Addie and Owen: A Love Story

Addie Sanders was done with love. She was eight years old.

Addie Sanders was done with love. She’d been betrayed. Abandoned. Set adrift with the growing belief that she would live out the rest of her days in unrelenting loneliness.

Addie was eight years old.

It’s fair to wonder just who could possibly shatter an eight-year-old girl’s heart so completely that nothing could restore it.

The answer was Owen.

Until Valentine’s Day, Owen lived three doors down from Addie. In the sweet house on the corner with the bay windows that looked out at the western peak of the Santa Monica Mountains. Addie and Owen would sit there most afternoons waiting for the sunset to turn the mountains purple. She often said that one day they would climb to the top of that peak and then turn around to look back at their street, curious to see if the mountain’s perspective of them was just as captivating as theirs was of it.

As she spoke, Owen would often rest his head in Addie’s lap and smile.

Owen was thirteen.

Owen was a dog.

But last week, when Addie arrived at Owen’s house after school with a homemade valentine and a milk bone scotch taped to the back, the door was locked. The house was dark. And Owen was nowhere to be found.

Addie’s parents sat her down that night and told her what they had pieced together from a neighbor.

“Owen’s owner died, sweetheart,” her mom explained. “Her son drove in from Arizona. He took Owen home to live with him.”

“Owen moved?” She started to cry. “But I never got to say goodbye. I never got to give him his valentine. I never got to say I love you.”

“We know how much he meant to you,” her dad said.

But they didn’t really know. No one did. No matter what Addie told him, he would always listen. Even if what she told him was a detailed list of all the horrible things she had thought or done that day, Owen didn’t care. Sometimes it seemed like the more honest she was, the happier he became. Which is why Addie could often talk to him for hours on end. But on days when she was sad about something and just wanted to be quiet, Owen was fine with that too. The fact she wanted to spend time with him was all the love he required. And if she threw in a belly rub or tossed a tennis ball across the hardwood floor once or twice, well, could a dog ask for anything more?

On Monday Addie couldn’t get out of bed. She knew that she’d have to walk past Owen’s house on the way to the school bus and if she looked in the bay window he wouldn’t be there looking back at her and then she would start to cry again. And she couldn’t be seen sobbing in line for the bus because then Clay the fifth grade boy with the peach fuzz mustache would call her a baby and she’d be so angry she’d probably punch him in the private parts which the bus driver Miss Blanca would hear about the second she pulled to a stop and cranked open the door. And then Miss Blanca would have to write up a report and the principal would get involved and Addie’s parents would have to leave work to come pick her up and then she’d have to drive past Owen’s house on the way home, leaving her trapped in a cycle of anguish from which there was no escape.

“You know, there are other dogs in the neighborhood. Do you want to play with one of them?” her mother asked.

Addie did not. The other dogs were not the same. They were not big and fluffy and friendly and cute and gentle. They didn’t have inviting brown eyes and a bright pink tongue and a bushy tail that smacked her in the face when he was extra happy. The other dogs didn’t light up when they saw her coming and they didn’t sit on her feet when they knew she was about to leave.

“I only want to play with Owen,” she whimpered, then rolled over and cried herself back to sleep.

She stayed there the rest of the day. When her dad brought in her favorite dinner — microwave mac and cheese with a homemade brownie — she pushed it aside. Addie wasn’t being dramatic. She was heartbroken. And her parents could only think of one way to fix it.

Her dad nudged her lifeless lump shortly after midnight. “What if we go visit Owen?” he said.

Addie peeled back her comforter, revealing a puffy face, swollen from tears.

“But we don’t know where he lives,” she said. Addie had toyed with this idea while tossing and turning.

Her mom held up a scrap of paper with a handwritten address on it. “What if we did?”

Addie was dressed in ten minutes. She ate three brownies, two bowls of Cheerios, one banana, and was ready to roll. They drove through the night, only stopped for gas, and pulled up to a forgettable brown condominium just after 8am.

Addie ran ahead of her mom and dad and rang the doorbell. When the owner’s son answered, Addie squeezed her head past him and took a look inside.

“Owen?”

Addie’s dad apologized as he reached the door. “I’m sorry. We were neighbors with your mom. Owen and my daughter were very close. She has been so sad that she never had the chance to say goodbye. But we managed to get your address from a neighbor and… can she see him?”

The son’s face fell.

“Um… Boy… Yeah, Owen’s not here.”

