ELIZABETH WRENN

Second Chance

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This paperback edition 2007

First published by NAL Accent, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Ltd 2006

Copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2006

Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006 All rights reserved.

Excerpt from ‘Her Grave’ from New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver.

Copyright © Mary Oliver, 1992. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

Elizabeth Wrenn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847560049

Ebook edition: September 2008 ISBN: 9780007278961

Version: 2018-05-23

For Stuart

You must have been a dog in a past life because never in the world has there been a better best friend.

Tteote

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

—from ‘Her Grave’

MARY OLIVER

Contents

Title Page Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Epilogue An Interview With Elizabeth Wrenn Questions For Discussion Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher

ONE

Hairy took some sort of perverse feline pleasure in shedding his voluminous white fur into my cookware. I’d been cleaning behind the kitchen sink when I’d seen him paw the door open and slip into the spinner cabinet. In my simmering anger I didn’t think it through and I’d gone in after him. Now my hips were stuck in the door opening, my torso wedged between the two tiers of the giant lazy Susan that held my pots and pans.

My derriere was blocking most of the light, but just enough found its way in for me to see Hairy’s smug Persian face staring at me from the depths. I probed with my toothbrush. He retreated farther into the dark recesses, his tail swishing with satisfaction.

Hairy loved all cabinets, but especially the spinner. He often clambered over and around the small towers of pots and pans, heaving his girth over hill and dale, sending the circle spinning as he jumped into the empty back corner. He’d then watch the pans fly by, looking like a kid at an amusement park debating whether to hand over his ticket and actually go on the ride. But the spinner was motionless now, held in place by my shoulders. Hairy lifted a paw, gave it a single neat lick, and stared at me from the back of the cabinet.

‘Hairy, get out of there!’ I growled. He was just beyond my reach and he knew it. It made me crazy to find him in a cabinet, especially the spinner, since white cat hairs had a way of turning up in my stir-fry.

How did I end up here? I wondered. Not here in the cupboard, but here as the owner of a cat, much less a fat, white Persian cat. I’m a dog person.

I’d always had dogs, growing up. My family lived on a cantaloupe farm in southeastern Colorado. We grew Rocky Ford cantaloupes, among other things, and over the decades we’d had a succession of black Labradors. Always two, always named Rocky and Fordy. My farm family did not routinely demonstrate the height of creativity.

My parents got Rocky number one before they had us. When I was three, they got Fordy. When Rocky one passed on, we got a new puppy, named him Rocky, and off we went. When Fordy died, enter Fordy two. My aging parents still have Rocky four and Fordy five. My brother Roger absconded with Fordy four. Which means there are two Fordys running around at every family reunion. Then Roger went and named his son Rocky. Don’t get me started.

When Neil and I married, I got not only in-laws in the deal, but cats. Three of them, all gone now. Hairy was ‘Lainey’s cat.’ Lainey’s cat for whom I cleaned the litter box, and who I fed and watered, took clawing and yowling to the vet, and, every so often, to the groomer for a first-class cut and poof that cost three times as much as my own economy-class haircuts.

It wasn’t that Neil disliked dogs; he loved Rocky and Fordy. When we went to the farm, he was often out throwing a stick or taking them for walks down to the lake. He explained that he didn’t want to own a dog because ‘dogs tie you down.’ Like a wife, two teenagers at home, a son at college, and a thriving medical practice didn’t. He was also fond of saying, ‘The only good dog is someone else’s dog.’

The phone rang. I pushed back, trying to wriggle out, but the only part of me moving was the flab on my upper arms. The phone rang a second time.

‘Damn!’ It might be one of the kids calling from school. Or even Sam. Although Matt and Lainey rarely called these days – very uncool in high school – and Sam had called only once since he’d left for college last year. For money. But old instincts die hard. A third ring. I pushed myself backward but my hips were stuck. Painfully stuck.

‘Ow! Goddamn it, Hairy!’ I had to blame someone for my big butt, and Hairy was as good a candidate as existed. I twisted sideways, pushed off the center pole of the spinner, and finally shimmied out, lunging for the phone.

‘Hello!’ I said, somewhat angrily.

‘Deena? I was getting ready to leave you a message.’

‘Hi, Elaine.’ I breathed deeply, trying to catch both my breath and my temper.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. I got stuck in my cabinet.’

A pause. ‘Come again?’

‘That damn Hairy got into the lazy Susan cabinet again and he won’t come out for Pounce or punishment and I can’t reach him and he gets cat hair all over everything!’

‘Oh, God! No!’ she shrieked in mock horror. ‘Has the press arrived?’

Elaine had a way of trivializing my problems, which were, admittedly, mostly trivial. I leaned back on the desk and pulled a paper clip from the drawer and began pulling it apart.

‘Very funny. I’ll have you know we had another Szechuan Persian Hair incident the other night. It grossed out the whole family. Even Matt.’ If my sixteen-year-old eating machine wouldn’t eat something, it was newsworthy.

‘But especially you, I bet. A little cat hair’s not gonna kill you.’ A pause, and then just the slightest change of tone. ‘Y’know, you didn’t used to be such a neat freak.’ True. Elaine and I had lived together for almost two years at the University of Wisconsin, and we would not have won any awards for the cleanest apartment. But it was Elaine’s boyfriend at the time, with the unusual first name of Meyer, who was the real culprit, a world-class slob. He drove Neil crazy. Thank God Elaine hadn’t married Meyer.

‘Hey, have you seen Peter lately?’ I asked, changing the subject. It was Peter Ham she’d married. Before she’d reckoned with the fact that she was a lesbian. I’d always suspected it. Peter had too, it turned out, but loved her so much he’d married her anyway. Now Elaine and Peter both delighted in telling people that they’d been married just long enough for Elaine to become a Jewish Ham.

‘He’s great! Just saw him and Bethany at the grocery store yesterday, actually. They’re making all sorts of plans for next year. You know Seth’s graduating from high school this year?’

‘No!’ Seth was their youngest. Well, it made sense. Peter had married Bethany about a year after his divorce from Elaine was final.

‘Yeah. I think they’re kind of looking forward to the empty nest. They’re talking about going on a cruise next fall.’

‘A cruise! Where?’ Neil and I used to say we’d do that after our kids were all gone. But it hadn’t come up in years.

‘Alaska. Not my idea of a cruise, but they’re all excited about it.’

‘Let me guess, your idea of a cruise is something more tropical?’ That’s what Neil and I had fantasized about.

‘Exactly. Give me that sun, sand, and margarita any day!’ A little sigh from both of us as we contemplated life in a lounge chair.

‘So,’ we both said in unison.

‘Your turn,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’ve been yakking away, as usual.’

I missed her. Over the decades she’d come out to visit every few years, and we talked on the phone often. But I was amazed our friendship had stayed so strong. Our paths couldn’t have been more different.

‘Okay. I was just going to ask about Wendy, and your art.’ I loved and hated asking about both. Elaine was always so passionate about those subjects that it tended to draw a sprawled sidewalk chalk line around the lack of passion in my own life.

‘Wendy’s fantastic! New accounts all over the place. I’m so proud of her. As for me, well, suffice to say I’m having a ball. Doing some new things. We’ll see where it goes.’ She was unusually circumspect. Probably swamped at work. She was the art director for Art of the Matter magazine. Unlike me, Elaine had not only gotten her bachelor’s in art, but had gone on for a master’s, then built an impressive résumé. Plus, she’d been doing art on her own all this time for her own pleasure, even had an occasional small show in Madison.

‘So, what were you doing before you got into the cat-extrication business?’ she asked. I loved Elaine. She could always make me smile.

‘Scrubbing grout.’ The words clunked to the floor like bricks.

‘Oy-vey, girlfriend!’ she cried across the miles, sounding both Jewish, which she was, and black, which she was not. ‘What is it with you and cleaning the past few years? You gotta get out.’ She said it like ‘owwwwt!’

‘But I’m a full-time mom, it’s my job. And my kids still need me, even if they don’t think so.’

‘Well, of course they do, Deena-leh, but not every waking minute. It’s not like they’re babies, hon.’

Babies. Now there was unconditional love. These days it felt like all my kids needed me for was as a wall to push off of. ‘No, they’re not babies.’ Another little sigh slipped out.

‘Whoa, Nelly! Don’t tell me you’re thinking about another baby again!’

In my early forties, my ovary must have burped or something and I’d approached Neil about having another baby. After we’d poked the vein back into his forehead, we’d agreed we were way too old. Besides, babies grow up into teenagers. I’d eventually be right back where I was now. Which, ironically, was wanting to be something other than a wife and mother. More and more I found myself fantasizing about leaving. Just up and leaving. Fantasizing. I wouldn’t actually do it. Probably not, anyway. No. Of course not.

But I could fantasize, right? Every day.

‘No. No more babies. Probably couldn’t even if I wanted to. Haven’t had a period in months.’ Not to mention the part about having to have sex in order to become pregnant.

I put the straightened paper clip down, slid off the desk, walked to the sink, and gazed out the window at the leaden sky. ‘But you know, E, only a baby has the power to make the world a better place simply by existing.’ But then again, they also had a way of sucking up your own existence when you weren’t looking.

‘I feel like opting out of my life right now, E.’ There. I just blurted it out.

‘You just need to get away, Deena. Come see us! For once.’ Elaine had stopped lobbying me to come out there since I’d refused for decades, hating to fly and unable to stretch the maternal ties, but usually claiming timing or money or both.

But now I wanted to go. Sort of. The mere thought of flying sent my blood pressure soaring, and going by car or bus didn’t appeal to me either. If I could only be there without having to get there. That was how I felt about losing weight. And fitness. And menopause.

Transitions. I guess they named the hardest part of giving birth that for a reason.

But then there was also the terrifying thought that even if I got to Madison, what if I didn’t want to come back? I picked up the toothbrush and started scrubbing grout again and told Elaine, ‘I don’t think so. It’s really tight now with Sam’s tuition.’ I pressed the toothbrush under the base of the sprayer, going after a bit of grime.

‘Deena, is it really that tight? Or are you just addicted to sacrificing for your family?’

What was that supposed to mean?

‘Look, come out, we’ll have a girls’ weekend. I’ll pay for it, your trip, some pampering. My treat. It’ll be your birthday slash Christmas present. Let me and Wendy take care of you for a change.’

‘I— can’t. Besides, my birthday and Christmas, as you well know, were both last month, and you already sent gifts for each.’ I knelt on the floor, holding the phone with one hand and the toothbrush in the other. I scrubbed forcefully at the grout between the floor tiles.

‘What are you doing? Are you scrubbing the grout again?’

‘The floor grout. Not the tile grout.’

‘Who cares?! Put down the damn toothbrush! You’re using a toothbrush, aren’t you?’

‘Well, yeah.’ I stood and obediently put the toothbrush in the sink. Still with the phone to my ear, I bent down and glared into the spinner cabinet at Hairy, who was now sitting demurely in the wok.

‘Dammit, Deena-leh! Anyone who cleans with a toothbrush anything other than her teeth has completely lost perspective. I’m worried about you.’

There was another long silence. What could I say? I was worried about me, too.

Elaine finally spoke. ‘So, will you come?’

I couldn’t tell her the real reasons. It was nigh unto impossible for me to justify something like a trip alone. As in, by myself. For myself. Plus, I was scared to fly, scared to travel alone. I didn’t even like walking alone on the lovely mountain trails above my house. Sometimes I wondered if I hadn’t become a little agoraphobic.

‘Deena?’ Elaine’s voice was now tentative, a cupped hand around my vulnerability.

I looked out the kitchen window at the snow beginning to fall. Big, fat flakes. I massaged my temple. ‘I’m sorry, E. I just can’t.’

After we hung up, I stood with the phone in my hand, just staring at it. Finally, I dialed Sam’s cell phone, struggling a bit. I knew the number by heart, but my damn hand was trembling. Ridiculous. He never answered anyway. I imagined him, in the shade of a tree somewhere on campus, stopping to look at his phone, seeing the number of the caller, shoving the phone back into his pocket, striding on. His voice mail clicked on. ‘Hey. It’s Sam. Leave a message.’ I hung up. I was not going to leave another message. I put the phone back into its base.

I really had been trying to give him space, as he’d requested in a lone e-mail. But Colorado to California is a damn lot of space.

The vacuum’s roar was not enough to drown out the voice in my head. Just up and leave. Go spend a weekend with Elaine. Go now! But I was truly afraid. Afraid to fly. Afraid to ask Neil for the money when he was working so many long hours lately. Afraid to leave. Afraid I’d arrive and curl up on a bed in Elaine’s house and not come back. I pushed the vacuum over the plush emerald depths of the carpet, back and forth, back and forth. My thoughts still raced, but I could always count on that huge hum to drown out most everything else: phones, cats, kids, husbands. Lawn mowers worked well, too. And both left those satisfying clean, dark tracks. Like dozens of little fresh starts.

