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If you watch theenerous perspective, as A watched the’s personality, an individualish with none of the worst of huence and a fundamental ability to reason that sometimes can take your breath away

And on occasion, when you’re not being in the least sentis any human qualities they do not possess, you will nevertheless perceive in the that is common to every human heart, even to those who clais see s, and are at key moments particularly alert to it, and nized that this was such a , waited and watched, certain that forthco as she orilla beside the Booda duck, Ethel made a third trip to the toy box in the pantry

Nickie peered at Fred, where he watched fros

Fred cocked his head to the left, cocked it to the right Then he rolled onto his back, four legs in the air, baring his belly in an expression of complete trust

In the pantry, Ethel bit at toys, tossed them aside, thrust her head deeper into the collection, and at last returned to Nickie with a large, plush, eight-tentacled, red-and-yellow octopus

This was a squeaky toy, a tug toy, and a shake toy all in one And it was Ethel’s favorite possession, off liorilla, and after a moment of consideration, Nickie picked it up in her ain, and dropped it

Rolling off his back, scra to his feet, Fred sneezed He padded out fros stared expectantly at one another

Uniformly, their tail action diminished

Their ears lifted as olden are able to lift

Amy became aware of a new tension in their , nose to the floor, head darting left and right, Nickie hurried out of the room, into the hall Ethel and Fred scampered after her

Alone in the kitchen, acutely aware that so but clueless as to what it ht came on

When she crossed to the doorway, Amy found the hall deserted

Toward the front of the house, so roos barked

Chapter 9

Although Brian McCarthy had a talent for portraiture, he was not usually capable of swift execution

The human head presents so many subtleties of form, structure, and proportion, so many complexities in the relationship of its features, that even Reled with his art and refined his craft until he died

The head of a dog presented no less-and arguably a greater-challenge to an artist than did the human head Many a master of their mediums, who could precisely render any man or wos in full reality

Remarkably, with this first effort at canine portraiture, sitting at his kitchen table, Brian found the speed that eluded hi form, structure, proportion, and tone did not require the ponderous consideration he usually brought to them He worked with an assurance he had not known before, with a new grace in his hand

The drawing appeared with such uncanny ease and swiftness that it ale had been rendered earlier and stored ically in the pencil, fro

During his courtship of As, not least of all to the beauty and the joy of dogs, yet he still did not have one of his own He didn’t trust himself to be equal to the responsibility

At first he didn’t know that he was rendering not olden retriever but also a specific individual As the face resolved in detail, he realized that from his pencils had come Nickie, so recently rescued

He did not haveeyes than he did any other detail of anatomy This ti that continually surprised hiht and ht evokes in even the aze Brian focused with, for hiht, thisthe receiver of the Annunciation

When he finished the drawing, he stared at it for a long time Somehow the creation of the portrait had lifted his heart Vanessa’s hateful e-hed less heavily on him

Hope and Nickie seemed inextricably entwined, and he felt that he could not have one without the other He did not know exactly what he meant by this-or why it should be so

In the study once keeper He read theit

I am at your mercy I have no power over you, and you have every power over me If one day you will let me have what I want, that will be because it serves you best to relent, not because I have earned it or deserve it

In previous e-ued with Vanessa or had atteh never as obviously as she worked to sharpen his guilt and to put a point on his sorrow This tiaed his helplessness

He expected neither an immediate response nor any response at all; and even if his plea elicited only vitriol, he would not reply in kind Over the years, she had humbled hier toward her than a wizened sailor of a thousand journeys harbored resent sea

In the kitchen, at the table, he turned to a fresh page in the art-paper tablet He sharpened his pencils

An inexplicable exhilaration had overcome him, a perception that new possibilities lay before him He felt as if he were on the brink of a revelation that would change his life

He began to draw the dog’s head, but this tiht turn to the left with a ht on

Furthermore, he intended to depict the face only from brow line to the part of the cheek called the cushion, thereby focusing on the eyes and the structures i the’s appearance should be so exquisitely detailed He’d seen her only on one occasion and not for long, yet in his raaze took forray Froe and deep, and full of light, of shadow

Brian was seeking so but that he had not at once consciously recognized His subconscious wanted now to bring forth what had been glimpsed, to see it rendered and to understand it

A tremulous expectation filled him, but his hand remained steady and swift

Chapter 10

Veils and shiht subtly surreal, yet the pride hich the owners maintain this property is everywhere evident