Lily and the Octopus (9 page)

Somewhere in my speech the rain over the lagoon had started again, and the patter of rain on water sounds like a gentle snare drum. I pause and take the disfigured straw out of my glass and
replace it with another straw from an empty glass. I don’t even know whose empty it was, nor do I care. “I don’t know what made me think of that.”

But I do know. I hate myself again, much as I did that night. Living things, maybe not barnacles or plants (although plants technically do bend their leaves toward the sun), need to move. And
under my watch Lily was unable to retain what she was born with—the ability to move herself about. Even if it was an accident, or an injury that was breed-specific—just one of those
things—it was my fault, just as every unpleasant thing that happened to her was a failure of mine to keep her safe.

On the table, hidden behind a standing cocktail menu, is a bowl of snack mix. I stick my finger in it and swirl the crunchy items around, taking a sort of inventory to see if there are any
wasabi peas.

There aren’t.

“
Ow!
” The kick comes swiftly under the table and I jump and the cocktail glasses rattle. I look across at Meredith, who is grinning broadly.

Enough with the self-pity.

“You’re in trouble now,” I say to Meredith.

“What did I do?” she says, feigning innocence while failing to stifle laughter.

I grab as many of them as I can by the elbows and pull them away from the table. “Let’s dance!”

The rain stops and the barge sets sail again, this time with us aboard, and I’m already waving my hands in the air doing some sort of rhythmic snapping thing when the band starts to play
“You Make My Dreams” by Hall & Oates.

I
’m not entirely sure what Franklin’s Chinese parents think of their son marrying a tall white woman, but I’m pretty sure what
they don’t think the occasion needs is two six-foot-plus homosexuals. Still, they nod and smile and do their best to make polite conversation, and the judge who officiates turns out to be
Chinese and that seems to go a long way toward making the whole thing more palatable.

San Francisco City Hall is a stunning feat of marble, ambition, and architectural chutzpah; a Beaux-Arts monument to government as beautiful as any cathedral. After Meredith and Franklin get
their marriage license, we wait in the cavernous entryway at the base of the grand staircase for their turn to get hitched. The floor’s marble inlay consists of circles and squares and I
trace them awkwardly with my foot. Meredith looks stunning in a simple cream-colored backless wedding dress from J. Crew. It’s perfect for both her body and her temperament. My sister is not
someone whose wedding I ever imagined. She’s not the kind of girl who grew up daydreaming of one, or playing bride in any fashion. But now that I see her looking radiant in this backless
cream number against the ornate-but-not-ostentatious backdrop of city hall, I can’t imagine it any other way.

When it’s their turn, we climb the grand marble staircase, Meredith and Franklin first, Jeffrey and me and Franklin’s parents silently behind them. I look up at the dome. It’s
supposedly the fifth largest in the world and it’s a marvel to behold. At the top of the stairs we stand in a rotunda in front of two double doors. Behind them are the mayor’s offices,
where San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and supervisor and gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk were assassinated by a former colleague in 1978. I shudder when I remember this. The location seems
solemn, but important.

The ceremony is simple, Meredith and Franklin holding hands in front of the judge, exchanging rings and vows. I try to manage being a combination of witness, photographer, family of the bride,
and maid of honor. I take out my digital camera and snap as many pictures as I can without feeling disruptive, knowing the rest of my family will want to see them. I do everything I can to be
present, even if my mind is 381 miles away.

To focus, I think of how dogs are witnesses. How they are present for our most private moments, how they are there when we think of ourselves as alone. They witness our quarrels, our tears, our
struggles, our fears, and all of our secret behaviors that we have to hide from our fellow humans. They witness without judgment. There was a book once about a man who tried to teach his dog to
speak a human language, to help him solve his wife’s murder. It said that if dogs could tell us all they have seen, it would magically stitch together all the gaps in our lives. I try to
witness this moment how a dog would witness it. To take it all in. For the rest of my family, this wedding will be a gap in their lives, and I need to do my best to fill it.