I slowly sank to the floor, the vacuum still roaring. At first the sobs were silent and choking. Then I began to roar right along with the Hoover, my hands clinging to its plastic neck. I didn’t know where it was coming from, this deep animal cry.

I loved my family. Loved them. But, God! What if it was now simply out of habit? An ‘on paper’ love?

I don’t know how long I cried. Exhausted, I flipped off the vacuum and pulled a box of tissue off the end table. I was as swollen and snotty as a post-tantrum two-year-old. If only I’d get a period, maybe these moods would end. But maybe I wouldn’t ever get another one. Although, just when I thought I’d seen the last, a crimson flood would show up at the worst possible time – for instance, the very day I’d tried my first master’s swim workout, and I’d left little pink puddles all the way into the locker room. That had put the kibosh on exercise of all sorts.

I blew my nose and clicked on the TV for something other than my own thoughts. The painting instructor Bob Ross was on PBS. He was even more soothing than the vacuum. Neil used to tease me that I would leave him for either of two men: Mister Rogers or Bob Ross. Both represented the parts of my life at opposite ends of the spectrum of how I defined myself, or didn’t any longer. The former was the equanimous host of the children’s tele vision show ‘Mister Rogers Neighborhood,’ and was known for being encouraging, kind, gentle and an advocate for children. Bob Ross was a soft-spoken TV painting teacher, known for being encouraging, kind, gentle and an advocate for squirrels. Both were gone now. I wondered if I’d reached the age when I knew more celebrities who were dead than alive.

The show was almost over. He had mostly finished his painting of snowy mountains behind a glistening alpine lake. A single pine tree stood sentry in the foreground. The lake looked clear and crisp and … liquid. I could never get water to look like water. At least thirty years ago, when I took that painting class, I couldn’t. Elaine had always said I was good at figures, though. Was good at figures. My artwork of the past few decades had been limited to things like glue-and-glitter pinecones, doily valentines and gingerbread houses. Which, to be honest, I loved every minute of. But now … Where had it gotten me?

As the credits rolled I grew suddenly ravenous. And decisive. The kids would be home in an hour, and until then it was going to be me, a big – no, huge! – bowl of Corn Pops, and Oprah.

It was one of my favorite pastimes, eating cereal and watching Oprah. I sometimes squirmed a bit when she was doing a program on weight loss or exercise, which, of course, she often did. I didn’t care anymore, though.

My Tupperware bowl filled with the golden nuggets of carbohydrate bliss, I settled onto the couch just as Oprah was striding into the studio, gently touching the hands of a few of her many-hued disciples. I wondered if I were ever to go see a taping of the Oprah show whether I’d scream and get all teary-eyed and reach for her holy touch. I hoped not. Well, I’d definitely get teary-eyed. Lately I tear up at everything, and nothing.

‘Today we’re talking about using your life.’ I clicked up the volume on the TV. ‘You-zing your life! You-zing your life!’ I smiled. Oprah loved to emphasize syllables. After the introduction came commercials, during which I channel surfed and ate Corn Pops. I lingered too long on the Weather Channel and was a little late back to Oprah. But I got the gist of it. A ten-year-old girl had started collecting donated suitcases from friends and neighbors for foster kids to use as they went from home to home. A ragtag group of about a dozen kids, every color and size, bore their suitcases proudly as they left the house. It was hard to eat the Corn Pops through my tears. Next was a piece on a flight attendant who was building a school for orphans in Vietnam. Then there was a man who helped inner-city kids learn new skills and teamwork by building low-income housing. Then a husband and wife who’d adopted eleven siblings so they wouldn’t have to go to different homes. Eleven! Lord.

I could collect backpacks and suitcases maybe.

During the next commercial break I scurried to the kitchen and refilled my Corn Pops. This was just what I needed. Fill up the void. I was pouring on the soymilk as the Oprah theme music started in the den. The soymilk was supposed to help with the menopause symptoms, although I hadn’t seen any evidence of that yet. But it was tasty on Corn Pops. I hurried back down into the den as Oprah began speaking.

‘My next guest, Annie Forhooth, falls in love repeatedly, for approximately a year each time, only to bid a fond farewell to her loves, again and again. Why does she do this? To help provide loving eyes for the blind. Take a look.’

The piece opened with an eight-week-old black Lab puppy gamboling over Annie’s lawn. I set my cereal bowl on the coffee table as Annie’s taped voice-over talked about how exciting it is to get a new puppy, to know you’re going to raise it with love and care for a special purpose, a special gift. I sat up, gripping my knees in my hands as I watched.

The last shot of the piece was of Annie, with a blind woman, during some sort of graduation ceremony. Her voice-over said, ‘You do fall in love with the dogs, but you know from the beginning that you’re raising them so they can help someone; these dogs love to work. They love to be a part of the world. I just help them get started.’

In the video, Annie, crying but smiling broadly, handed over the leash of a full-grown, sleek, and boxy black Lab to a blind woman, her unseeing eyes also teary, her face uplifted. Annie put the leash into her hands, their four hands clenching around it in a tight ball. The two women then hugged, laughing, crying. The dog was sandwiched between their legs, tail wagging, eyes bright.

Sitting there wiping my own wet cheeks and eyes, I had only one thought: That’s what love looks like.

TWO

I was having another Art Instructor dream. I’d been having them off and on for several months now. They weren’t really erotic dreams, not in the usual sense of the word anyway. Although my definition of erotic was quickly becoming ‘any time spent alone.’ What was especially erotic, by my definition, was that Art Instructor never wanted anything from me; he only offered me things, beautiful things, to look at, to linger over. Then he’d politely disappear.

This time, we were strolling through an orange grove. Art Instructor was tall and handsome, though far from dark – he was actually stone white. He was always naked, at least the part I saw, which was typically just his chiseled upper back. A David back, deeply muscled and perfectly symmetrical. In this dream, he reached up with his also deeply muscled arm and picked a fat, absurdly brilliant orange, the color pulsating from it. Without turning around, he handed it back to me. This is when I realized he had no hand. The orange was just kind of stuck on the end of his wrist, and its color contrasted deeply with his whiteness. Then he turned, and for the first time ever, I looked down. Between his legs. His yoohoo was broken off, too. Dream-me smiled.

Suddenly all his detail began to fade and Art Instructor disappeared, as did as the grove. But the orange remained, and I could see each individual pockmark on it. I could even see the shadows in the tiny craters.

That was when I felt Neil slip back into bed, his hair still wet, his body smelling of soap.

I remembered with some dread that it was Saturday.

It wasn’t a given, exactly, sex attempts on Saturday. But over the years it was the one day we could pretty much count on all three kids being either happily mesmerized by cartoons down in the den, at a sleep-over, or, as they grew into teens, dead asleep, sometimes till noon or better. And over the years, in the mood or not, mostly not, I’d obliged. But not for weeks now.

I knew he was going to work on the clinic – a low-cost health clinic, his dream for years, but finally in its genesis – again this weekend; that’s why he’d showered. So he was clean. Teeth brushed. Shaved. But still, inside I cringed, a shriveled part of me shriveling further. I didn’t want to have sex. I wanted to paint an orange. Probably from watching Bob Ross the other day. I hadn’t painted in years. But lately, I’d rather have a root canal than have sex.

Neil lay quietly for a moment, then gently began stroking the backs of his knuckles against my upper arm. Sex knocking. And, once again, nobody home.

Was it my fault? Neil’s? Why was I turned on by a damn orange and not by my husband of over two decades? How and when had sex become one more duty? Part of my job description? Full-Time Homemaker: Be available at all hours to do all things for just about everyone. Must respond attentively to all demands for attention, physical and otherwise. Immediate supervisors include, but not limited to: husband, kids, cat. The pillow still over my head, I pulled the quilt up under my chin and rolled to the other side of the bed, trying to also pull back the cover of sleep.

‘Dee? Deena? Dee-deelicious ….’ A pause, then a whispered, resigned, ‘Shit.’ I waited, breathing silently. What was I supposed to say? I’d already said no in every way possible. I could write a book, like a cookbook, but with different recipes for how to deliver the news to your husband that it ain’t happening.

But I knew I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I was supposed to roll over. Make Love. Or at least Be Compliant. But I just couldn’t. Not anymore. The hasty retreat of estrogen from my body was making my breasts tender, my joints and muscles ache, and I was getting headaches at the drop of a hat. Or the raise of a penis. And I was irritated a lot. Really irritated. In a way I’d never been before in my life. A don’t-touch me -or-I’ll-yank-it-off-you kind of irritated. Although I never let those feelings out. Never. Just kept the lid on. Tight. Part of my job.

Neil exhaled sharply, muttering, ‘I wish you’d take some hormones. This isn’t good for us.’

He climbed out of bed and noisily dressed, banging drawers and cabinets. Then it sounded like he was putting every clinking, jingly thing from the dresser in and out of his pockets several times. Finally he left the room, his heavy footfalls down the stairs further conveying his feelings. I didn’t blame him. But I did. Neil was one of the good guys. Or was when we’d married. I supposed he still was, but we’d drifted apart the past few years, sailing merrily along in our life sailboats, our courses charted by the gale force winds of responsibilities, rarely by the gentle breezes of love. And as for me personally, as a woman, I felt like I’d recently looked up and realized I was in the doldrums.

I heard Neil downstairs, kitchen noises for several minutes, complete with slamming fridge door and cabinet, a few minutes’ pause, then going through his medical bag, opening the hall closet for his coat, then, Bang!

The doors and cabinets in the house were paying a price for our lack of sex.

Sex. It had once been so great. But now … If one person’s legitimate need is to have sex, and the other person’s legitimate need is to not have sex, whose need trumps? Why were women supposed to take hormones in order to be horny? Why weren’t men pressured to take hormones to make them able to have three thoughts and not have two of them be about sex? That way they might be able to think over the myriad facets of ‘good for us,’ like the fact that working seventy-hour weeks, even for a good cause, was a kind of infidelity.

The garage door went up, his car started, then backed out. The garage door went down, and, even though it was a remote, I swear it too landed with more of a thud than usual. I exhaled, my eyes still closed.

But I was solidly awake, and still wanting to paint an orange. And yes, when I pictured myself holding a paintbrush, there was that feeling again. Arousal. What is it about nearing fifty that one’s life becomes steeped in irony?

I climbed out of bed and raised the blind. It was another spring day in January. Colorado was famous for its quickly changing weather and seasonal confusion. It was forecast to hit the upper fifties today. From our second-story bedroom I looked over my quiet suburban street. A few withered designs of snow held stubbornly to the shadows of trees and houses. But those too would meet their evaporative demise today in the warm chinook winds that were already whistling down the canyon. Across the street and two doors down I saw the Kellermans’ shepherd-mix, Melba, tied up to a tree in their front yard, her fur blowing in the wind. I watched her for a long minute. Since the divorce, Melba spent too much time tied to a tree.

I briefly thought about going out for a walk. Maybe I could take Melba. I could head up the mesa trails, get some exercise. It’d been years since I’d done that. Not exercise, the trails. Well, the exercise in the past few years had been pretty sketchy, too. I felt the tips of my breasts touching my ever-protruding stomach. It was like a race – breasts down, stomach out. Hard to tell who was winning. They were both doing pathetically well. But I wanted to paint. For the first time in years.

I pulled on my ancient gray zip sweatshirt and matching pants, both patterned with the set-in stains of motherhood, and headed down to the basement. I paused in the kitchen, a note on the counter catching my eye.

D – out of tea bags. Call Sondra O’Keefe about dinner Friday. – N.

Damn. I’d completely forgotten about the O’Keefes’ dinner party. A benefit for seed money for the clinic. The dinner was going to be a fancy, dressed-to-the nines affair, and my total wardrobe added up to maybe five and a half. But it was yet another duty. The O’Keefes were nice people, it’s just that I didn’t even feel like being with my family, much less with a bunch of people all decked out and hobnobbing for a cause, even a good cause. I just didn’t have the energy. I looked down at the note, noticing the absence of an x and o where Neil signed off, a usual given in notes from him. When had he stopped? Maybe this morning. I pushed the note into the pocket of my sweat jacket and went down to the basement.

First, the laundry. I shoved in a load of whites, scooped out the detergent, then tipped in the perfect amount of bleach, watching as the agitator sucked the socks, underwear, and T-shirts into its spiral abyss. But I was smiling when I finally walked into the storage room. I had seen the large Art Department shopping bag when I’d put away the Christmas things last week. I started moving the precisely labeled boxes. Glass Ornaments & Lainey’s Ornaments I gently set on the floor. Garland for Bannister I set atop another stack. We hadn’t opened some of these boxes in a couple of years. Teenagers neither require nor admire festive stairways.

