Susan Wilson

A Man of His Own

A Man of His Own

Rick Stanton was once a promising professional baseball player with a bright future ahead of him. World War II changed everything. Rick returns home with his body permanently broken and his dreams shattered. But it was not just body and spirit he sacrificed for the war. He and his devoted wife Francesca volunteered their beloved dog Pax for the Army’s K-9 Corp, not knowing if they’d ever see him again.

Their adored pet is dutifully (if reluctantly) returned by Keller Nicholson, the soldier who fought the war with Pax by his side. Where Rick and Pax shared a joyful companionship in those halcyon pre-war years, Keller and Pax have the kind of profound bond that can only be forged in the trenches of war. Keller, who can’t bear to part ways with Pax, hopes the Stantons will let him adopt the dog; instead, they offer Keller a job as Rick’s live-in aide. An unlikely family is formed, with steadfast Pax at the center. As they try to build a new life out of the ashes, Keller and Francesca find themselves drawn to one another, and struggle to keep their attraction at bay. Rick, fully aware that he can no longer give Francesca what she needs and wants, is quietly planning a way out.

All three of them need healing All three of them are lost. Pax, with his unconditional love and unwavering loyalty, may be the only one who can guide them home.

Reviews

Another fabulous pre-pub review. Caution, some little spoilers.  Click here:
www.mvtimes.com/2013/08/28/love-lessons-we-learn-from-dogs-17071/

“A MAN OF HIS OWN” Kirkus Reviews 7/15/2013

A MAN OF HIS OWN
Author: Susan Wilson

Review Issue Date: July 15, 2013
Online Publish Date: July 7, 2013
Publisher:St. Martin’s
Pages: 320
Price ( Hardcover ): $24.99
Publication Date: September 24, 2013
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-250-01436-8
Category: Fiction

 

 

Wilson (The Dog Who Danced, 2012, etc.) pens another mainstream novel whose characters find love and a dog.

Pax, part German Shepherd, is a stray puppy, discovered malnourished in a Boston alley by Rick Stanton, a young minor leaguer. Pax becomes the perfect dog, even accepting Francesca, an Iowa girl on a Beantown visit. There’s a whirlwind romance, a marriage, but World War II intervenes. Rick becomes a soldier, as does Keller Nicholson. An orphan, Keller is near-indentured labor for his great-uncle, a reclusive fisherman residing in Hawke’s Cove, near Boston. Keller volunteers as a K-9 scout, and he’s assigned Pax, reluctantly offered to the service by Francesca. Rick’s later wounded in Italy, losing an arm and becoming paraplegic. The war ends, and Keller’s tasked with returning Pax to the Stantons. Lonely and firmly attached to Pax, Keller then becomes Rick’s personal-care attendant. Wilson does credible work in relating the onslaught of anger, guilt and self-pity attacking a person newly disabled. Those emotions are made evident by Rick’s subconscious passive-aggressive scheme to sacrifice himself for Keller and Francesca’s happiness. Keller and Francesca grow attracted to one another, but Wilson lets a reasonable conclusion evolve naturally. In a chronological narrative arc that drifts a bit internally, Wilson’s point of view jumps from Francesca, to Rick, to Keller, to Pax and sometimes to the third person, but it’s not so overdone as to be off-putting.

A Nicholas Sparksian romantic drama, with an “everyone loves a dog” twist.

Excerpts

Prologue

His mother had sheltered him in the nest she’d made in a crawl space under the sagging weight of an old tavern tucked just o? the main street of the city, which hadn’t yet begun to recover from the Depression. She’d fed him ?rst from her teats, all eight his alone as the only survivor of her brood of ?ve, then from her mouth as she left him for short periods and scavenged for scraps, which she would share with him even as she withered from a decent-size purebred German shepherd to a scabbed scarecrow.

The puppy would never know her history, only that his mother had managed to survive long enough as a stray by falling upon instincts hard-coded in her blood�?nd shelter, ?nd food, and trust no one�so that when she failed to return to their alleyway nest, he was almost capable of surviving on his own. Almost. What he didn’t know about her was that at an earlier time in her life she’d been a show dog. Somewhere miles away, blue ribbons and a silver cup graced a dusty shelf. Not a runaway, but a throwaway when the neighbor’s mongrel jumped the backyard breeder’s fence.

He stayed in the nest, venturing out only to do his business, lap a little at a puddle of yesterday’s rainwater. But his belly began to grumble. Sometimes it had taken her a very long time to return to the nest, so he made do with sucking on the end of his tail, comforting himself, one ear cocked toward the en- trance to the blind alley. She’d be back. She always came back. He had no way to know how much time had elapsed except by the extraordinary hunger that refused to be satis?ed with tail sucking, and his thirst, which was no longer satis?ed because the puddle had dried up during the warmth of the day. Hours passed into days and the puppy knew only that his mother was still absent, and without her, he had no strength. What he longed for was to feel her body wrapped around his, to awaken to ?nd her licking him ears to tail, to snuggle up against her warm body and let himself drift into deep sleep.