The ceremony is perfect for my sister and her new husband—all business, no flourish. Nothing about the bride as property. No one to give her away, no mention of them being man and wife, no
mention of a Christian god that none of us really believe in. They are both attorneys. The law is their church. When the judge unites them he says, “By the power vested in me by the State of
California, I recognize you as married.” And just like that, as quickly as it began, the ceremony is over.

I wander to the third floor, with its peripheral balconies, to take some photographs from above. Really, I need a moment to breathe. I want to call the animal hospital, but I don’t. They
won’t do what I want them to do, which is to put Lily on the phone. In her drugged-out state, on sedatives and painkillers, she won’t talk much to me anyway. Below, Meredith and
Franklin descend the central staircase and I capture a lovely shot of them holding hands. I snap another of Jeffrey leaning on a marble pillar looking relaxed and handsome.

After the wedding, we head back to the Fairmont Hotel and I excuse myself to the lobby bar. The same asshole is there, playing the same piano. I purchase a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the
bartender and get him to give me six glasses. We pop the champagne back in Meredith and Franklin’s room and I toast the newlyweds and Meredith makes a round of phone calls to break the news
to my family. They go down like this: everyone is shocked, everyone offers heartfelt congratulations, and after each call she hands the phone to me. And then I get the brunt of it.

“Did you know about this?”

“How long did you know?”

“Did you put her up to this?”

“You didn’t tell me?”

“Why were you invited?”

“Is she pregnant?”

In everyone’s shock, they forget to ask about Lily. I just sip my champagne and roll with it as best I can. But inside I’m wondering why on the day of my sister’s union more
people aren’t thinking about me.

My mother is on the phone last. She’s on the verge of tears; I can hear it in her voice. She would have liked to have been here. I think she’s especially hurt that Franklin’s
parents were in attendance. She doesn’t see my having been the ambassador for our family as adequate balance. And she’s right. There is no one equal to a mother.

“Meredith looks really happy,” I say into the phone, trying to defuse some of my mother’s sadness. Should I have been more insistent with Meredith?

“I wrote a check for one thousand dollars and put it in the mail,” my mother says, but I’m not sure she’s talking to me.

“Excuse me?”

“For Lily’s surgery. I’m sorry that I don’t have more to contribute.”

Now it’s me on the verge of tears. “You didn’t have to . . .” I start, but I stop. It’s an incredible gesture and instead of protesting I should just be grateful.
“Thank you.” I think it comes out audibly.

After the calls I snap a few more pictures of the newlyweds in front of their enormous window. The top floor has a stunning vista of the city and the bay, and I frame them with Alcatraz far in
the distance, just over my sister’s shoulder. This is my silent statement about marriage. Or maybe about my own relationship with Jeffrey.

When are you back?

Afterward, we pile into cabs that race over the city’s famed hills at enormously inappropriate speeds to Howard Street to dine at a restaurant called Town Hall—the perfect bookend
with our earlier errand at city hall. Town Hall is housed in a much simpler structure, brick instead of marble, red awnings instead of a dome. The sun has dipped below the sweeping hillsides and
the air has turned cold. Inside, the exposed brick and modern chandeliers are warm and welcoming. I’m offered a seat between Jeffrey and Franklin’s mother.

“I’m sorry about the way we’re dressed. I was supposed to pick up our suits from the dry cleaners before we left, but my dog, Lily, had to have emergency surgery. On her spine.
We found her partially paralyzed, you see, and this will hopefully allow her to walk again, but it’s too soon to tell if she actually will.”

I have no idea how much English Franklin’s mother speaks or if she’s understanding any of this, so I grab the water glass in front of me and drink until it’s empty. Eventually
my sister’s new mother-in-law nods and I take that as an invitation to continue.

“I’m really nervous. Scared, if I’m being honest. I’ll never find another dog like her. She’s so funny. The things she says sometimes, they just crack me up.
She’s really good with a joke.” Franklin’s mother blanches, and it’s then that I wonder if she really understands more English than she lets on.