It was behind Fireplace Wreath and Red Candles that I found the bag, stuffed into a crevasse between the Christmas boxes and the spring holiday boxes (Valentine’s through Easter). I gathered the paper hoop handles and lifted. The handles broke free of the paper, no doubt rotted over the years. I was holding the two loops when Lainey’s cannonball bellow shot through the house.

‘Maa-ahhh-ammm! Where are you?!’

Loops still in hand, I climbed the stairs. The paints were almost certainly dried out anyway.

Lainey was just coming around the corner into the kitchen, yelling again when she ran into me.

‘MA— oof! There you are. Where were you?’ She said it as though I’d been deliberately hiding from her. Hairy was yowling on the desk chair, wanting some canned food in addition to his overflowing bowl of dry kibble.

‘Lainey, it’s Saturday. What do I always do on Saturday? And on Wednesday?’ Her puzzled face stared back at me. ‘Here’s a hint: We all magically have clean clothes every Sunday and Thursday.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. Whatever. You need to drive us to the mall at eleven. Sara can’t now.’

Lainey and the neighbor girls, Nan and Sara Kellerman, had planned to spend the day at the mall, shopping and ogling boys. Matt was going to hitch a ride with them, to meet his friends, maybe catch a movie. I was going to have the house to myself on a Saturday. But apparently not.

‘What happened?’ I asked, walking past her to the kitchen table. I began gathering up her breakfast dishes.

She leaned dejectedly against the doorframe, arms folded over her ever-growing chest. ‘Kurt,’ she said rather dreamily, seeming to think this would explain everything.

I stared at her while still holding her cereal bowl, juice glass, and toast plate in a stack in my arms. I shrugged and began loading the dishes into the dishwasher. ‘Am I supposed to know who Kurt is?’ My slipper stuck to a tacky spot on the floor. What was that? I’d just mopped yesterday afternoon.

‘Oh, Mom! Kurt!’ The juice glass still in my hand, I looked at my daughter. I felt my own mother’s clueless expression on my face, and hated it. Lainey drummed her fingers on her arms, giving me that fifteen-year-old’s look of, ‘Are you naturally this stupid or does it take effort?’ I remembered that, too. I mentally apologized to my mother. Lainey pushed off the door-frame with her shoulder, flipped her long brown hair over her other shoulder, and took a step toward me, her hands now on her hips. ‘Sara’s boyfriend?!’

‘Oh,’ I said. I put the juice glass in and closed the dishwasher. Ah, yes. The fabulous Kurt. I vaguely recalled that last month sixteen-year-old Sara had also canceled on a ski trip with the girls because Kurt ‘doesn’t like to ski.’ I grabbed the cleanser from under the sink and shook some into one side of the aged white porcelain sink. When we’d redecorated the kitchen several years ago, I’d wanted one of those high-tech composite sinks, but couldn’t justify the expense. The porcelain was still perfectly good, albeit chipped and dulled. I stopped scrubbing. One of my good dish towels lay in the other side of the sink, a wet orange wad.

‘Did you use the dish towel to wipe up orange juice?’ I asked, barely keeping my voice calm in my rising tension. So that was the tacky spot.

‘No, it was there. Dad must’ve.’

‘Goddamn him!’

‘Mom! You owe me a dollar!’ Lainey said, looking first stunned, then gleeful. Shit. Shoot. She was right. I was trying to curb their use of expletives and so charged them a dollar each time. I never swore. Until recently. And although I usually didn’t actually collect from the kids, just warned them that next time I would, I felt compelled to pay up.

As I walked to my purse and handed her the dollar, I got back to the subject at hand. ‘And this Kurt said Sara can’t go shopping with you and Nan? Does Sara want to go?’ I asked, scrubbing at a stain left by Neil’s tea bag.

‘Oh, jeeze, Mom!’ Course she does. But guys don’t like shopping. And, you have, like, certain responsibilities when you’re boyfriend and girlfriend. So you need to take us now, okay?’

I knew I should make her rephrase that, put in a ‘please’ somewhere. Instead, I scrubbed harder at the stain, partially regretting that Neil and I had revoked Matt’s driving privileges when, backing out of our one-car garage, he’d smashed the side-view mirrors on my old Camry wagon. Both of them. First he’d scraped the driver’s side nearly off, leaving it hanging by just the wires. But then, in his panic, he’d pulled forward into the garage, then backed out again, overcorrecting, and cracked both the plastic casing and the glass of the other side mirror. Poor guy. I think he was almost relieved to be absolved of the responsibility of driving. It wasn’t a complete surprise. When he was three he’d practiced riding his new tricycle in the garage for a week before he would head out onto the wilds of the sidewalk. I guess he was doing the same thing with my car.

With Sam’s tuition at Stanford, I was, more than ever, pinching every penny. So the mirrors of my car were decoratively held on with half a roll of duct tape. And Lainey was already agitating to get her learner’s permit. Oh, Lord.

‘Mom! Will you drive us or not?’

I rinsed out my sponge, pleased with the clean spot where the tea-bag stain had been. ‘I guess. Okay. Maybe I’ll do the walking course. Get a little exercise.’

‘Yeah. You should.’ She must have heard how that sounded because she came over and hugged me briefly before she turned and headed back upstairs to gather her things.

I was stopped at a red light with Matt, Lainey, and Nan all sitting in the backseat. I remembered when my kids used to fight over the front seat and who would get to sit next to me. It wasn’t that long ago. But it was.

All three were now engaged in a lively game of rock, paper, scissors. As I watched the light, listening to their repetitive counting to three then bursts of laughter, the hot flash began. Streams of perspiration started from my underarms and slid down my sides. I didn’t have to check the rearview mirror to know that my face was flushed to nearly purple. I could feel my scalp moisten. Then the rivulets started down my face.

‘Whew!’ I said, unlatching my seat belt, pressing the window button down. ‘Warm in here.’ Now I couldn’t help glancing in the rearview mirror. Matt and Lainey exchanged knowing looks with each other, rolled their eyes and turned toward Nan.

‘She does this a lot lately,’ Lainey said. ‘You might want to put your coat on.’ Matt, his long sandy bangs shaking back and forth with his head, blushed.

I was struggling to unzip first my fleece vest, then my sweat jacket, having worn a thin tank top beneath. I’d learned to dress in layers. The vest was easy, but I wrestled with the jacket zipper, which was stuck at the bottom. The light turned green and the car behind me immediately honked. A kid about Matt’s age in a red Mazda Miata.

‘Mah-ahm! Go!’ Lainey cried. In the rearview mirror I saw Matt looking out the window, suddenly very interested in the look-alike condominiums springing up like a bad rash on what used to be rolling farmland. I had one arm in a sleeve and one arm out. I grabbed the wheel with my free hand and pulled into the intersection, slowly, because I had not yet rebuckled my seat belt. I stuck my sleeved arm out the window and leaned my head out too, the delightfully cool air rushing over my face, blowing my ponytail out behind me as I picked up speed.

‘Mah-ahm!’ Lainey said. ‘You look like a dog!’ The backseat erupted in a different kind of laughter.

Miata kid honked again, then sped around me, cutting off a woman in a yellow bug in the other lane, then pulling back in front of me. Yellow bug honked and Miata kid gave me the finger out his window.

I quickly redid my seat belt, still half in and half out of my jacket, my heart pounding from being assaulted by a sixteen-year-old’s middle digit. And the laughter from the backseat.

As I pulled into the main drive of the mall, the kids started gathering their things for a quick getaway. Matt was meeting friends and knew he’d be safe from me at Scourge of the Underworld, or whatever the arcade was called. But as I pulled into a parking space, Lainey felt the need to lay down the law about my proximity to her.

‘Mom, just so you know, we want to hang out alone.’ I pictured the girls floating deliriously in and out of various teeny-bop clothing shops, and those olfactory overload candle and body-liquid emporiums; I assured them it would not be a problem. I’d go for a good walk, then buy myself a skinny latte and go sit on the leather couch in Pottery Barn and stare into space. A middle-aged woman’s nirvana.

As the girls clamored out, I yelled, ‘Shall we meet back at the food court at twelve thirty?’ Lainey waved without looking back as they ran off.

‘See ya,’ said Matt. He ambled off, careful to affect the loose-kneed, slumped-shouldered australopithecine walk of teen boys.

‘Twelve thirty! Food court!’ I said to his back.

I found the beginning of the mall walking course, strategically located next to Godiva chocolates. What were they thinking? Well, selling chocolates to fat people is obviously what they were thinking. But I was motivated and strode right past. I successfully made it past the Orange Julius, too. But it did remind me of the dish towel, and that nameless anger surged through me again. Still striding along, and getting increasingly breathless, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and punched in the direct dial to Neil’s cell phone, which I was pretty sure would be off. As I’d hoped, I got his voice mail’s brief greeting, then the beep.

‘Neil. For the hundredth time (puff, pant) in our marriage, please do not use the dish towels (gasp) as floor mops. We have paper towels, or an actual floor mop (wheeze), for just that purpose!’ I hung up and kept walking, stuffing the phone back in my purse.

My stride slowed somewhat at the Popcorn Palace, but I kept moving. Three assaults and still standing. Maybe starting my new exercise program in the mall wasn’t the best choice given all the temptations, but my anger was like a fuel, propelling me forward.

Ten minutes later, however, I was again panting with fatigue, but the anger had somehow morphed into desire for the almost visible waves of cinnamon, sugar, and butter wafting over me from CinnaMania. And right across the corridor was the Coffee Cauldron. I was being mugged in the mall by three out of the four American food groups: fat, sugar, and caffeine. And there was undoubtedly the ubiquitous salt in the bread dough, rounding out the Fab Four. I pulled up, holding on to a nearby brass railing to catch my breath. It might be misinterpreted if I breathlessly ordered a cinnamon roll. Or worse, it might be correctly interpreted.

Ten minutes later I was near Victoria’s Secret, licking the last of the hugely and delightfully excessive cinnamon roll frosting from one hand, my coffee in the other. I had my index finger entirely in my mouth when I looked up and saw my reflection in front of a tiny, seemingly magically suspended floral bikini bra and panties in the display window. I had frosting on my cheek and nose.

My ears burned with embarrassment. Even though this new mall was not in Fairview, its sprawling largesse drew the masses from there, Denver, and beyond. I could only hope that no one had seen me, or rather ‘Dr Munger’s wife.’ Neil was much loved in our little community, being one of the older and last remaining independent family-practice docs in town. He was starting to deliver the babies of the now-grown babies he’d delivered. I didn’t want my lack of willpower to strike a blow to either his practice or my pride – the former being quite healthy, the latter in tatters.

My fingers were still sticky so I tossed my empty cup in a trash can and fished out my little packet of hand wipes from my purse. Despite my embarrassment, or maybe to assuage it, I felt a smack of satisfaction: If you needed it, this purse contained it. Early in our marriage Neil used to affectionately tease me about my purse, saying I carried a diaper bag long before we had babies, prepared for anything from a medical emergency to an auto breakdown. But, to his credit, he never balked about holding it for me if I needed to try something on, or just tie my shoe. I couldn’t help but smile, remembering Neil holding my purse at a carnival. It was before we had the kids, back when we still took just ourselves to fun places. We’d gone to the county fair and I’d wanted to ride the Ferris wheel. Neil had trouble with vertigo and would rather do boot camp than an amusement park ride, even a Ferris wheel, so he’d offered to hold my purse, a big red straw bag that I adored. It had rolled leather straps, a large gold fastener, and, the pièce de résistance, half a dozen multicolored daisies embroidered on each side. The ride had been fun, but what had made me laugh riotously as I sat by myself in my gently swaying, ever-rising chair was watching Neil holding my big red purse, walking back and forth below me, hips swaying, blowing me kisses and waving like a beauty queen. He’d then insisted on carrying it the rest of the day, laughing good-naturedly at the people trying to hide their smirks behind their cotton candy.

Neil no longer carried my purse. It embarrassed the kids. Holding your water glass wrong could embarrass teenagers. But, as in most things, we accommodated their tender sensibilities. Then again, it wasn’t really even an issue any longer. Neil and I rarely went anywhere together these days. As our kids outgrew their jeans at record pace, so too did Neil and I seem to be outgrowing each other. But like those jeans, I wasn’t aware of any particular seams of our marriage giving way, just that they had rather suddenly begun to feel terribly binding.

I tossed the used wipe in the trash can and put the packet back in my purse, carefully tucking it in its spot between the travel pack of Kleenex and the tin of mints. I grabbed an open pack of Doublemint and pulled a stick out with my teeth, then returned the pack to my purse and wrestled with the broken zipper. I looked up, once again self-conscious.

