn. And as darkness descends and the streetlights click on, Pickles and I trudge home.
MARLENE OLIN was born in Brooklyn, raised in Miami, and educated at the University of Michigan. Her short stories and essays have been published in journals such as The Massachusetts Review, Catapult, PANK, and World Literature Today. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of The Net, Best Small Fictions, and for inclusion in Best American Short Stories. Find her on X at writestuffmiami.