A noise. The puppy lifted his head, sni?ed. A man had come into the narrow alley. His mother had always shied away from people, so he kept himself very still. When the human boldly urinated not three feet from where the pup hid, the odor of it ?lled the youngster with information. This person was male; this human being had eaten meat and wasn’t thirsty. He couldn’t help himself�the odor of food wafting out of the skin of this overwarm being drew him to his legs. He didn’t consider revealing himself to the human; he just wanted to breathe in the tempting odor, as if by inhaling the scent of pastrami or ham, he’d be ?lled.
The rain came down and splashed into the hollows gouged out of the worn bricks. The sound of the soft late- summer rain and the earthy scent of refreshed soil confused the puppy. He ran his tongue against the rough brick, where a thin layer of moisture trickled toward him. There was no relief in it, only the torment of dissatisfaction. From the splintered access to his mother’s carefully chosen nest site, he could see where the puddle he’d licked dry was re-forming. Nearly crazed with thirst, the puppy forgot his mother’s rules and dashed out from beneath the building to lap at the new-formed puddle in an ecstasy of relief. And that’s when his future was revised.

The sudden insult of big feet against his washboard ribs made him yelp, but something kept him from running back to the shelter of the crawl space. As a dog, a youngster just newly

weaned, he didn’t have the experience to nip or protest, and being swept up in strong human hands had a calming e?ect on him. Here was contact. Here was touch. Soft vocalizations unlike his mother’s voice, but with her intent. Hey there, little guy. As soothing as her heartbeat.

The puppy made a token protest, and with a wisdom far beyond his mere eight weeks of life, he chose to accept this human’s touch; this man’s bond

CHAPTER ONE

The men’s room stinks so badly that Rick walks past it and out the open back door of the tavern. He’s in an alley, a brick wall conveniently placed, so that he conducts his business in privacy. Today was the last day of play for the Waterbury Comets, and Frederick “Rick” Stanton has just spilled his good news to his teammates. Despite the C-league Comets’ losing season, he’s pitched well, and in the spring he’ll report to the minor-league AA team, the Hartford Bees. It was surprisingly hard to say, and he was a little embarrassed to have gotten choked up, especially when they all raised their beer mugs and toasted his good luck.
He’s ?nally going to be able to say good-bye to cobbled-together amateur teams, and all his years of hard work, from sand lot to high school to playing in college, have paid o?. Sacri?cing steady employment in a respectable profession like his father’s, banking or accounting, in favor of menial jobs he has no compunction about leaving when practice starts up has been worth it.

Still, he’ll miss these guys, the oldest among them the catcher, “Foggy” Phil Dexter; the youngest, a kid of sixteen who cheerfully takes all their good-natured abuse, lugging most of the equipment, always riding stuck between two bigger players, fetching for the rest of them, and enduring persistent razzing about the state of his virginity.

Finishing up, Rick feels the ?rst drops of rain on his bare head. Those few drops are quickly followed by a complete cloudburst, but he stays where he is. It’s hot inside, and the cool rain feels good. Rick raises his face to the sky and opens his mouth, taking in the taste of fresh rain. “I’m the luckiest man on earth,” he says to the sky, and in that moment, he’s pretty certain that he is. Well, he should get back in. Eat an- other couple sandwiches, toss back one more beer; laugh at a few more tired jokes. The season is over and no curfew tonight.

Thoroughly soaked now, Rick turns around and trips over something, nearly pitching headlong onto the brick pavers. That something yelps.

It’s a puppy, and rather than running away after being tripped over, it stays put, and for a hard moment, Rick thinks he may have accidentally killed it with his big feet. In the weak light of the open back door, Rick sees the glint of life in its eyes. “Whoa, fella. Where’d you come from?” Rick squats down and the wet and trembling puppy inserts itself between his knees as if seeking shelter. It sits and rests its muzzle on Rick’s leg. As quickly as the cloudburst started, it fades away, the rivulets trickling down the side of the wall, pooling in the interstices between the bricks. “Where’re your people, little guy?”

The puppy shakes, spraying Rick with a thousand droplets. Rick scoops it up and heads back into the tavern. In the light, he can see it’s a boy, silvery in color, with a darker saddle across narrow shoulders and along ribs that poke out like the bones of a chicken. His ears ?op over at entirely di?erent angles, as if they belong to two di?erent puppies. Probably a German shepherd, or at least mostly shepherd. The bartender doesn’t say anything when Rick comes in carrying a puppy, so Rick holds him up. “He yours?” The barkeep shakes his head no.

The barkeep’s wife swings a new pitcher onto the table and considers the dog on Rick’s lap. “Probably got dumped out back. You found him, you keep him. Don’t leave him here.”

The puppy has settled neatly on Rick’s lap, gently taking the bits of meat Rick o?ers without nipping those important ?n- gers with his sharp teeth. He can’t keep a dog; he’s living in a boardinghouse. In nine months, he’ll be at training camp. In a year, with luck, he’ll be pitching for the majors.