With the tip of the foil-wrapped gum still between my teeth, I turned to the left, then slowly to the right, the silver stick pointing at the myriad passersby.

No one noticed.

No one saw me.

Good.

That was good. Wasn’t it?

I sat heavily on a nearby bench and took the stick from my teeth. When had I … disappeared? Somewhere along the line, a cloak of invisibility had dropped down and covered me from head to toe. It wasn’t just here in the mall, I realized. I was invisible in the grocery store, in my neighborhood, to my family. When had this happened? My forties? My thirties?

Maybe I wasn’t just invisible. Did I, Deena, even exist anymore? Not Deena mother or Deena wife but Deena, formerly Hathaway, formerly a person with thoughts, feelings, dreams and a life ahead of her. That Deena?

I looked around again. The crowd bustled by; no one met my eye. I looked back toward the storefront again. It was probably because I’d moved a few feet, so the light was different here, but I could no longer even see my reflection in the window.

THREE

I wandered toward Victoria’s Secret, feeling physically struck by my newly acknowledged lack of existence. But if you want to challenge the notion of invisibility, try heading into a Victoria’s Secret in the body of an overweight, middle-aged woman in dingy sweats.

I tried to appear as bored as if I’d been in here just yesterday. In fact, I wasn’t absolutely certain I’d ever been in a Victoria’s Secret. I’m more the Sears type. Highly convenient to get your Cross Your Heart and Crock-Pot in the same trip. I stepped over the threshold feeling like I was slipping into a brothel.

‘Can I help you find something?’ the teenaged wraith asked, her dark eyes looking me up and down. Was she wearing black contact lenses? She continued to once-over me in a way that used to alternately flatter and infuriate me (sometimes in the same moment) when young men did this to me a lifetime ago. Now, I just felt blood pulsing into my ears.

I almost turned and skulked out right then, but a sign at the back of the store caught my eye. A single word, in passionate red. The most seductive word in the dictionary: ‘Clearance.’ It made me swallow my pride and embarrassment long enough to quietly respond, ‘Just looking, thanks.’

I strolled past the bins of confetti-colored underpants, most looking roughly large enough to tie a tomato plant to its stake. I couldn’t help but think my tomatoes would get a kick out of that. I could sell them at the farmer’s market this summer. Thong Beefsteak. Scanty Panty Early Girl. It would give vegetable cultivation a whole new image.

I continued on through the middle of the store, past rack and bin islands of lacy, shiny, slinky things. I stopped to finger a gorgeous jade-green negligee and cover-up combo. That’s what I needed: a negligee with cover-up. Talk about an oxymoron. I lingered to see if they had it in a large, not that I was seriously interested, but I felt the eyes of Phantom Girl on me so felt compelled to look like I was looking. I tried to back far enough away from the tag sewn in at the neck while still holding it, but my arms were not long enough for me to make out the small letters. It occurred to me that if you need magnifying glasses to read a lingerie tag, it’s probably God’s way of delicately informing you that you’re too old for this. But I did it anyway. I dug through my purse again.

With my brown half frames perched on my nose, I finally found an ‘L.’ Would that be big enough? I pulled it out and held it up, also at arm’s length, too self-conscious to hold it against me. Close. Probably it would fit, but maybe not. The pounds had been creeping on with the years, each tiptoeing on as if I wasn’t looking.

It wasn’t that I was obese. At five eight and weighing about the same as my five eleven husband, I was probably the American average, but larger than I’d ever been in my life, almost as heavy as I’d been for each of my three pregnancies. But the currents of middle age had carried me past caring. That and various Oprah shows about loving your body. I’d gotten as far as not hating my body. I’d reached the dubiously successful stage of ignoring my body.

But maybe I could love my body in a green negligee. I put the large back on the rack, and, glasses still perched on the end of my nose, found that there was indeed an XL lurking in the back. A forgotten, adolescent kind of thrill ran up my spine. Wouldn’t this be fun! Neil would be beside himself, delirious with shocked joy!

A pause in the thrill. If I bought this, it would probably lead to sex. Well, of course it would. That’s what this store was all about. Women bedecking themselves as sexual beings. For someone else. But I just wanted this for me. I wanted to take a long, hot soak in the tub, dry myself off with a fat new bath blanket, those obscenely huge towels that are practically a load of laundry in and of themselves. Then I wanted to put on this little Green Goddess number and lounge on satin sheets, sipping a nice merlot and then, well, then I’d slip under the covers, very slowly, very gracefully. When the heat of my body had taken the chill off the sheets, I’d reach toward it, my hand sliding across the satin. Then, and only then, would I pull toward me the object of my desire: that Barbara Kingsolver novel I’d been wanting to read for ever so long. I think it’s about a woman who lives by herself in the woods.

I let out a slow, resigned breath. Fiction had replaced foreplay in my life. Solitude was way more seductive than sex.

So, maybe I could wear this some weekday – an unsuspecting Wednesday, perhaps – when everyone was at school and work. I reached for the dangling price tag, peering through my half frames: $89.00. I gasped, lodging my Doublemint way too near my esophagus. I began a coughing and gagging fit of extra-large proportions.

Phantom Girl glided over. ‘Are you okay, ma’am?’ She seemed not so much concerned as alarmed that I might keel over, leaving her with a big pile of frump in the middle of her store to clean up. Flushed and panicky, I nodded, grinning like a fool. I wheezed, ‘Fine! Fine, thanks!’

I hustled over to the clearance area and buried my crimson face in the terry robes that hung there. They were thick and deliciously plush, and I kept my face between the sleeves till my gum had come up and my color down.

It was nice in there. True, it was sort of ostrichlike, hiding my head like that, with the vast majority of me taking up most of the aisle. But I felt safe with my head in those robes. And almost alone.

What was I thinking over there, anyway? This was much more my speed. I was a terry-cloth-and-flannel kind of gal. I’d momentarily been lost in the dark and seductive Satin Forest but had stumbled home finally to Menopause Meadow.

After a long minute, I pulled my head out and looked the robes over. This time, I started with the price tag. At the very bottom was a crossed-out $110.00. Above that was a crossed-out $89.00. Above that, a crossed-out $59.00. Finally, written in red pen, $24.99. Clearly their final offer, otherwise why the 99¢? Talk about sexy! I found final markdowns very attractive.

They were down to just a few odd colors in only large and extra large (evidently my kind didn’t venture in here all that often), but they were like no other robe I’d ever owned. It seemed like the kind of robe they’d have hanging in your closet at a fancy resort, waiting to wrap its sleeve arms around you and take care of you for a change.

I decided I deserved this little indulgence. Even at a clearance price I still felt that way: I was indulging myself. Between growing up on a farm, us getting Neil through med school, then using his one income to support us, save for both our retirements and three college tuitions, and add in trying to make sure the kids got most if not all the things they ‘really, really, reeeeally needed’ – well, it meant that I lived pretty low on the hog.

I was trying to decide between the soft but odd pink called Little Girl Dawn (how absurd to have a robe in a plus size with a name like that!) and a pale, and also slightly odd, dusty purple called Violet Haze, when Lainey and Nan suddenly appeared beside me. I dropped the robe sleeve I’d been holding as if I’d been caught masturbating.

‘Lainey! Hi, girls! What’re you doing here?!’ I asked, trying to sound delighted and loving and motherly, but fearing my tone was more accusing and guilty at the same time.

‘More like what are you doing here?’ Her smile was both intrigued and horrified, as though I’d just lifted my shirt and said, Oh, hi, honey, want to see my third nipple I’ve never shown you?

Suddenly indignant, I shot back: ‘What do you mean, what am I doing here? I come here a lot. Sometimes. I come here, I shop here, from time to time.’ God! Complete role reversal. I was behaving like an adolescent male caught with a Playboy. What was wrong with me? I’m a forty-nine-year-old woman and I can damn well shop at Victoria’s Secret! I’m looking at terry-cloth robes, for God’s sake! I pushed a piece of my overgrown bangs back behind my burning ear and returned my attention to the robes.

‘Are you getting one of these?’ Lainey’s tone was soft and genuine now, as she rubbed the sleeve of the pink robe against her cheek in an endearing way. ‘They’re really soft.’ She smiled and picked up the sleeve of the purple one, touching it to Nan’s cheek.’ Feel.’

‘Yeah,’ said Nan, relief flooding her face that the mother-daughter standoff was over as quickly as it had begun. I perpetually wanted to put my arm around Nan. When her father had run off with a younger woman last year, Nan, Sara, and their mother, Amy, had had their lives blown up into puzzle pieces. Melba’s too, now that I thought about it.

‘They’re so soft, Mommy,’ Lainey said, temporarily losing her armor and gazing at me with loving, childlike eyes.

I smiled. Little Lainey. My love.

‘I know,’ I said, nodding conspiratorially to both girls. ‘I’m thinking about it. Which color do you like for me?’ I lifted the pink one off the rack and held it under my chin, then grabbed the purple one with my other hand and switched. As I did so, my purse strap fell off my shoulder and onto my elbow, its weight yanking my arm down, both robes spilling off their hangers and onto the floor.

‘Mah-ahmm!’ Lainey hissed. An eerie ‘she’s baaa-ack’ sounded in my head.

‘Oops, sorry. Here, help me get them.’ We reassembled the robes on their hangers, and I put my purse on the floor between my feet and held each one up again. I was going to buy myself one of these damn robes.

‘Which do you think is best for me? I’m kind of leaning toward the pink. I’m thinking the purple’s kind of dark – too plummy and … frumpy.’

‘Well, they’re both nice,’ she said, again sweetly. A person could get whiplash from teenage tone-of-voice changes. ‘The pink might be a little young for you, though. I think the plummy suits you.’

Bam! A brick upside my head. I looked up, seeing myself in her eyes. Not the adored mommy of her girlhood, not the cool mom of her preadolescent years, but the alternate-reality mom who was best neither heard nor seen. Certainly not in pink anyway. She was voting for the cloak of invisibility.

I looked at my watch. Twelve fifteen. I sent the girls to go meet Matt and took the purple one up to the counter, not because I thought plummy ‘suited me,’ but because I was afraid I’d look like a very large wad of bubble gum in the pink. I handed the girl my Discover card, trying to think only of the savings and 1 percent cash back we’d get, not the 100 percent bill we’d get.

Neil used to proudly say I could pinch a penny till it screamed, and it was true. I knew women who spent forty to a hundred dollars on their hair every couple of months. I waited for a coupon for my local Quickie Clips and went about twice a year. My lack of extravagance in all things personal was why my staying at home as a full-time mom was financially lucrative for us. Where another woman would need nice outfits for work, or treat herself to a necklace, or makeup, my old sweats had lasted decades and I treated myself by only very occasionally buying the house something new, and then only on deep discount. A table runner. A colored glass vase. I bought virtually nothing outside of meeting our basic needs for nearly a year so we could buy a new dining table. Our minimalist kitchen remodel meant years of extra saving, since we prioritized college and retirement, living much closer to the bone than Neil’s income might indicate. But it would have cost us money for me to work whatever odd job my un-degreed self could have landed. Just under two years at the University of Wisconsin – one year as a Humanities major (why not just stand on the roof of the chancellor’s office and shout, ‘I have no idea what I want to do with my life!’?) and part of another taking a few art classes – didn’t get a person far. Call it housewife, homemaker, or domestic engineer, there’s still no paycheck, so I always felt like I was spending someone else’s money. My value to my family was my time, like beach sand: warm, inviting, fun to grab big handfuls, squeeze it and let it slip through their fingers before they ran off over it.

Phantom Girl handed me the credit slip. I signed my name and handed it back to her. She stared at the credit card and then at the slip. ‘Ma’am?’ she said, sliding both back toward me again.

I stared at my signature. I had a feeling of shrinking downward and backward through a tunnel, a roaring in my ears. I hurriedly scratched out Deena Hathaway and signed my married name of twenty-three years, Deena Munger.

‘Sorry. Spaced out there for a minute.’ I could feel the damn blood rising in my cheeks again. Lately, if I wasn’t flushed for one thing I was flushed for another. Or welling up in tears. It was a nearly perpetual emotional bath of one sort or another.

‘Can I see an ID, please?’ she asked, her voice tinged with suspicion.

I handed her my driver’s license, the worst picture of me ever taken, just last month when I’d had it renewed on my birthday. I stared at my license after she handed it back, wondering if she would call security. I didn’t even recognize myself in this photo. But she smiled, completely satisfied that the haggard woman with the dazed expression in the photo was me. She handed me my plummy robe in the pink striped bag and with a practiced smile said, ‘Have a nice day.’

