Stay (36 page)

“Of course,” I said.

“I’ll get Mindy to take him back and prep him for testing. We’ll call you if anything changes,” Alex said.

If anything changes, like if he dies or he has a brain tumor, I thought. Alex must have seen the look of horror on my face because he looked me right in the eyes and said, “We’ll take good care of him, Van. I promise.” He grabbed Joe’s chart and left the room.

I held Joe’s face on either side and pressed my forehead in to his. “You be okay,” I said. “You just have to be, Joe.”

Mindy came in and she and Peter helped Joe off the table. He was standing better. His legs were more stable. “Do you think you can walk for me, Joey?” she said.

“I can carry him,” Peter said. He lifted Joe up, knees buckling under his weight.

I kissed Joe on the nose. “Bye, buddy,” I said, praying it was not the last time I was going to see him.

Peter followed Mindy into the back room. I went out to the car, sat in the passenger seat, and cried. A few minutes later, Peter got in the car. He leaned over and wrapped his arms around me. “He’s going to be okay,” he said.

“What am I going to do if he isn’t?” I said. “I’m buying a house for him! My whole day is about when he needs to eat and when I need to walk him. He’s always happy to see me. He’s always there when I need him. He’s my family. What am I going to do without him?”

“He’s going to be fine.” Peter brushed my hair out of my face and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “Buck up, soldier,” he said, imitating his father.

Peter dropped me off at home and then ran to Wegmans and the video store. The condo was quiet. Before Joe, it was just me and I’d been used to it, but now it was so much worse. I got myself a glass of water and turned around expecting to see Joe right behind me. I walked into the living room and turned on the television, but he wasn’t there to jump up on the couch next to me. So even though I felt kind of weird about hanging out with Peter, I was relieved when he came back with a quart of mint chocolate chip for me, a quart of French vanilla for him, and a stack of old Jackie Chan movies.

“Jackie Chan. Really?” I said.

“Jackie Chan is the kung fu master,” Peter said, gravely. “Trust me, it’ll take your mind off things.”

So we sat on the couch and watched Jackie Chan kick the crap out of bad guys, and we played cards and talked smack, and it did take my mind off of things.

Two movies in, we heard the
Mission: Impossible
theme song coming from his phone. Peter picked up. “Hey, sweets,” he said, walking out to the garage to take the call.

I paused the movie for him. But then I kept trying to make sense of Peter’s muffled words, even though I knew I shouldn’t listen in. I couldn’t stand just sitting there, trying to figure out if he was talking about me, holding my cards, with Jackie Chan in midkick. I turned the movie on again and collected the cards to shuffle so we could start over. He came back about ten minutes later.

“Oh, this scene kicks so much ass,” he said, pointing to the television as he walked into the living room. “What did I tell you? The kung fu master!” He sat next to me on the couch and put his feet on the coffee table.

I wanted to know if he’d told Janie he was with me, but he didn’t say anything about the phone call, so I didn’t ask. I just dealt the next round of cards.

I think Peter could see it on my face whenever I started to think about Joe, and he did the best he could to distract me with stupid jokes or more food. We ate ice cream, and ordered pizza and wings and stayed up late, and it wasn’t awkward the way I worried it might be. We’d been friends all these years and it just fell back into place. Only, it was better, because I wasn’t pining over him. I wasn’t worried about how I looked or if I said something stupid. He was just my friend Pete and he was kind of a dork, but he was there when I needed him.

T
he phone woke me up. I was on the couch, covered in the blanket from my bed. I didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch. Peter must have gotten the blanket for me. He was asleep on the floor next to me, wrapped in the blanket he’d slept in the night before. I jumped over him and ran to the phone.

“Savannah?” It was Mindy. I recognized her voice.

“How is he?”

“He’s doing much better. He’s a little groggy, but he’s such a sweetheart. He’s been giving kisses to anyone who comes close enough,” Mindy said. “We can have you come pick him up at ten this morning, if that works for you.”

“Do you have the results?”

“Well, I’ll have to let Alex go over them with you. I’m sorry.”

I told her I’d be there at ten. Peter was sitting up rubbing his eyes. “Is he okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know. He’s feeling better, but I don’t know about the test results.”

“Can we pick him up today?”

“Ten o’clock. But don’t feel like you have to come. You have work and Janie, and I don’t want to-” I started to panic at the idea of sitting in that exam room by myself waiting for Alex, waiting for the results, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.

“Van, we’re going to be friends, right? This is what friends do. I’m off work until Monday, and Janie is at Diane’s until Diane decides to release her again. So, I’m here. We’ll go get Joe.”

He was really coming through. He was putting all our other stuff aside and he was being the person I needed him to be. I was proud of him. And if he could do that for me now, I hoped he could do that for Janie for the rest of their lives, the way he promised in his vows. I made my own vow to hold him to it.

We made coffee and Peter had cereal, but I couldn’t eat. I was way too worried about the test results. I poured milk in my coffee and studied the blooms of white that came up from the bottom of the cup, while Peter crunched away happily. I wondered how Janie felt about having to listen to someone eat cereal that loud for the rest of her life.

M
indy was on the phone when we got to the office. She waved to us when we walked in the door.

Peter and I sat on a bench in the corner and waited. I felt like I was going to be sick. What if Joe had cancer? What if he had only a few weeks to live? I could not stand to think of losing him. I knew he wasn’t going to live forever, but he was supposed to live a long, healthy life full of long walks and treats and naps on the floor. I wasn’t supposed to lose him now. He was still a puppy.

Peter nudged me and pointed to a picture of a humiliated Dalmatian in a Christmas sweater on the wall across from us. He raised his eyebrows.