“Got to name him if you’re keeping him.” Dan Lister, their manager, spreads a gob of mustard on his third corned beef sandwich. “How ’bout Spot?”

“Too common. Besides, he doesn’t seem to have any spots, and who said anything about me keeping him?” Rick ?ngers another tiny bite of sandwich into the puppy’s mouth.

“Lucky.” Foggy has slumped in his chair, so that his chin is barely above the edge of the table.

“Well, he is a lucky dog if one of you bums keeps him.” Rick holds the wriggling fur ball up as if o?ering the puppy for auction.

“Darby?” This from the kid.

“Darby?”

“I had a dog named Darby. My dad’s Irish. It’s how they say Derby over there. Darby was a real good dog, never left my father’s side all the time he was sick with tuberculosis. We even let him come to the funeral.”

The group grows silent. No one had known that the kid was a half orphan.

“Maybe I’ll call him Rin Tin Tin. He looks like he might be shepherd.” Rick scratches the puppy under the chin. “What do you think? You gonna grow up to be some kind of movie star hero dog?” The puppy yawns, drops his head, and is instantly asleep. Rick realizes what he’s just said. If he names this puppy, how will he ever drop him back in the alley? It’s not even fair to keep the dog on his lap, to allow the little thing to accept a few minutes of comfort, let him think that humans are trustworthy. The party will break up soon, and what then? Abandon the tyke to the elements? His ?rst trust in humans to do right by him destroyed, and maybe he’ll never trust another human being again. Rick can feel the puppy’s beating heart in the palm of his pitching hand. The ?u? of baby fur feels like the softest mink of his mother’s fur stole as Rick strokes him, lifting the spatula-shaped paws and feeling the thick bones of a puppy with the potential to become a large dog. If he’s not hit by a car or starved to death.

Dan Lister pushes away from the table. “I’m done in. Go to bed, gentlemen. I bid you farewell. Keep healthy and see you”-he looks at Rick-“most of you, in the spring.” The manager presses both hands on the table, suggesting that he’s more sober than he is.

The bartender hands Rick a length of string for a leash, but Rick carries the ten pounds of soft fur in his arms. Foggy is bumbling into chairs and tables while trying to ?nd the front door. “Come on, Phil, throw an arm over my shoulder.”

Foggy Phil Dexter gladly slings his arm over Rick’s neck and leans into him. “You’ll be great. Bees need a good curveball pitcher.” His breath is rank with beer and pastrami, but Rick doesn’t mind. Phil’s been a good friend and taught him a lot about the game. “By God, you’ll be in the majors in a year.”

“Your mouth to God’s ear.” Rick bears the weight of the man and the small burden of the puppy as they walk the few blocks to their boardinghouse.
Everything that he’s done has been fed by his lifelong ambition to play for the majors. Rick has never wanted anything else in his life. As a kid, he asked Santa for gloves and balls and bats; as a teen, he paid his own way to baseball camp, using the money he earned from a paper route. He never learned to sail, letting his father practically adopt the next-door neighbor’s kid to crew for him. Tomorrow, he’ll head down to his parents’ Greenwich home. He wonders if, when he gives them his good news, his extraordinary and long-awaited news, they’ll ?nally respond with some pride and enthusiasm.

The puppy in his hand wriggles himself up and under Rick’s chin. Well, so what if they don’t. He’s a grown man, he’s stuck to his plan, and now, at very nearly the last minute, at age twenty-seven, he’s ?nally there. Almost. He doesn’t want to be the world’s oldest rookie when he ?nally gets the call to major-league baseball.

Maybe this will be the last winter keeping ?t by any means possible while substitute teaching or doing temporary work at a busy accounting ?rm. In eight months, he’ll be back in training, a hardball in his hand, sensitive ?ngers feeling for the seams, the magic of that perfect throw. The future spools out in front of him: a winning season with the minor-league Bees, then get- ting the call to the majors. His ?rst appearance in the National League. Rick sees himself do?ng his ball cap and waving at cheering fans. He’s paid his dues, by God. Forfeited job security and Mary Ann Koble, who didn’t want to be a ballplayer’s wife.
The puppy yawns, burrows his tail end deeper into the crook of Rick’s arm. Why not keep him? He could be a mascot. A lucky charm. A companion on all those miles of roadwork.

There is a church along the way, more beautiful than any other building on this defeated main street; its all-white marble facade glows softly in the newly rain-freshened air. Picked out in gold leaf on the pediment are Latin words: Gloriam Deo Pax In Terra.

“Pax. Peace.” Rick looks at the puppy in his arms, now sleeping with utter trust in the man carrying him. It’s started raining again, a warm drizzle that makes the wet pavement shimmer beneath the sparse streetlamps. “I’m the luckiest man on earth.”

Pax. The puppy in Rick’s arms suddenly wakes. He reaches up with his baby muzzle and his long pink tongue comes out to lick Rick’s nose. Pax.

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Susan Wilson