At the food court, Matt’s friend Josh offered to bring everyone home later. Prior to my arrival, they’d all decided that after lunch they’d go to a movie, then after that head over to Josh’s for Ping-Pong and pizza. Having suffered the boys’ blatant confused, then amused, stares at my pink striped bag, I escaped without further questioning, or joining them for lunch.

At home, I hung the robe in the back of my closet and stuffed the bag into the trash in the garage. That way Neil would not find it and start asking questions, either about the cost or why buy that at Victoria’s Secret.

I was heading up to the bedrooms with an armful of the kids’ textbooks and papers, which had been strewn about the living room, when I noticed the bouquet on the dining room table. An unusual bouquet, to say the least. Smiling, I set the schoolwork on one of the stairs, a little ray of warmth shining deep within me as I headed back down. There were four colorful new dish towels rolled up and stuck into one of my glass vases, tied up in a bow with one of Lainey’s hair ribbons. Neil must have taken a nearly unheard-of hour off – even on a Saturday – to bring them home to me. A piece of junk mail, pulled from the recycling basket, no doubt, a note scrawled on the back, was taped to the vase.

Sorry about the dish towel, D. I got these at the dollar store, two for a dollar, a good deal, I think.

Thought maybe we could have lunch but you weren’t home, and nothing was prepared, so I left. Meet me for dinner – we’ll splurge, go get some pasta at Guiseppe’s. It’ll have to be late, I’m meeting a guy from the Washington Square Health Foundation at 6:00 for drinks. I’ll meet you at 7:30 at G’s. xo N.

I suddenly had a cacophonous orchestra of emotions playing in me. A trumpet of delight to be asked out on a date by my husband; a sweet flute trill that he’d shown and expressed remorse, especially in such a creative way. But there was also an entire off-tune strings section that he’d called attention to the price, and didn’t ask so much as inform me of dinner plans tonight. A certainty that I’d have no plans. I shrugged off the strings. I didn’t have plans, and Neil hadn’t made a gesture like this in a long time. I smiled again, picturing him picking out the dish towels, debating whether to spend the extra dollar on ribbons or bows and deciding he could use one of Lainey’s. Ah. I remembered now that Dollar Mania was right next to Guiseppe’s. That was probably why the evening plan had occurred to him.

I started getting ready at six p.m., showering, styling my hair as best I could, given that the cut was about four months overgrown. I even tried to put on a bit of mascara, but the tube was mostly dried out and came out in clumps, which I had to pull off with a tissue, pulling out several eyelashes in the process. I slid a pair of tan slacks from their hanger in the closet and was stepping into them when I saw my blue dress, probably the only dress I owned that would still fit me. Neil was always complaining that I never wore a dress anymore. I rarely had call to, plus, pants were more comfortable. Especially elastic-waist pants. I fingered the dress, navy blue with big white flowers, a little tie in the back. Hopelessly out of fashion. But he’d made a big gesture; I wanted to make one back.

I wondered if it was still warm enough out to wear it without hose. I hated hose. I looked at my stubbly white legs. It didn’t matter if it was eighty degrees out; I shouldn’t inflict these legs on the gentle patrons of Guiseppe’s, not that the restaurant was at all fancy, but still. I dug around in my drawer and found an old pair of stretchy blue tights. They’d do. I hung the slacks back up and took the dress off its hanger, laid it carefully on the bed. I pulled on the tights, the elastic waist loose to the point of being scalloped. Not exactly reliable-feeling, but way more comfortable than hose. I slipped the dress over my head. It was even tighter on my stomach than I’d thought it would be, and it made me look older than my not-quite-fifty years. Sighing, I spritzed on some ancient White Shoulders, wrote the kids a note in the kitchen, and headed out.

I got to Guiseppe’s at 7:15. I sat listening to the radio, debating whether to go in or wait in the car. Despite my recent craving for solitude, I hated to be at a restaurant alone, conspicuous and uncomfortable. But as I watched a couple go in, I thought I’d better put our names on the list.

At the door, though, I stopped, my hand on the wooden door handle, greeted by a large handwritten sign in bright red marker, misspelled and apparently randomly capitalized.

SpeciaL: Tonight onLy! ALL ouR Terriffic

spaGhetti You can Eat: $3.95 aduLts, $1.95

kids Under 12.

Another little sigh escaped, and I immediately chastised myself – it didn’t matter that the bargain was what had made Neil choose this restaurant. It was the thought that counted.

Unfortunately, Guiseppe’s was not terribly crowded and the hostess seated me straightaway at a table for two. I ordered a glass of Chianti, and while I waited for it, I sat trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt, sitting all alone. I wished I’d brought a book. I studied the menu, just to look like I was doing something besides waiting, although I wouldn’t dare suffer Neil’s silent recriminations by ordering anything other than the ‘Terriffic’ Saturday special.

My wine arrived and I sipped it, looking out the window. There was really nothing to look at. A bleak little strip mall with a bleak little parking lot, yellowed weeds growing up through cracks in the asphalt along the edges. Then a girl about ten, walking a dog, crossed the street. They came into the parking lot. It was a funny-looking curly black mutt – maybe cocker spaniel and poodle. Suddenly it was sniffing the ground almost maniacally, hot on the trail of something, pulling the girl this way and that; she willingly let it, laughing. I smiled, watching them zigzag their way across the parking lot, my head twisting till I had to turn in my seat to watch them disappear down the sidewalk.

I looked at my watch: 7:40. I reminded myself that my wait was long only because I’d been early. Plus, my watch might be fast.

At 8:03 I called his cell phone. I hated when people talked on their cell phones at restaurants, so I turned toward the window and murmured to his voice mail, ‘Neil. I’m at Guiseppe’s. It’s after eight. I hope everything’s okay. Please call me on my cell.’ The waitress stopped by as I hung up, and, more out of embarrassment than want, I ordered a second Chianti.

If Neil’s meeting was running late, surely he could break away long enough to call me. He probably figured he was on his way anyway, why pull over to make a call? I did admire that about Neil: he would not talk on his cell phone while he drove. Being a doctor, he saw and heard about plenty of tragic consequences from that practice.

At 8:30, after I’d left two more messages on his cell phone and was feeling too tipsy to drive after two Chiantis on an empty stomach, it was now clear to the waitstaff, to the few patrons scattered around the restaurant, and most of all to me, that I’d been stood up. But I had to eat something before I drove home. When the overly sympathetic young waitress returned yet again to check on the poor old woman in that ugly blue dress with the crotch of her blue tights nearly at her knees, the old woman ordered the spaghetti special, and more than got her money’s worth from the three platefuls she packed away.

Neil met me at the door. His excitement ran headlong into my anger. And my dyspepsia.

‘Did you stay for dinner?!’ he asked, surprised, but not waiting for an answer. ‘That’s good. I’m sorry I didn’t make it, Dee, but it looks like we’re going to get the last of our funding from these guys! I stayed to celebrate the partnership with them!’ He was almost jumping up and down. Neil had so fully thrown himself into this cause, he was truly clueless that he’d thrown over his family. Or me, at least.

‘Neil, why didn’t you call me?’ I said, staving off tears. I wanted to stay angry, but my stomach hurt and I felt miserable, inside and out. But more than anything, I didn’t want to cry again.

‘I did try, but I couldn’t get a signal. I didn’t want to leave the meeting to go traipsing all over looking for a pay phone. Look, Deena, you’re a big girl. I figured you’d realize what was going on. I was at a business meeting, after all.’ He held out his arms. ‘Sorry, but I figured you’d understand.’

I bolted into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me, thinking I was going to throw up, but didn’t. I flipped on the loud bathroom fan, sat on the closed toilet and cried. I did understand that Neil was working, not just to support us, his family, but also for a very good cause. I was hurt more than angry, and what hurt me the most, what really got to me, was not being stood up. It wasn’t even the lack of the simple courtesy of a phone call. Nor was it Neil’s inability to apologize without a ‘but’ to excuse it all. What really hurt, especially after three plates of spaghetti, was his calling me ‘a big girl.’

FOUR

‘You got that at Victoria’s Secret?’ Neil had an almost sick look on his face. ‘That?’

I’d just pulled off my new bathrobe, having worn it for the first time and gotten exactly the reaction I’d feared. We were dressing for the O’Keefes’ party, and, as much as I didn’t want to go, a sense of duty drove me. And, I believed in the clinic – there were too many people for whom health insurance was an impossibility. Besides, I wasn’t ‘You-zing’ my life; the least I could do was support my husband in using his.

I hung the robe on the closet hook. It now looked more prune-colored than purple to me. I sighed. ‘Yes. It was on clearance.’

‘But, Dee, you, in Victoria’s Secret?’ He chortled. ‘The one time you go and that’s what you get. Of all things.’

Neil, in worn but clean undershirt and briefs, looked at the robe, and he too sighed. ‘You could have gotten something for me, if you know what I mean.’ I knew exactly what he meant, and I didn’t even come close to having enough energy to explain to him that I was tired of always doing and buying and being for someone other than me. I said nothing, and Neil went into the bathroom to shave.

I sat on the bed and slipped my thumbs down into one leg of a pair of suntan panty hose, gathering it up as I went. I placed my toes inside. Sitting there on my bed I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d worn panty hose. It could well be that the pair in my hand were more than fifteen years old. Ten minutes earlier I’d excavated them from the back of my underwear drawer and taken them out of the sealed package. When I’d gotten out of the shower that evening, Neil, predictably, had begged me to wear a dress to the O’Keefes’, rather than one of my ubiquitous pantsuits. ‘You used to look so good in a dress and you never wear them anymore,’ he’d said. ‘This may be our only opportunity to really dress up till one of the kids gets married.’

‘I had it on the other night, you know,’ I muttered, too low for him to hear in the bathroom, as I spread the dress out on the bed. It was somehow even less stylish than it had been six nights ago.

I sighed. I didn’t want to go to this soiree at all; it wouldn’t matter if I was unhappily there in a pants outfit or unhappily there in a dress. ‘I tried to call Sam again today,’ I said, staring at my foot. I was sitting with my ankle on my knee, still with only my toe in the hose, waiting for the motivation to pull them up.

‘Diddah you yust caw heh a cuppa day ago?’ he said, sounding like an old man who’d removed his false teeth as he contorted his face to shave under his nose.

‘Yes, but I didn’t talk to him. I never talk to him, I just leave messages.’

A little laugh from the bathroom, accompanied by his razor swishing in a sink full of water.

‘Aw, Dee. He’s just busy, having fun. You remember college, don’t you? It’s a whole new life for him. We’re not his life anymore. We’ve got to accept that.’ Meaning I had to accept that. Neil seemed to be fine with the fact that we’d gone from three kids to two, and that the two would also soon disappear from our lives.

Slowly, morosely, I pulled the leg of the hose up over my ankle, then calf. I stopped, just above the knee, wondering if there was an expiration date on panty hose. The nylon felt more granular and restrictive than I remembered. I gazed down at the box on the bed. No ‘use by’ date. It should at least give a use by weight. Which, come to think of it, it did on the chart on the back. I flipped the box over to the height and weight chart; I was precariously close to the outer limit. Darn near expired.

I pulled the hose up over my knee. I wondered if the fabric got unstretchable with age. There just simply did not seem to be enough material here, considering how far I had yet to go. I gathered up the other leg, slipped my foot into the suntan donut, then slowly pulled that side thigh-high. I put my stockinged feet on the carpet and stood. I tugged on the right, then the left, then the right, all while swinging my butt hither and yon trying to stretch a couple feet of fabric up on to an acre of hips. I took a breather and caught my hunched-over reflection in my dresser mirror, my pale flesh bulging out in more than the usual spots. There was the familiar boobies-in-the-back bra bulge, the see-I-have-two-waists! panty bulge, and now I had added the glorious bisected-saddlebag thigh bulge. Worse, it was not only me staring at my bulginess. There in the mirror, staring at my reflection, was Neil’s reflection. He was leaning on the doorframe of the walk-in closet, mostly dressed now, a twinkle in his eye.

‘What d’ya say we show up fashionably late to this thing, Dee?’ he said suggestively.

Oh. My. God. If he could get turned on by this, a bent-over, middle-aged manatee-shaped woman wrestling her way into a garden hose, it was indeed Neil who needed some hormone therapy.

‘Give me a break,’ I said, irritably. I stood upright, yanked on the hose, and promptly poked a fingernail through the fabric. As I watched the run cascade down the side of my leg, the tears slid down my cheeks. ‘Goddamnit! Goddamn them! Goddamn them to hell!’ I started to sob.

‘What’s wrong? Calm down, Deena. Who are you mad at?’

‘Everyone! Men. The men who made the first panty hose!’ I glared at him. ‘You know it was a man, don’t you?!’ I actually didn’t know it was a man, but I’d have bet good money on it.