Owen never made it to Arizona. Owen barely made it out of the neighborhood. He didn’t want to lose Addie any more than Addie wanted to lose him. And when the son attempted to move Owen from his perch in the bay window to the back of his SUV, Owen refused. He spread himself out on the window seat like an eighty-pound scoop of golden vanilla ice cream. Not even a trail of dog treats from the house to the car could entice him.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do with him anyway and I had to get back for work,” he explained. “So I called a local animal shelter and they took him instead.”

Now Addie had been told many times that a valuable life skill is learning how to bite your tongue when grown ups say dumb things but this felt like an exception to the bite your tongue rule.

“YOU GAVE OWEN AWAY?!”

She imagined Owen in a shelter. No squishy dog bed. No squeaky toys. Surrounded by various other animals. Dogs, cats… rats, oh no… SNAKES? She wondered if the other animals were being mean to him. If they made fun of him the way Beau with the peach fuzz made fun of her. But maybe someone would adopt him. Or would that be worse? Could someone possibly love him the way she loves him? Could anyone know what Owen was thinking the way she did? Would they know how much he loves to be talked to? Would they ever take him to the mountain? Would they even know he wanted to go? But then again, who would even adopt a thirteen-year-old dog?

No one, she realized. Owen was never getting out of that shelter. His fate was certain. Unless…

“We need to rescue him,” Addie declared.

Her parents had talked about getting a dog many times. But their house was small and who would watch him during the day and—

“If no one takes him HE WILL DIE!”

She was right.

Unfortunately Owen, being smart like he was, had reached the same conclusion. He knew the pen with the cold cement floor and chain link gate was not an upgrade from his previous residence. He watched as some animals went out the front door while others were led out the back. He planted himself near the gate of his pen and nestled his head between his two front paws, fixing his eyes on that front door. Waiting for Addie. But she didn’t come. In time he became aware of a sharp pain in his chest, like the uneven claws of a feral cat had grabbed hold of him and, with every passing hour were sinking deeper and deeper into his skin.

Owen couldn’t bear it. He knew that eventually the invisible claws would pierce his heart right through and that would be that. But he refused to die here. Under fluorescent lights. In front of all these strangers. He would rather die alone. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere beautiful.

After eight more hours of driving, Addie and her family arrived at the shelter. Her foot hit the pavement while the engine was still running. She flung open the shelter door and announced with fanfare: “I’m here for Owen.”

The trainee at the front desk turned glassy-eyed and couldn’t speak.

“Oh no,” Addie said. “I’m too late. He’s gone, isn’t he?”

The trainee nodded. “But if we find him, we’ll let you know.”

“Find him? I thought you said he was—”

“Missing. He escaped. Waited till we brought in lunch and ran right out the front door.”

Addie wheeled around as her parents entered. “Owen ran away.”

“What? Where do you think he went?” her dad asked.

“Maybe he’s going home,” her mom hoped.

Addie shook her head. She looked past her parents at the horizon behind them and knew exactly where he was headed.

The mountain.

Owen walked all day. Through town and past the high school and around the landfill until he reached the trailhead. The path was smooth at first. He walked with a steady gait. Lizards darted out of his way. Halfway up, the trail grew rocky. His soft, indoor paws turned raw and red. A few ridges over, he heard a coyote howl. He’d fought one off once. When he was young. He wasn’t sure he could win that fight tonight.

Just before sunset, he reached the top. He found a smooth patch of flat rock and looked out. He could see the blue ocean and the green Channel Islands beyond it. He could see the freeway that snaked through town and disappeared up the coast. And he could see his old neighborhood.

He remembered being a puppy there. How he would escape at every opportunity and roam the backyards of strangers until someone inevitably grabbed him by the collar and marched him back home. He remembered taking walks, following the scents of other dogs he’d never seen but only smelled. He remembered the first time he saw Addie. She was walking to the bus with a green backpack that was nearly as big as she was. She waved to him from the sidewalk. He remembered wishing he knew how to wave back. He wished he could wave right now. Maybe then she could see him. But the only thing he could do back then was all he could do right now. And so Owen barked.

Then he curled into a ball and closed his eyes.

“OWEN!”

He popped his head up, ears at attention, like he had done a thousand times before.

Addie.

He barked again. Louder this time.

And then she was there. Appearing over a boulder. Bathed in the purple light of sunset.

He ran to her. She didn’t say another word. She didn’t have to. She just hugged him and cried. He knew it was a happy cry. He licked her face and smiled.

Before they left, Addie took one long look at the world below. The one she had imagined in her head for years. “It’s pretty,” she said. “But I like the view from our house better.”

Owen did too.

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