Lily and the Octopus (28 page)

Pulling up to my house is such a normal activity that I almost think the whole day hasn’t happened. I wonder what I was doing at Trent’s; I wonder why Jeffrey had called. Lily is
fine. She’s waiting for me, asleep in her bed in the kitchen. It may take her a minute to perk up when I walk in the door. She’s been a terrible watchdog these past few years. But she
will wake up. She will wake up when I walk in the door.

As long as I sit in the car this is true.

Once I go inside this is not true.

As long as I sit in the car this is true.

I’ve so convinced myself that, when I do work up the courage to go inside, I stand in the dark, unwilling to turn on the lights, to do anything that might shatter my delusion. Finally,
when the darkness becomes deafening, I whisper.

“Lily?”

Silence.

Of course there is no answer.

I got out of the car.

T
here’s an empty bottle of vodka in the freezer and I don’t know why it’s there or why there’s not a full bottle. I toss it
into the recycling bin. Then I take the unopened bottle of vodka from the cabinet and the remaining beer in the refrigerator and I dump them down the drain. I do this before undertaking the somber
task of putting Lily’s bed out of sight in the closet. I take her paw-print blanket and hold it up to my face, inhaling deeply, before folding it neatly and placing it on top of the laundry.
I lift her food and water dishes off the floor. I don’t even wash them, I just empty them and put them in a drawer. There’s a stray piece of kibble hidden under her food bowl.

Unfinished business.

My bed is unmade. In the middle is a nest of towels where Lily slept her last night. I strip the bed, and under the towels I find an empty trash bag laid out over the sheets. I don’t
remember putting it there, or even having the thought to do so. I flip the mattress, even though it’s dry, and make the bed with clean sheets.

Slowly, I’m erasing the events of the day.

I take a hot shower and stand for a long time under the spray. I’m aware that I’m washing her off me, removing her from the spots where we last touched. I turn off all the cold water
until the hot water scalds, and when I can’t stand the pain any longer I turn the cold knob until the water becomes temperate again.

When I get out of the shower I forget to even dry off and I just stand there next to the open window in the thick July air looking out into the darkness of the backyard. Tomorrow is
Friday—therapy with Jenny. How will I speak of this with her?

On Fridays we play Monopoly.

I find some shorts on the floor, flop down onto the sofa, and turn on the TV. I look down at my legs and they are splayed in a way that creates a nook for Lily—the one she would always
step into, turning around three times and then falling asleep in, her chin slung over the bend in my knee. This is how I sit now. I never sat like this before. This is how I sit now. Lily has
fundamentally changed me.

What was the point of grieving early? That’s what I will ask Jenny. If the point was to alleviate the grief I feel now—to make it malleable, to spread it thinner in a more manageable
fashion—grieving early had utterly failed. If I was detaching weeks ago, shouldn’t it be easier to fully detach today?

There will be two drugs.

I want to go back to that space in between them. After the first, where she is no longer in pain, just floating on a peaceful cloud of sleep. Before the second, where her heart still beats and
her chest still rises and falls and that little bit of pink tongue is still tucked safely inside her closed jaw.

Midnight encroaches and I want to stop the clocks. Tomorrow will be the first day that Lily never saw. There’s an overwhelming desire to run away.

The octopus came when I was away. All this time I have felt at fault, the one to blame, but suddenly I am overcome with a wave of anger at Lily. She used to bark at the mailman, bark at the
wind, bark at every passing car. She used to race to the front door to scare away potential attackers, her silly body rigid with readiness, her nose pressed through the wooden blinds to smell
danger, her bark that of a much larger dog. She used to dash to the door whenever I got home. She used to be diligent when things would go bump in the night. But somewhere along the line, she aged.
She got older, and harder of hearing and maybe lazy or just impaired. Whatever the cause, she let her guard down. She failed to protect us.

That is when the octopus came.

She is the one at fault.

She is the one to blame.