Defensively, Neil held up both palms toward me.

‘Well, it was a man! Goddamned men. They invented high heels, too. And girdles. And makeup.’ Again, I had no idea if this was all true, but at the moment, it felt it could be no other way. ‘All the things that tell women we’re not good enough the way we are. We need to be tanner, smoother, taller, prettier.’ Neil looked at me as if my face was familiar but he couldn’t recall my name. ‘And especially younger and thinner!’ I screamed. Whew. When the lid blows off a pressure cooker, it blows hard.

Suddenly Neil was sitting on the bed next to me, patting my knee and talking as if I was a four-year-old. ‘Now, now, Deedle.’

‘Don’t patronize me.’

‘Who said I’m patronizing you?’

I just stared at him. I half expected him to pull out a roll of stickers from his breast pocket and hand me one, the way he placated his youngest patients. But suddenly his expression changed, softened. Quietly, he said, ‘Do you just want to stay home?’

Tears of relief slipped down my cheeks. ‘Oh, Neil, can we? Yes. Thank you.’ Instead of forced chitchat in tight shoes, I saw us walking around our neighborhood lake, in comfortable sneakers, and hand in hand. Like old times. Maybe I could even broach the idea of the dog thing I’d seen on TV.

He looked sheepish, then impatient. ‘Not we, you. I have to go. I want to go. I’ve put my life into this clinic. It’s important.’

I just looked at him. Part of me wanted to say, And your family isn’t? Yes, the past couple of years you’ve put your life into the clinic. Not your kids. Not your marriage. No wonder he seemed so unaffected by Sam’s departure, and Lainey’s and Matt’s growing independence and absences. He was able to throw himself into his work with impunity.

Neil stood, walked to the door, put a hand on the knob, then turned toward me. He looked as handsome in his dark gray suit as I’d seen him in years. ‘What’s it going to be, Deena?’

I stared at the blue dress, the blue tights with the shot elastic waist now my only option. We wouldn’t even look like we belonged together.

‘I’ll stay home with the kids.’

‘For God’s sake, they’re teen— They don’t need a—Oh, never mind.’ He closed his eyes, shook his head, and left.

I sat on the bed, peeling the panty hose from my legs. I looked up to see myriad fat Deenas looking at me. The closet door mirror was angled just right to catch my reflection in the dresser mirror, making multiple mes, each disappearing into the next. I wadded my panty hose up in a ball and threw them at the mirror. But they had no substance or weight and merely arced limply for a few feet, and dropped silently to the carpet.

When the house was still again after Neil had driven away, I came downstairs in my pruney bathrobe, walked into the kitchen, and was greeted by three unpacked lunch bags on the counter and Hairy sitting on the desk meowing for food again.

‘No,’ I told him. ‘You have your dry food. You only get wet food in the morning.’ His meowing ratcheted up a notch. I couldn’t stand the noise, so I gave him several Pounce treats in his bowl. As he devoured them, I began unpacking the lunch bags, pulling out dirty Tupperware containers, chip bags and largely unused napkins. As I was throwing the trash away, Matt came into the kitchen.

‘Hey, Mom,’ he said laconically, not looking at me, walking straight for the pantry. ‘How come you didn’t go with Dad tonight?’ He’d pulled open both pantry doors and was hanging on the handles, which I’d asked him approximately three hundred times not to do. He stared with a bored expression at the choices in front of him.

‘I— I’m not feeling well.’ I was struggling to open a small Tupperware container in which I’d packed Matt’s favorite homemade chocolate pudding. Lainey preferred the store-bought variety, feeling that anything else would make some sort of horrific social statement to her friends. But Matt said he preferred mine, which made me happy, although I’d evidently packed too much because he hadn’t finished it. I pulled again at the stubborn top, unable to leverage it. Just once I’d like to see a commercial not about how well a lid holds, but how the hell to get these small ones off their containers.

Matt grabbed an opened bag of popcorn from the pantry. ‘What’s for dinner?’ he said, shoving a handful in his mouth.

‘Yeah, I’m hungry.’ Lainey had suddenly appeared behind me. I was sure the only reason they were home on a Friday night was because they’d expected their parents, both of them, to be out.

‘I thought you guys were going to order pizza. Didn’t Dad leave money on the desk?’

‘No, he said since you were home, you’d cook.’ Lainey was fingering the tie of my robe. ‘You know, Mom, I don’t like this color as well out of the store. You should have gotten the pink. Don’t take this the wrong way, but this purple kind of makes you look a little fat.’ She stood a step back from me, a sympathetic expression on her face.

And just what was the right way to take that comment? I wanted to ask her. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to start crying again. What was it about adolescent girls that they thought some sort of verbal disclaimer made plunging a knife into your gut okay? It didn’t really help that I knew she wasn’t trying to be deliberately hurtful.

I looked at Matt, who was crunching another mouthful of popcorn, his hand already back in the bag, gathering the next handful. ‘So, like, are we going to eat soon?’ he said, rather messily.

My hands tightened into a chokehold on the Tupperware. Then, to punctuate the tenor of my evening, I felt the perspiration begin to ooze out the pores of my forehead and upper lip, the familiar temperature surge building in me like an overheating engine.

I pulled off my bathrobe, grabbing the top of my worn pj’s, pulling it in and out rapidly, trying to cool myself. I looked at my kids. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t planned anything. I knew I could always make a tuna casserole. But I hadn’t planned on cooking tonight. I didn’t want to cook tonight. The anger I’d felt upstairs surged again. I wondered if other women going through the change had anger flashes, in addition to hot flashes. I put the Tupperware bowl on my hip and ripped the lid off, losing my grip and inadvertently flinging the lid across the kitchen. It Frisbeed its way right into Hairy, who, his white fur spattered with chocolate pudding, stood, yowling and hissing at me.

‘Dammit!’ I yelled.

‘Maw-ahm!’ yelled Lainey, rushing toward Hairy, but stopping just short. ‘Poor kitty!’ She glanced back at me, eyebrows up. ‘And you owe me another dollar.’

Matt bent forward, laughing and spewing little globs of half-chewed popcorn across the tile floor. ‘Now he’s a Dalmatian cat!’ He convulsed in laughter again.

‘Poor kitty,’ repeated Lainey, still not touching him, trying in vain not to smile.

I handed her a wet paper towel. ‘Wipe him off, please, Lainey.’ I dabbed at the chocolate on my robe with a wet sponge.

She took the paper towel from me but merely held it, as she was overcome finally with laughter. ‘I’m not the one who threw pudding all over him,’ she said, leaning on the desk and covering her mouth, then turning away, as if she didn’t want Hairy to see her laughing at him. He had a blob of pudding on one side of his forehead, a Groucho Marx eyebrow. I was worried it would go into his eye.

‘Okay, fine, I’ll clean him up.’ I snatched the paper towel from her, and she grabbed her stomach with both hands and bumped into Matt, who was also still convulsed with laughter. I wiped Hairy’s eye, then, with a grunt from both of us, lifted the enormous chocolate-spattered cat from the desk and took him to the sink. ‘Sorry, Hairy. It was an accident.’ He glared back at me, the angry-looking face that is every Persian’s lot in life now looking downright murderous.

‘I’ll be downstairs,’ said Matt breathlessly.

‘Me too,’ said Lainey. ‘Call us when dinner’s ready.’ Holding Hairy firmly in the sink, I watched, my mouth open but nothing coming out, as she reached over Matt’s shoulder into the bag of popcorn as they descended.

In the next couple of hours I bathed the cat, put a bandage on the scratch on my arm, swept the kitchen floor, made and served a tuna casserole, and folded and put away some laundry while the kids ate. I wasn’t hungry after Lainey’s comment. While the kids watched a movie, I did the dishes, mopped the floor and dusted, all in the name of therapy.

At nine o’clock I headed up to bed, wanting to be asleep before Neil got home. I wasn’t, but I again faked it. It was a mystery to me how I could perpetually be so tired and yet have so much trouble sleeping. But I was getting very skilled at playing possum. I lay still, on my side of the bed, the edge really, my back to the center. Neil came into the room, undressed, was in the bathroom for quite a while, then finally slipped in on his side. Thankfully, he didn’t reach for me.

But pure guilt made me reach for him. I fulfilled my wifely duties then returned to my edge.

I lay for close to an hour, frozen in my assumed position, till I was sure he was asleep. Then I silently slid out of bed, wrapped myself in my new prune-colored, fat-emphasizing robe, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I pulled out the tuna casserole, grabbed a fork, and shoveled in a big mouthful. Then another. Still chewing, I loaded up the fork again, gazing at the pictures and memos on the door of the fridge. An upcoming birthday party invitation from one of Lainey’s friends. A shopping list. Matt and Lainey’s wallet-sized school photos. A picture of Sam with his friends at a graduation party. Another mother had given it to me. And under a magnet from a car mechanic was an old snapshot of Rocky and Fordy, both going after a stick in the lake. I stared at it, holding in one hand the ancient white CorningWare we’d gotten so many years ago as a wedding gift, and in the other my laden fork. I swallowed what was in my mouth, looked at my forkful, and let it drop back into the casserole. I put the lid on and pushed the dish back into the fridge. I put my fork in the dishwasher and quietly closed the door. Tightening the tie on my robe, I walked down the second flight of stairs to the den. I sat, turned on the computer, ner-vously pulled at the cuticle of my index finger, waiting. As it hummed into being, the monitor’s dim blue screen softened the too-clean room. I clicked, typed, and clicked again, until the Google box appeared. I took a deep breath, then carefully typed in the letters, one by one:

RAISING GUIDE DOG PUPPY

FIVE

I had just set the last, and biggest, bouquet on the coffee table of the sunroom. I’d been extravagant, buying two different bunches at Costco, mixing and arranging them anew into four bouquets, adding some of my daffodils that had bravely emerged in the early spring warmth. In the morning I’d put the finishing touches on some of the most furious cleaning I’d ever done. And for me, that was saying something. I’d even pulled out the toothbrush again, despite Elaine’s admonishments. I hadn’t told anyone about my ‘project,’ not even Elaine.

At a little after two in the afternoon, I emerged from the shower, blew-dry and styled my hair, and put on a crisp white oxford shirt and my just-pressed khakis and stared at the mirror. God. Was this the best I could do? The fat, preppy look? I touched the gray hairs at my temple, the lines at my eyes. I wondered if I’d be judged too old to take on raising a puppy.

By three o’clock I was ready for my first job interview in a very long time. I was glad it was in my home. If I’d had a résumé, my home and my kids would be the only things on it.

‘Wow,’ said Bill as we finished the tour and sat down to tea in the sunroom. ‘Your house is so pristine, inside and out.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, beaming. It felt so good to beam. And Bill, the local leader for the K-9 Eyes group, turned out to be someone who elicited beaming. He was tall, with thick dark hair and bright blue eyes, an irresistible combination. The sprinklings of gray in his hair looked sexy, not old.

He looked down at his teacup, his brow furrowed, and said nothing else. My beam retracted.

‘Is everything all right?’ I asked. ‘Would you like some sugar for your tea? Or a brownie?’ I picked up the plate of my famous Death and Resurrection chocolate brownies and offered him one. ‘They have four different kinds of chocolate in them!’

Bill averted his eyes. ‘No, thank you, Deena.’ He gazed around the room. When he finally looked at me he was smiling, but a cosmetic smile. A smile that is the Band-Aid in advance of the cut.

‘Deena, I’m not sure you’re really the best candidate to be a puppy raiser.’

The words echoed in the silence. I felt my throat constrict. I hadn’t won the inspection. I hadn’t even passed. My hand went to my open collar, clutching it closed.

‘Why?’ I whispered. My faults and shortcomings lined up in my mind like obedient soldiers.

Bill reached out and put his fingers on my other hand, trembling on the table. His touch surprised me, making me look up into his kind, blue eyes.

‘You obviously put a great deal of love and care into your house, and you have some gorgeous things.’ He pointed to the colored glass on the windowsills, then to the largest bouquet, which I’d strategically placed for greatest effect on the glass coffee table. ‘Everything is so tidy and clean. I’m worried that a dog will not fit into this picture. Especially a K-9 Eyes dog. They’re not like pet dogs and can’t be treated that way. You have to be with them nearly all the time, morning, noon, and night. And there are lots of restrictions. For example, they can never go off-leash in an open area. And they have to learn to go to the bathroom only when you say. They can’t be working guides and have a strong retrieval instinct, so they can never chase a stick or ball or Frisbee.’ He looked at me, compassionate but concerned. ‘And Deena, dogs, puppies especially, chew and dig and knock things over and get into all kinds of mischief. Your house and yard just aren’t set up for that. Is a clean house very important to you?’

