Frodo and the Lost Boys

Chris and Nick used to bodysurf in Santa Barbara, and Frodo, our golden retriever, would swim out with them. I think he was trying to rescue them. He swam back and forth from one to the other and they came in with big scratches on their chests from his paddling front paws. I would go out with them to distract him, but he was never interested in me. Finally I would have to take him in bodily and walk down the beach with him so they could surf unmolested. Even then, when we were hundreds of yards away, he would look back over his shoulder and take off back to them.

Meg and I are in Santa Barbara now with Frodo. No boys. They’re off at college. We walk on the beach with him and throw sticks in the water and he has a big time. Today she took him down without me and he spotted two boys out in the surf, one with a blue suit like Chris’s and one with a red suit like Nick’s. He was sure it was them. He swam out to one of them and when he saw it wasn’t Chris or Nick he swam to the other and then back again to the first one. One of the boys came out with him and he walked with Meg a moment and then, as though certain he just must not have checked carefully enough, he swam out to them again.

He’s back home now, stretched out on the patio in the sun. I wonder what he is thinking, whether he is wondering where Chris and Nick are. I wonder if he thinks about them when he can’t see them. I wonder if he is just like Meg and me.