“Anyhow, tomorrow we can bring her home and I worry if I’m up to the task of her care.” I look down and fold the napkin in my lap a few different ways until I can’t
stretch the assignment any longer.

Franklin’s mother adds a quiet “woof” and offers me a warm smile. I think she understands my plight.

It’s a funny thing to worry about at a wedding dinner. Being up to the task. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. I’ve never taken these vows before, nor do I know if I
ever will. But I have felt them in other ways. I feel this duty with Lily. To stand with her in sickness, until she is able to stand on her own four paws again.

After dinner, Meredith, Franklin, Jeffrey, and I retire to the Top of the Mark, a rooftop bar across California Street from our hotel. At night, the buildings around us twinkle like the night
sky; in the distance the Golden Gate Bridge is dappled with tiny, shimmering headlights. Meredith pulls me aside to a quiet corner at the end of the bar.

“Are you happy?”

“For you?” I ask. “Of course!” I look across the room at Franklin, who is telling Jeffrey an animated tale.

“No. Are
you
happy?”

I’m not sure how to answer her truthfully. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been watching you this weekend.” Meredith takes the cocktail menu from my hand and sets it down on the bar.

“I keep dwelling on this text message. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“From who?”

“From no one.”

“No one sent you a text message?”

“No one sent
Jeffrey
a text message.”

Meredith looks at me, frustrated. “This isn’t the punchline to some
Family Circus
cartoon, is it?”

“I’ll tell you some other time. I have to get through this thing with Lily first.”

“Lily will be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” Meredith puts a hand on my shoulder, but I don’t say anything in response. “Don’t use Lily as an excuse
to ignore your own happiness.”

“I’m not,” I protest.

“Speak up for yourself.”

“I do!”

“No, you don’t. We were raised the same, remember. I know you better than you think I do.”

“Oh, really,” I say with a smirk. “Did you know I was about to do this?” I swiftly kick her in the shin. Payback. I hope no one sees and thinks she just married an
abuser.

“
Ow!
Actually, yes.” Meredith rubs her shin while looking up at me. “You have to communicate your needs to get them met. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Bartender!”

Meredith sneers. “Not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

We bring champagne to Franklin and Jeffrey, and I offer a final toast. “Wishing you all good things in your life together.” Short. Simple. To the point. I look at Meredith, relaxed
in her ivory gown. My sister is all grown up. I’m grateful we did our growing up together.

When we get back to our room, this time it’s me who changes our itinerary and books us two seats on the first morning flight out. There will be no lavish brunch with the newlyweds, only
airport coffee and whatever they serve on the plane. If we’re lucky there will be a very quick good-bye before we sneak off to the airport.

I crawl into bed and let the day wash over me. As exhausting as it has been, our San Francisco adventure in many ways has been a small oasis of calm. I think of myself floating on the barge that
sails the Tonga Room, swaying to Dan Fogelberg or Sheena Easton or someone who in the parallel universe of the Hurricane Bar is still popular.

I turn out the light.

Darkness.

The hard work of healing begins.

S
queeze,” I say.

“I am squeezing,” Jeffrey replies.

“Squeeze
harder
.”

“I’m squeezing as hard as I dare.”

“Well, you’re not squeezing her right, then.”

“Do you want to trade jobs? Because it’s easy to just stand there and hold a flashlight.”

“Not the way you keep moving.”

Jeffrey gets annoyed and he lets go. He stands up and hits his head on the outcropped tree branch above him.

“Look out for that branch,” I say, completely unhelpfully. I know this will enrage him, but I feel entitled to say what I want because I’m scared.

I hand Jeffrey the flashlight and crouch down next to Lily, who cowers on the gravel in the harsh puddle of light. I place my hands as the vet instructed, on either side of her under her
abdomen, and I squeeze her soft bladder, in and back, in and back. Nothing. The light glints off the staples that run the length of her back. She’s laced up like a football.

“Anything?” Jeffrey asks.

I tip her up and look underneath for any evidence that she has peed. “Nothing.” I run through the steps again. “The doctor said it feels like a water balloon?”