Oh, God. How was I supposed to answer that one?!

My house was … it was my … what? My life? Oh, God.

How had I, a farm girl, come to this? Well, probably because my mom, a farm wife, worked her whole life to prevent the farm from coming inside. Rocky and Fordy were never allowed in the house, even on subzero winter nights. They did get to sleep in a heated barn, so they were comfortable, but they and their muddy paws and constant shedding were not welcome inside. I knew that K-9 Eyes required that the puppies sleep in the house, so I’d set up a little bed in the laundry room on the vinyl floor. Easy to clean up little accidents down there. When I’d shown him around the house, Bill had clarified that the requirement was not only that the dogs sleep indoors, but that they sleep near the bed in the room with you, since that’s how it would necessarily be once they were assigned to a blind person.

Here I’d gone to greater lengths than usual to clean my house and prepare for this inspection, and now I was about to be denied because of it. My life was becoming too damn ironic.

I put both my hands up to my face. Do not cry. Do not cry. I took a deep breath, removed my hands, and looked directly at Bill.

‘Yes. It has been very important to me. But not as important as doing this. I’ll do whatever it takes. Tell me what to do. I’ll bring a wheelbarrow full of dirt in here and spread it around, I swear to God.’ I took a breath, calmed myself. ‘I really, really want to raise a puppy for K-9 Eyes.’

Bill was silent, staring at me, but to my relief he looked intrigued rather than alarmed by my outburst.

Finally, he spoke a single word. ‘Why?’ His gentle, sincere voice pulled a lump up into my throat.

Why indeed? Now I was on guard. I’d missed all the cues about the house. It seemed like everything was riding on my answer to this one-word question.

The silence stretched across the room like a taut rubber band.

I forced a smile so I wouldn’t cry. ‘Because I’m a dog person, and I’m, well, trapped in—’ I realized I was nervously twisting my wedding ring. I stopped, put my hands flat on the table, but then to my horror realized I’d begun the sentence without knowing how to finish it.

I looked around the sunroom, my breathing shallow and rapid. Hairy was snoozing in a warm pool of March sun on the couch. A single cat hair was floating with the dust motes in the yellow shaft above him. Without looking at Bill, I told him: ‘Because I’m a dog person trapped in a cat existence.’ Now I turned. He was smiling.

I’d never really thought about how much meaning different kinds of smiles conveyed. Bill’s eyes crinkled, his face softened.

‘Okay, then. Let’s get started,’ he said, and reached into his briefcase and handed me my thick training manual.

At first no one spoke. Matt, Lainey, and Neil each stared at me, sitting artificially all together on the couch in the den. You’d think goldfish, not words, had just spewed from my mouth. In fact, they themselves looked like three gap-mouthed carp sitting in their green plaid bowl as I stood before them.

Finally, Matt spoke. ‘A dog, Mom? You’re gonna let a dog come into the house?’ The three of them looked at each other as if to confirm they’d heard right.

‘Yes.’

‘Unbelievable,’ said Matt. One of his eyebrows lifted, the other dropped, as did his jaw.

Lainey had only one concern: ‘What about Hairy?’

‘Hairy can hold his own against a wolf. I’m more worried about the puppy,’ I said.

‘But Hairy will feel jealous,’ she whined.

‘Well, maybe you could spend more time with him.’

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at me.

‘Deena,’ said Neil quietly, ‘don’t you have enough to do around here without having to look after a puppy? Besides, I thought we’d agreed on this. No dogs. They tie—’

‘I know,’ I cut in, raising my palm, ‘“they tie you down.” But it won’t! Not at all! I’ll take him everywhere with me. It’s required. And the local puppy group has lots of volunteer sitters. If we go away for the weekend we can just call and they’ll take care of it.’ Why I felt compelled to mention this, I wasn’t sure. We never went away for a weekend. Our last family vacation was a road trip to Disneyland when Sam was twelve. Neil and I hadn’t been away, just the two of us, in … well, we’d had that honeymoon trip to Vail after our wedding.

Before he could mull over another argument, I added, ‘And besides, we didn’t agree. I’ve always wanted a dog. And this is exactly the kind of dog you’ve said is a good one: someone else’s. This dog will really always sort of belong to someone else. And, if everything goes well, the dog we raise—’

Neil’s eyes widened.

‘I mean, I raise, will be a huge gift to a blind person.’ I waited. No one spoke. ‘It’s something I can do for someone. I can do this.’

‘DeeDee,’ Neil said in that pediatrician voice. My skin crawled at ‘DeeDee.’ Years ago it had been affectionate. Now most of his nicknames for me just irked me. ‘You know you’re going to fall in love with this dog, and then what? You’ll be devastated having to give it up.’ He said the word with uncharacteristic drama.

‘You say that as though you think I’m a basket case perched on the edge right now.’ Maybe I was, I thought, but I’m fighting to hang on. This was my fight. ‘I’m going into this with my eyes wide open, Neil. I will fall in love with the dog. It’s part of the assignment. But I love Sam and Matt and Lainey, also part of the assignment, and Sam’s off at college, and soon, Matt and Lainey will be. Do you think my world will fall apart then?’

He looked up at the ceiling, pulling at his chin with his hand. His thoughts were all too visible. Yes. He did think I would somehow cease to exist without the kids. I had told him that it felt like a little part of me had died when Sam left for college. Neil had evidently surmised that it was one-third of me, and when the two-thirds sitting on the couch right now left home, that would be it for Deena Munger. No kids, no life.

But the prospect of this dog, this worthy work, had put a tiny spark of life back in me. I wasn’t sure why, exactly. Was it simply the idea of having a dog again? Was it going up against Neil? Or was it that I needed to nurture another dependent being so I could feel useful? Whatever was driving me, I didn’t care. The point was, I was driven for the first time in a long time.

I took a deep breath. ‘Look, I really think it’ll make a difference that I know I’m sending this dog on to a really important job and a good life. The blind people who ultimately get these dogs get all kinds of training and support and probably provide some of the best homes a dog could ever want.’ I knew I was persuading myself as much as Neil, but something was making me bullheaded about this.

‘Well—’ said Matt. ‘Uh, if we’re going to get a dog, can’t we get a real dog? I mean, one we can keep?’

My son! A dog person! Who knew?

Neil sat back on the couch, eyes closed.

‘Let’s see how this goes, okay, Matt?’ I said, restraining myself from rushing over and gathering him into my arms. He shrugged, rose, and headed for the kitchen, undoubtedly to fill his hollow leg. Lainey left right behind him, calling plaintively, ‘Hair-eeee? Hair-eeee!’

Neil sat staring at me. I waited for him to speak. He didn’t. He often did this when we disagreed, knowing I’d feel compelled to fill in the silence with my own jabbering and backpedaling, usually giving in all on my own. This time I stood there, leaving the silence hanging in the air. Finally, I headed to the basement to fold laundry, catching my breath as I went down the stairs.

SIX

The parking lot was covered in a wet, late March snow and most of us were shivering; the temperature had begun dropping again just after noon. But the crowd was waiting patiently, as were the various dogs. Well, most of the crowd was patient. Lainey and Matt kept jumping up and down, swinging their arms, whining, ‘When is it going to get here?’ ‘We’re freeeee-zing to death!’

‘I’m sure it won’t be long now,’ I kept saying.

‘I’m going over to the 7-Eleven to get something to eat,’ said Matt, already walking away.

‘Here, Lainey,’ I said. I fished in my purse for my wallet, handed her a ten. ‘This is for both of you. But just hot chocolate and a snack, okay? Nothing else. And I’d like the—’ She snatched the ten from my hand and ran after Matt. ‘— change back.’ I smiled sheepishly at Bill.

He reached out and patted my shoulder. ‘Excited to be getting your pup?’ Once again I was surprised by his touch. Surprised, but pleased.

I nodded. ‘And nervous.’ There was an understatement. I scanned the crowd again.

Bill had explained on the drive down that there would be people here from several different puppy-raising clubs from all over the greater Denver metro area. As we stood in the three or four inches of snow, he filled me in on the who’s who of folks from the Fairview group, names that largely went in one ear and out the other. Only one or two sounded familiar from the couple of puppy meetings I’d sat in on last month.

The kids, thankfully, had been uninterested in going to the puppy meetings, or studying the manual. I was feeling like it really was my own special work. But two weeks earlier I’d received ‘the call’ from Bill, and that had piqued some interest from the kids. Bill told me the breed, the gender, and the first letter of the name of the pup – H. He explained that every pup in the litter received a name beginning with that letter, and that K-9 Eyes tells the puppy raisers only the first letter, in case something comes up requiring a last-minute sibling substitution. The kids and I thought of dozens of name possibilities for my dog, a spayed female yellow Lab, just as I’d requested. We’d put a long list of H names on the refrigerator, each circling our favorite. Lainey liked Harmony. Matt was rooting for Hooter. I had circled, in bright blue marker, my own choice on the list: Hope. Neil refused to join in, but then one day a new name was mysteriously scrawled at the bottom of the list. It was Helen, his mother’s name. In the past weeks Neil and I had fallen into a relationship not unlike graduate students sharing a house: careful, quiet, usually speaking only to discuss some household logistic. My conversation with Bill now was much easier.

‘Are all these people getting dogs today?’ I asked as Bill waved a greeting to someone across the parking lot.

‘Well, most of them,’ he said. He blew warm air into his cupped hands. ‘Lots of families here though, so of course that can be five or six people for one pup. Basically this crowd falls into one of three categories. First-timers, like you.’ He smiled. ‘Then there are some folks who are getting another puppy after a sabbatical from raising. Like Jeannie Marris, although I’m actually picking up her pup for her today. This will be her sixth or seventh dog she’s raised.’ His voice lowered just a fraction. ‘Then the last group is here to return the dog they’ve raised for the last year or so.’

They were easy to spot; they were the ones with full-grown – and remarkably well-behaved – green-jacketed dogs. These people stood on the edges of the group and in almost constant physical contact with their dogs.

‘A few of these,’ Bill said, ‘will get another puppy right away. Today, even. Most will wait a while, though. They need to grieve the loss before starting again.’ He pointed to a snow-covered picnic table under a big cottonwood. There, a boy, maybe sixteen, his face covered in acne, sat on the bench, bending over a large black Lab. His hands stroked either side of the dog’s big, square face. I could see the tears on the boy’s rough cheeks. He lowered his head, burying his face in his dog’s scruff, his arms wrapped around its rib cage. The boy’s shoulders began heaving. I had to look away.

I wasn’t sure if it was the cold or emotion making me shake. This was an uncomfortably mixed group. Half were in mourning, spending the last few precious moments with their dogs, the other half waiting expectantly, joy mixed with a bit of trepidation, as they were about to be presented with a new and darling baby. It was as if the hospital had placed the morgue in the same room as the maternity ward.

Though I was part of the latter group, I was compelled to watch the former, knowing that that would be me in a year. The teen boy was now kneeling on the ground, in the snow, his Lab eagerly licking the tears off his scarred cheeks. A smile slipped over the boy’s face, his chin up, head turning left then right, tanning evenly in the rays of canine love.

The roar of an engine gearing down suddenly turned the group’s attention, en masse, to the street. A white motor home with a green K-9 Eyes logo was rumbling toward us. I glanced at the 7-Eleven – still no sign of Lainey and Matt.

Expectant silence fell over the group as we watched the truck slow, then turn in to the lot. A little girl in the crowd began to clap her mittened hands, jumping with excitement. My stomach was doing a similar move. As the vehicle parked, I stole a glance at the boy. He had his arms possessively around the Lab’s neck, his head on the other side of the dog, shielding himself from the view of the motor home.

The door opened, a cheery woman of about sixty emerged, standing on the high step of the motor home. ‘Hey, ya’ll!’ She waved her arm over her head, her apple cheeks pushing up into her sparkling eyes. She was small, but strong and sturdy-looking, her short, curly blonde hair liberally sprinkled with gray. ‘Come on, everyone, scooch in! We’ll keep each other warm! And that way I won’t have to shout,’ she yelled in a voice that could carry halfway to Nebraska. As most of the crowd compressed toward her obediently, I got the feeling even the biggest male German shepherd wouldn’t mess with this woman. I also got the feeling that same dog would adore her.

‘I’m Josie!’ She nodded around to the group. ‘I know you folks are anxious to get going, so here’s how we’re gonna do this. We’ll start with the pups, then collect the big guys. When I call your name, step right up, take your pup and papers, then clear right out, please.’ She grinned, and disappeared into the truck.

I scanned again for Matt and Lainey. They were probably looking at magazines.

‘I think I should go get my kids,’ I said, turning.