Or maybe the octopus tricked her into submission. He was that wily. He could have come prepared. He could have come unannounced. The octopus, after all, is a master of camouflage.

It’s impossible to focus my anger.

Why did I think we would be together forever? Lily never made that promise. Dogs don’t live as long as people. In my head, I knew this. But to think that there would come a day when we
would part was to take the joy out of a day we had together. A day together at the beach. A day together taking naps and walks. A day together chasing squirrels.

My body fights with my mind for rest. My eyes grow heavy and yet still resist sleep, but I don’t know why. I need sleep. Desperately. Maybe I fear the return to
Fishful Thinking
now
that I know it does not end how I thought it did. Now that the journey does not return us home.

I finally break free of my repose and wander aimlessly through the house, turning off switches wherever there is light.

When I get to the kitchen I find red ball staring at me from the linoleum floor, and my eyes water again. I lean down to retrieve it. It’s impossibly fixed to the floor, like the sword in
the stone. It takes a long time to move it but, like Arthur, I do, and I tuck it in the drawer with her food.

I turn off the kitchen light.

She was twelve and a half in actual years, which is eighty-seven in dog years.

I’m forty-two, which is two hundred and ninety-four.

We had twelve brilliant years together. That’s eighty-four in dog years.

That’s a lifetime, even if dog years pass too quickly.

A heart is judged not by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.

There will be two drugs.
The second will stop her heart.

Good night, my sweet puppy.

Good night, Monkey.

Good night, Silly Goose.

Good night, Tiny Mouse.

Good night, Bean.

Good night, Lily.

You were fiercely loved.

I
’m already parked when it occurs to me I’m not sure which of the two Starbucks is the one we agreed upon. It’s now two minutes
until three, the time we planned to meet, and so I should probably hope for the closer of the two, even though the farther would be a much better choice for a first date. At least there we could
sit outside. How can there be two Starbucks in one location? One is inside a Barnes & Noble, that’s how. The Starbucks of books. I text him quickly and start in the direction of both
Starbucks, and when he texts back he asks
How do you feel about frozen yogurt instead?
I write back
Sure
, and head to the farther Starbucks, since it’s closer to the frozen
yogurt place, even though now it’s probably more complicated than ever, the plan about where to meet.

It’s been a month to the day since Lily died.

Until today I have been doing okay. I took my mother up on her offer to come home. I timed my visit with Meredith’s, and we all spent a few lazy days enjoying the Maine summer, and no one
pressured me to talk or to laugh if I didn’t want to. Upon my return, I threw myself into other things—work, exercise (a lot of running—running to? running from?), catching up
with friends. Dating, sort of. There have been a few dates; all firsts, no seconds—no real interest on my part. (Afternoon dates, all of them, so that it’s not a big deal when I
don’t drink.) All of this is not to say there weren’t a few dark days, even lonelier nights, and a few horrifying nightmares, but I powered through somehow, kept marching forward. It
seemed critical, rejoining the world—I have been away too long.

I’d been dreading today, the one-month anniversary of Lily’s passing, but I hadn’t expected it to land with such a numbing clonk. I probably only made this date knowing I would
need the distraction. Not that I didn’t find his pictures attractive. Not that I didn’t enjoy our email exchange. I think I’m attracted to his name: Byron. A poet’s name.
Romantic. I’ve read a lot of Lord Byron of late; he had a Newfoundland, named Boatswain, who was the inspiration for one of his more famous works, “Epitaph to a Dog.”
Near this
Spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
Boatswain, it
seems, was a lot like Lily.

It felt like some sort of sign, my date’s name being Byron. He would understand me and the depths of my pain. He would speak in poetry, real emotional verse, and not pablum and platitudes.
But I don’t really know what I’m doing as I march toward the farther of the two Starbucks, the one closer to the yogurt place.

Living, I suppose. Breathing. It seems I’m almost ready to do those things again. Not just go through the motions, but attempt them for real.

