Katie Up and Down the Hall: The True Story of How One Dog Turned Five Neighbors Into a Family by Glenn Plaskin Page B

Avenue. It was love at first sight.
    In 1935, though her parents thought she was too young, the twenty-three-year-old Pearl forged ahead and married “the boy next
     door.”
    Despite the fast repartee and easy affection between Pearl and Arthur during our visits, I sensed a mild sadness hanging in
     the air, a sense of loss or regret. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until a few years after I met them, when I finally
     understood the missing link.
    As it turned out, early in their marriage, Pearl became pregnant—and the couple was ecstatic. But their happiness was short-lived.
    Three months into her pregnancy, an ovarian tumor was discovered. A stricken Pearl was told that if it wasn’t promptly removed,
     it could threaten her life. She wound up having the surgery, which included a hysterectomy, and, of course, she lost the baby.
    This was the tragedy that Pearl never discussed.
    Although Pearl and Arthur had initially gotten a little Bronx apartment of their own after getting married, Pearl was so depressed
     after the surgery that she and Arthur wound up moving back home to live with her parents, Doc and Ray.
    Recovering slowly in the nurturing environment of home, Pearl’s spirits revived and, a few years later, Arthur was drafted
     into the Navy.
    Although he rarely talked about his experiences during World War II, Arthur repeatedly reminisced about his favorite on-ship
     friend, a pet monkey. One day, he dug into a shoebox of ancient photos and pulled out a picture of himself as a bare-chested
     young sailor, holding up his precocious primate. “That monkey had more sense than some of my mates,” he laughed.
    “And sometimes more than you,” ribbed Pearl.
    After the war, Pearl worked as a secretary, typing up notesfor a writer—“I earned $12 a week and gave my mother $5”—while Arthur was a salesman of wholesale women’s apparel. All the
     while, they continued living with Pearl’s parents. One year drifted into the next, and decades slipped by, and Pearl and Arthur
     wound up living with Pearl’s parents for nearly their entire married life!
    In fact, they remained in the Bronx until they themselves were in their seventies, caring for Ray and Doc until their deaths,
     then staying on to care for Arthur’s mother until
her
death. Their only respite from family duty was the small country home in Dutchess County that they enjoyed on weekends.
    So amazingly, Pearl and Arthur almost never lived alone as a couple until they moved to Battery Park City in 1983.
    At last, they were on their own, though a profound vacuum was left behind, the proximity of family gone.
    And by the time I met them, even their beloved cocker spaniel Brandy had passed away.
    As a result, Pearl and Arthur were wide open to a new chapter in their lives—and adopted Katie and me as their brand-new family.

    At first prim about her personal business, Pearl gradually confided more of her intimate feelings about many things, as we
     became closer and closer.
    She was disappointed, for example, in some of her family members with whom she’d cut off relations, though she adored her
     grand-niece, Susan, who lived in London, and her grand-nephew, James, in Boston. Like all good aunts, she bragged about their
     accomplishments, showing me their cards and letters, though she regretted they only visited about once or twice a year.
    Private as she was, she would never have told them how much she worried about her finances (“we’re living on a strictbudget”) and what serious concerns she had about Arthur’s health (he often had colds, bronchial infections, and intense pain
     due to arthritis).
    “Arthur was always so strong—and he used to take me dancing in Atlantic City,” she smiled, looking over at her prized photo,
     taken on her honeymoon there. In it, Pearl was wearing a fur-trimmed coat and looked very chic, while Arthur was quite debonair
     in a blue blazer and white slacks.
    “But now he spends so much of his time in