Mindy hung up the phone. “Hi, Van,” she said. “Why don’t you go on back and wait in room two. Alex will be with you in a sec.”

There was only one chair in the exam room.

“Go ahead,” Peter said.

I sat down. He leaned against the wall in the corner of the room looking at a model of a cat’s urinary tract. He poked at a clear plastic orb that was supposed to be the bladder, and the whole model fell apart. He was scrambling to put it back together when Alex walked in the room.

“I’ll go get Joe for you in a minute,” Alex said, eying Peter, who was trying desperately to reconnect the plastic urethra to the bladder.

“What’s Joe’s typical diet like?” Alex asked. He looked softer today. The crease between his eyebrows wasn’t as sharp as it had been yesterday. His jaw wasn’t as tight. I worried maybe it meant he had bad news for me. Maybe he felt too bad about what he had to tell me to stay mad.

Peter dropped the plastic cat bladder. He picked it up and put it on the counter with the other fake cat parts and pushed them to the back of the counter. He slid his hands in his pockets. “Sorry,” he said.

“I feed Joe chicken, rice, and carrots, mostly,” I said. “I cook for him. He came with a recipe. I think that’s what he’s been eating all along. Sometimes he eats other stuff, like pancakes and eggs. But I never give him chocolate or onions or grapes. Nothing on the ASPCA list.” I was trying to stay calm, but my hands were shaking and I had a lump in my throat that hurt like hell. “Is he okay? He doesn’t have a brain tumor, does he?”

Alex smiled. “No, he doesn’t have a brain tumor. And I think he’s going to be just fine.”

I felt my eyes well up. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. “Is he going to keep having seizures?”

“Probably not,” Alex said. “He has a thiamine deficiency. He’s not getting adequate amounts of B
₁
in his diet. The imbalance is what caused the seizure. We gave him some thiamine shots while he was here, and if we can get him back on track, he shouldn’t have any more seizures.”

“So, this is my fault,” I said, putting my hands over my face. “I thought I was doing a good thing by cooking for him. He came with a recipe and- ”

“He’s going to be just fine,” Alex said. “Please don’t beat yourself up about this. The diet issues probably started before you had him and now we can fix them. I want you to start feeding him regular dog food, plus supplements. I’ll write down the name of the brand I recommend.” Alex scribbled something in his chart. “I’m going to put him on antibiotics for two weeks for his tongue. There’s a puncture wound where he bit it. It’s not infected now, but we want to keep it that way.”

He clicked his pen and stuck it in the breast pocket of his lab coat. Then he reached for the cat model, snapped the pieces together, and put it back on the stand. “It’s a little tricky,” he said to Peter.

Alex looked at me for a second. I thought maybe he might say something about us. Maybe he’d consider giving me another chance.

“Thank you, Alex,” I said.

He looked away and cleared his throat. “I’ll go get Joe. Mindy will have your prescription up front. Unless his tongue gets infected, or he has another seizure, we don’t need to see you until his vaccine boosters this spring.” He grabbed Joe’s file and walked out the door to the back room.

He didn’t need to see me until spring. And he probably didn’t even want to see me then.

A few seconds later, we heard the frantic scratching of dog nails on the linoleum floor. Joe came tearing into the exam room with Alex behind him, holding onto a skinny blue cord leash. When Joe saw me, he leapt across the room, put his front paws up on my lap, and licked my face. His mouth was open and he almost looked like he was smiling. “Oh, buddy,” I said, and threw my arms around his neck. He put his paws up on my shoulders and tried to climb in my lap. His tail was wagging so hard that it shook both of us. All I could see was a mass of black fur. I was afraid he’d knock me over, so I pushed him off me and bent down to give him another hug. “I missed you,” I told him.

When I looked up, Alex was gone and Peter was holding the other end of the leash. “He just handed it to me and left,” Peter said.

“You know,” I said, “for a minute there, I thought maybe-”

“I know.” Peter wrapped his arms around me. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorry, Van.”

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “But my dog is okay, right? That’s the important part.” I slapped Peter’s back. “Buck up, soldier.”

He laughed. “Fuck ’em. Right?”

I gave him a weak smile, grabbed Joe’s leash, and we went out to the lobby.

“All better there, Joey?” Mindy leaned over her desk and handed Joe a biscuit. “I bet you were a perfect angel.”

An older woman with a big gray Poodle came in. Joe strained at the end of his leash to try to get to the dog. The poodle’s legs were shaking, and she hid behind her owner. I held Joe firmly at my side.

“Hi, Kim,” Mindy said. “You can go on into exam room one. Dr. Brandt will be with you shortly.”

Joe whined as the Poodle walked away from him.

“Did Alex explain the medication?” she said, reaching for Joe’s chart. I noticed that she called him Dr. Brandt to the Poodle lady, but Alex when she talked to me.

“Sort of,” I said, fumbling through my purse for my credit card, dropping Joe’s leash in the process. Joe ran to the other side of the waiting room and jumped up on the bench so he could look out the window.

“Let me go get Joe’s prescription.” She went into the back room.

Peter put his arm around my shoulder, leaned his head to mine, and whispered, “I’m going to run to the men’s room.”

“Can it wait?”

“No.”

“It’s down the hall to the right.”

He squeezed my arm before he let go.

“Van, is that your boyfriend?” Mindy asked, returning from the back room with a big green pill bottle just as Peter was leaving. Her voice sounded pinched.

“No, Peter’s just a friend,” I said. “He’s actually married to my friend Jane.”

“That’s sweet of him to be here with you,” she said, carefully. It looked like she was putting pieces together in her head. I wondered how much she knew.

She rattled the pill bottle. “Okay, so, you need to give Joe two of these twice a day. Do you know how?”