Covert Mom: Higher Ground

By Mariah Mottley

Since I adopted my dog, Scout, a charming, maniacal blue heeler, we have settled into a morning routine. We each have our roles. I acquire and throw the balls. She chases them.
We head out as soon as the school bus picks up the children. I use a neon green handle with a cup on the end called a ChuckIt and used tennis balls. Scout is the same color as Ben and Jerry’s mint chocolate cookie ice cream and she sprints so hard behind the ball I throw that you can hear her toenails on the asphalt.

Occasionally, there are casualties that land in the creek.
One in particular has been there for months, tucked in beside the drainage pipe. I believe that Scout, as the dog, should get it. I am the bipedal one with opposable thumbs, who understands object permanence. She couldn’t care less about the wasted tennis ball. She only cares about balls that are bouncing down the road.
This morning the sun was bright, the grass was wet, the mud soft. The snow was gone, and the birds were singing. The blue sky was reflected in the fresh puddles and the creek was swollen with melted snow. But the stuck ball tortured me. It was a wasted resource. Not cool.
I didn’t want to climb into the creek. I might get wet. I might get smacked in the face with an icy branch. Most importantly, I didn’t want to go in the creek because I wasn’t the dog. I’m not the one who fetches, she does.
The first ball I threw went right down the center of the road; she caught it off the bounce. On my second throw, tragedy struck. She hit the ball with the end of her nose and it bounced down, into the ditch, into the frothy quick water.
“Your ball!” I shouted, waving my green arm. “Get it! Quick! Before it’s gone!” I walked along the road, pointing. She is fast enough, agile enough. She just stood there. The ball bobbed into the drainage pipe, disappearing under the road.
I ran across the pavement, in time to see it plop into the creek on that side. It circled clockwise in front of the pipe, then caught in the branches of a tree limb, temporarily moored.
“Scout!” I called. “There it is! Get it. Get your ball!” Now there were two stuck in the creek. Horrible. She watched me, certain that sooner or later I would throw a ball for her.
I wanted a cup of coffee, was still wearing my fuchsia and blue striped cotton pajama pants. Everything was slick from the days of rain and the embankment was steep. I did not want to get my bottom wet with mud and could imagine the feeling perfectly.
Wild rose thorns and grapevines dragged at my Muck Boots. I edged my way down toward the pipe, keeping my weight low once out on the corrugated metal.
Above my head, Scout watched, her jaws working the first ball, the picture of canine insouciance.
“Why am I out here balancing on this? You are hardly Patrick Swayze,” I told her. “I just throw the ball. I don’t retrieve it.”
She didn’t move, just worked her jaws.
I squatted, reaching toward the ball still in the tenuous embrace of the branches with my long plastic arm. I brought it up, soggy and cold, tucked it into the pocket of my fleece. Then I turned around, worked my way back along the pipe. The other ball, the one that had been torturing me all winter was just down there, below the edge. I scooped it up, too.
Windmilling my arms and cussing, I made it back up the embankment, lifting my right boot high to extricate it from a loop of grapevine. Scout’s brown eyes were fixed on my hands.
I slotted the damp fuzzy ball in the cup of the launcher and drilled it right down the center of the road. She took off after it.
I am very well trained.

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Originally from Manhattan, Mariah was educated in Massachusetts, Montana and Texas, often by failure. She lives with her husband and three children in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Mariah can be reached at mariah@mariahmottley.com.