I weave through L.A.’s famous Farmers Market (which is really more of an outdoor food court) and now I’m a few minutes late and the place is packed and there’s still the
uncertainty about where to meet when I look down and realize I’m wearing yellow pants. Yellow pants. Really? Sometimes I don’t know what I’m thinking. They’re rolled at the
cuff and paired with a navy polo and it looks like maybe I just valeted my yacht and I’m certain to come off as an asshole. I think about canceling, or at least delaying so I can go home and
change, but the effort that would require is unappealing and this date is mostly for distraction, and when I round the last stall (someone selling enormous eggplants, more round than oblong), I see
him casually leaning against a wall and something inside my body says there you are.

There you are.

I don’t understand them, these words, because they seem too deep and too soulful to attach to the Farmers Market, this Starbucks or that, a frozen yogurt place, or confusion over where to
meet a stranger. They’re straining to define a feeling of stunning comfort that drips over me, as if a water balloon burst over my head on the hottest of summer days. My knees don’t
buckle, my heart doesn’t skip, but I’m awash in the warmth of a Valium-like hug. Except I haven’t taken a Valium. Not since the night of Lily’s death. Yet here is this warm
hug that makes me feel safe with this person, this Byron the maybe-poet, and I want it to stop. This—whatever this feeling is—can’t be a real feeling, this can’t be a
tangible connection. This is just a man leaning against a stall that sells giant eggplants. But I no longer have time to worry about what this feeling is, whether I should or shouldn’t be
here, or should or shouldn’t be wearing yellow pants, because there are only maybe three perfect seconds where I see him and he has yet to spot me. Three perfect seconds to enjoy the calm
that has so long eluded me.

There you are
.

And then he casually lifts his head and turns my way and uses one foot to push himself off the wall he is leaning against. We lock eyes and he smiles with recognition and there’s a
disarming kindness to his face and suddenly I’m standing in front of him.

“There you are.” It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it and it’s all I can do to steer the words in a more playfully casual direction so he isn’t saddled with the
importance I’ve placed on them. I think it comes off okay, but, as I know from my time at sea, sometimes big ships turn slowly.

Byron chuckles and gives a little pump of his fist. “YES! IT’S! ALL! HAPPENING! FOR! US!”

I want to stop in my tracks, but I’m already leaning in for a hug and he comes the rest of the way and the warm embrace of seeing him standing there is now an actual embrace and it is no
less sincere.

He must feel me gripping him tightly because he asks, “Is everything okay?”

“No. Yes. Everything is great. It’s just . . .” I play it back in my head, what he said, the way in which he said it and the enthusiasm that had only a month ago gone silent.
“You reminded me of someone, is all.”

“Hopefully in a good way.”

I smile, but it takes just a minute to speak. “In the best possible way.”

I don’t break the hug first, but maybe at the same time. This is a step. Jenny will be proud. I look in his eyes, which I expect to be brown like Lily’s, but instead are deep blue
like the waters lapping calmly against the outboard sides of
Fishful Thinking
.

“Is frozen yogurt okay?”

“Frozen yogurt is perfect.”

We sit across from each other with our yogurt, which is a better choice in the August sun than coffee. His is plain and mine is pomegranate. I’m surprised that he looks both exactly like
and nothing like his pictures. The way he moves, the way he smiles, it makes him more handsome than anything a still photograph could capture. We run through the usual first-date banter and I start
to tell one of my stories and even though it comes off okay, when I finish I tell myself to stop it.

This one is worth being present for.

He is from New Orleans. He used to be a TV news reporter in Las Vegas and I wonder how that is because his hair curls and it moves in the breeze and he kind of looks like the poet his name
suggests and nothing like a TV news reporter, at least any that I’ve seen. He’s an uncle like I am an uncle. He’s close with his mother, but not his father. He’s sad about
the death of Whitney Houston.

He loves dogs.

“Have you ever been in love?” Byron asks.

I pause and think of Lily, even though I know that’s not what he means. I answer yes because, even if there had never been a Lily, it’s true. I even go so far as to try to mask the
pain of it. “You?”