Ariel wasn’t interested in the identity of the mystery nun. She was too busy playing with her boy. She’s a dog and doesn’t know from nuns.
Miles just wanted to run around with Ariel and play fetch. Seven-year-old boys aren’t much into mystery nuns either.
On Thursday, they were preoccupied with each other, in their backyard in Cape Coral, Fla., where the dog and her boy finally relaxed.
If you’ve been reading the column this week, then you know they suffered more than a 40-day separation and a titanic custody battle with a Chicago lawyer who held a grudge. That battle ended when you readers publicly weighed in and expressed severe displeasure with his law firm.
His boss ordered the lawyer to fly Ariel to Florida on Wednesday night.
So on Thursday, Miles and Ariel ran under a cloudy sky, playing fetch with a red ball. They tired of that, and Miles decided to examine a fascinating weed in the middle of the yard. Ariel came over to sniff at it. They had conversations. Miles climbed a tree. She tried to climb up after him.
“I don’t have to go to school today,” Miles confided to Matt Walberg, the reporter who helps me with the column who flew down to Florida to close out this story.
“And why don’t you have to go to school?” Walberg asked, knowing that Thursday was a very special day.
“I don’t have to go to school today because my dog’s here,” Miles said. “My dog is back.”
Then Miles made an important announcement to his mother, Stefanie.
“And I don’t have to go to school tomorrow either,” Miles said.
“Oh yes you do,” Stefanie said.
Miles then decided to make a paper pirate hat for Walberg to wear. Ariel watched.
I wish I had a photo of Walberg–a tall, shaven-headed, weight-lifting Michigan farm kid as big as an NFL linebacker, who grew up with horses and dogs, wearing a tiny pirate hat on his head to please the boy.
Sadly, Walberg couldn’t interest Miles and Ariel in what vexes me–this mystery nun business. They’re probably the only two who don’t care about the mystery nun.
Does she exist? Who is she? Where does she live? Who is her mother superior?
If anyone out there knows the mystery nun, please have her call me.
The dog had been lost in Florida and was picked up by a Chicago lawyer on vacation, and he flew her to Chicago. By the time the Florida family found out, the lawyer wasn’t interested in giving the dog back; he insisted he had given Ariel away to a nun who runs a program for the mentally disabled.
But he wouldn’t tell me her name or the program. This abject lack of trust caused me to doubt lawyer James Foley and the existence of the nun.
Would a mystery nun keep a dog that wasn’t hers? Is it coincidence that Ariel was finally returned on Ash Wednesday?
And can a mystery nun fly, like in the old TV show, say from Chicago to Ft. Myers?
“Are you crazy, you believe in mystery nuns?” said a woman on the phone, asking for anonymity. “She lives on the Northwest Side. Everybody in the neighborhood knows. She’s no nun. She’s a good cook, but she’s no nun.”
Legend now suggests that some grandmother (or mystery nun) may have fattened the captive dog on stuffed cabbage rolls and pierogi. Ariel gained 10 pounds and became somewhat pudgy during her stay with the mystery nun.
Another reader called.
“There is no mystery nun!” he said. “She lives on Narragansett, or is it Natoma? My mother-in-law said the woman was in the backyard with the kid’s dog. That dog in the paper.”
Did you see her?
“No. A friend of my mother-in-law told her she saw it. What are you, some guy who wants to believe in mystery nuns?”
Who can say? Miles’ parents, Stefanie and Michael Korzeniewski, don’t believe in the mystery nun either. But they do believe in you. And they wanted to thank you readers for helping them. Because you were the ones who swamped the law firm with calls and e-mail messages–angry with Foley and his bosses–and that forced Ariel’s return.
“Chicago is a city with so much going on,” Stefanie said. “That this story had this response is quite touching. People do care, you know.”
Yes, they sure do.
There are plenty of days ahead to deal with City Hall sleaze and phony barking politicians and Chicago Outfit bosses about to be indicted for old, bloody murders, with the habits of the carnivores who ravage this town.
But the story about Miles and Ariel reinforced, for me, the notion that people do care. And I like that.
Oh, one other thing. On Friday morning, as many of you have breakfast, Ariel and Miles will be back to their Florida routine.
Miles and his mom will walk two blocks to catch the school bus. Ariel will walk with him. And she’ll be waiting for him when school lets out.
I thought you’d like to know.
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jskass@tribune.com