Bill put a hand lightly on my sleeve. ‘No, you need to stay here, in case you’re called. They’re big kids. They’ll keep an eye out.’ But I doubted they would. They would expect me to let them know that the truck had arrived.

Josie emerged again, this time carrying a sleepy-looking yellow Lab puppy. My heart raced. Matt and Lainey were on their own. This might be my dog!

Bill had assured me that many people requested a specific breed or gender for all kinds of reasons. K-9 Eyes tried to meet the requests, although it was never guaranteed. I suspected he knew my request was based on housekeeping; the yellow hair wouldn’t show as much on my tan tile and oak floors. I hoped he hadn’t guessed that I’d requested a spayed female because I figured she and I would have something in common right from the start.

‘Covington!’ Josie called out. Okay. Not me. I let out a shaky breath, unaware that I’d had it trapped in my lungs. A couple about my age stepped forward, the man receiving the puppy. ‘This is Amaranth,’ said Josie. ‘Here’s your packet.’ The man and woman burst out laughing, but immediately headed back through the crowd, the woman linking arms with her husband and stroking the puppy’s head.

Amaranth? What a name for a little pup. Or even a dog. I knew the puppies arrived with names and the names must be honored, but … Amaranth?

‘Marris?’ This time she stood on the step holding a German shepherd puppy that appeared to be two-thirds ears. ‘He looks like a little donkey,’ I whispered to Bill, and we both laughed quietly. The pup gazed at the crowd, more than a little fear evident in his sweet, brown eyes. No one was stepping up to claim him, and I felt myself leaning forward, wanting to gather him up in my arms and reassure him.

‘Marris?’ Josie repeated, even louder.

‘Oh! Golly! That’s me!’ said Bill, lightly touching his forehead and striding to the front. He called to Josie, ‘I’m picking up the pup for Jeannie Marris. She’s at her niece’s wedding this weekend.’

‘Hey, Bill! How are ya?’ said Josie. ‘Say hey to Jeannie for me. This is Donald.’

I lifted my purse in front of my face and giggled into the leather wall. Donald. Donnie. It just sounded too much like donkey. But once that shepherd grew, I figured no one would laugh at his name. Or his ears.

I looked over my shoulder. Still no sign of Matt and Lainey.

‘Munger?’

My heart banged into my sternum. I spun back around. Bill was working his way through the crowd, grinning at me. Josie was standing on the step, searching the crowd. In her arms was a perfect, petite yellow Lab pup, her soft eyes barely open in the bright sun, the tip of her tiny perfect tail poking out from under Josie’s elbow.

‘Munger! Listen up, people!’

‘Me! Here!’ I called, raising my huge purse above my head. I quickly pulled it back down, feeling the red fill my face. This is not an auction, Deena! I slung my purse back over my shoulder and worked my way through the smiling, parting crowd.

I stood in front of her, my heart still pounding, but at the same time some sort of rigor mortis setting up in me. Josie slipped the warm ball into my stiff but cradling arms. ‘This is Heloise. Here’s your packet.’ She tucked it firmly under my arm, and I struggled to hold puppy, purse, and packet.

Time stopped as I gazed into the puppy’s shining brown eyes. Her tan eyebrows lifted, her small forehead wrinkling skin that was at least a size too big for her face. Her perfect triangular ears lifted too as she gazed up at me. Her eyes were rimmed in thick black – like puppy eyeliner. I put my cheek against her head, so soft and warm. She licked my chin eagerly, her sweet puppy breath filling my senses. If this were a movie, I thought, this is where everything would go into slow motion and a symphony would swell and crescendo. Then the camera would pull in tight on my face, then tight on—

Werrrrittt! The needle pulled across the record in my mind.

Did she say Heloise? I looked at the writing on the top of my packet protruding from under my arm. Munger/Heloise.

That was a name for a Holstein, not a dog. I’m goin’ out to milk Heloise, Pa!

‘Step back, please,’ said Josie firmly, but not unkindly. She smiled at what must have been a slightly stupefied expression on my face. I turned and merged back into the crowd. I searched for Bill, and found him leaning against his car. And hurrying across the street were Matt and Lainey, each with a cup of cocoa in one hand and a magazine in the other. The packet was slipping out from under my arm. Despite the temperature, sweat was running into my eyes.

I started walking across the large parking lot to meet the kids halfway, but turned, instead walking in Bill’s direction. I glanced back; the kids looked momentarily stunned, then they too veered toward Bill’s car.

He was smiling at me. I could feel an absurdly large grin on my own face. Bill was holding Donald in the crook of one arm, rubbing a knuckle behind one of his huge ears. I deeply inhaled and exhaled, again not realizing I’d been holding my breath. If I was going to succeed at this, or even survive it, I’d better learn to breathe. I looked at my furry baby, held securely in my down coat arms, lowered my face to hers, and again breathed in her sweet puppy scent. Heloise. Now that I thought about it, it was a lovely name.

‘Mom! Why didn’t you come get us?’ Lainey demanded, breaking into my puppy reverie.

I saw Bill study her, then glance at me.

‘Well, honey, they called my name. Look, this is Heloise.’ I pronounced the name carefully, Hell-oh-wheeze.

‘Heloise? That’s a weird name for a dog!’ said Lainey, sticking her comic book under her arm and scratching Heloise behind the ear. Heloise immediately mouthed her finger, and she laughed. ‘She’s cute! Can we call her Harmony?’

‘Don’t let her mouth your finger like that, okay, sweetheart?’ Bill said pleasantly.

Lainey looked taken aback but didn’t move her finger. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’

‘That’s not the point,’ said Bill, gently pulling her arm away from me and Heloise. ‘These pups need to learn right from the start not to be mouthy with people.’

Lainey looked sideways at Matt, but said nothing more.

Bill turned to me. ‘Do you want to head home or stay? They’ve started the recalls.’ He nodded toward the truck.

I watched, transfixed, as the acned teen again knelt by his dog, now next to the truck. Josie waited quietly nearby, no longer in a hurry, giving them time. The boy grasped his dog’s head and shoulders in a last tremulous embrace.

‘Let’s go,’ I said, the tears welling in my eyes.

We gave the puppies a chance to pee, which they both took advantage of. Bill opened the back of his ancient station wagon, revealing two small crates for the dogs. The crates were on top of a platform box, built onto the floor of the back of his wagon. He lifted a thin, hinged door and stowed the leashes and paperwork inside. Matt and Lainey climbed into the backseat and traded magazines.

Bill tucked Donald expertly into one small crate, looked at me expectantly, then to the other crate.

‘Do I have to put her in there?’ I asked, clutching her to my breast. Bill nodded. I somewhat clumsily set the squirming Heloise into the crate. Bill quickly latched it before she could get her gangly feet under her and sprint out. She immediately started whining. I looked at Bill, my lower lip out. This time Bill shook his head, smiling.

‘Nope. She’s safer back here.’ He turned both crates around, so we’d be able to see the dogs through the silver bars of their little prisons on the trip home. ‘Okey-doke, troopers,’ he said, closing the wagon door on Heloise’s whimpering.

We pulled out onto the street, and when Bill shifted into second, Heloise geared right up, too, adding sorrowful little yips to her whines. I’d read in a women’s magazine about results from a study that showed that a baby crying in a public place would raise the blood pressure of nearly all women within earshot, but if the woman was a mother, her pressure soared. Evidently my maternal instincts covered even young canines. The need to rescue surged in my bloodstream. I thought of the teen boy, wondering if he’d finished his good-bye to his dog yet. Wondering what he’d do the rest of today. Tomorrow. The next day.

My two teens in the backseat had already said goodbye, as in checked out. They both wore their headphones, the volume high enough to drown Heloise out and for me to hear the bass pulsing through on their different choices of music. I wondered if they’d have any hearing at all by the time they were my age.

I looked out my window, watching the strip malls whiz by. When we stopped at a red light, my eyes landed on a young mother walking along the sidewalk, a baby on her chest in a carrier. Then the light changed and they flew behind us, along with the donut shops and dry cleaners. I had to blink back sudden tears. Heloise switched to moaning. My eyes became unseeing, as colors, shapes, and years flew by.

The thing I remember most is clenching newborn Sam, still waxy and bloody from birth, to my chest. And I acutely remember them taking him away from me. Repeatedly. First they’d taken him from me to clean him up, weigh him, and who knows what. I felt like they’d pulled some vital body part out of me and disappeared with it. Which, of course, they had. Then they took him again ‘to let me sleep.’ But even with drugs, sleep eluded me. I pressed the buzzer and pleaded for my baby, till finally they’d wheeled him in in a Plexiglas bassinette, like my disembodied heart beating in a petri dish beside me. I longed to hold him, but I was too exhausted and in pain, and the nurse would not lift him out for me.

‘You need your sleep, doll,’ she’d said. ‘He’s fine in there.’ I was more assertive with Matt and then Lainey, often sleeping with them in my arms. I’ll never know if I would have slept if I had been able to hold Sam, but as it was, I spent all the dark hours of that newborn night with my neck bent toward him, watching him watching me. I never closed my eyes, much less slept. Nor did he. I lay in the dual company of my wakeful but quiet baby and the unshakable thought that I was doing something wrong before he was even a day old.

‘Yowww, yip, yip!’ Heloise’s mournful cries filled the car.

‘She’s a noisy girl, that one,’ said Bill, his eyebrows raised above his crinkling eyes and warm smile. But it was his hands, lightly gripping the steering wheel, where my gaze lingered. Long, rectangular backs, not too hairy; slender, strong fingers with clean square nails. I’d always been fascinated with hands. I’d fallen in love with Neil’s hands, when we’d first met. And Neil had loved my hands, too. ‘Strong but feminine,’ he’d said, on our third date, holding both of mine in both of his between two mugs of coffee at a Denny’s after a movie. ‘If I could have looked only at your hands to decide if I wanted to date you, the answer would have been yes,’ he’d said, then added softly, ‘and I would have been ecstatic when I saw all of you.’ Then he’d blushed apple red. I’d laughed, but my internal romance-o-meter just about blew off the dial.

I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed that I’d even made a mental comparison between Bill and Neil. ‘She’s scared, I bet,’ I said, quickly responding to his comment about Heloise. I looked over my shoulder at the crates, self-consciously tucking my hair behind my ear. ‘It’s okay, girl,’ I cooed across the backseat. ‘It’s okay. There, there.’

Both Lainey and Matt pulled up one earpiece of their headphones.

‘What?’ they both asked.

‘I’m talking to Heloise.’ I pointed over their shoulders. They both slid their pulsing headphones back over their ears.

Heloise was looking right at me. ‘It’s okay, girl,’ I repeated, turning back around.

Who was I kidding? It wasn’t okay. She’d been taken from her mother and now was in my care, and surely even her young, unrefined dog sense told her of my lack of experience, that my need for escape from my own existence had landed me in this canine terra incognita.

I looked back again, careful to avoid eye contact with Matt and Lainey, and through the door of the other crate I could see little Donald, lying quietly on his side, gazing toward me, his expression for all the world looking the dog equivalent of embarrassed exasperation. He seemed to be thinking, Girls! Or maybe it was Labs!

I was starting to feel carsick from looking backward. Twisting forward once again, I told Bill, ‘Donald seems to be doing fine.’

‘You know, Deena,’ Bill said, ‘Heloise might be picking up on your anxiety. They’re like kids that way. They instinctively tune in to whatever you’re feeling.’ He shot an encouraging smile my way.

It was like he’d read my thoughts a moment ago. I’d often wondered if it was I who had kept Sam awake that night, and for many nights after, bathing him in my anxiety. It was an indisputable fact to me that I instilled fear more often than courage in my kids. They were always fine after they’d fallen if Neil was on the scene. But the moment I dashed over to their crumpled bodies on the sidewalk, the tears began. Too often, theirs and mine.

‘So what should I do?’

‘Just talk to me. Try to forget they’re back there.’

Easier said than done with Heloise playing every part of The Backseat Opera. Plus, I didn’t know how to talk to men. I didn’t even talk to my husband anymore.

‘So, too bad about the Nuggets, eh?’ Oh, that was bright, Deena! I hated sports. I had just stated my sum total knowledge about Denver’s basketball team. Last night while chopping green pepper for the salad, I had overheard the television Matt was watching in the living room. The Nuggets had lost every road game and all but one at home this season. Even I knew that was bad.

‘Uh, I don’t really follow sports too much, Deena.’

I smiled with relief. ‘Me either, actually.’ I bit my lip, thinking, as Bill merged onto the interstate. Kids! ‘Tell me about your kids, Bill.’ Parenting was a subject I could converse in. Or at least commiserate in. On the drive down, he’d obliquely mentioned having kids, so I knew we had that in common. Heloise had switched to barking now. I couldn’t help but smile, thinking that this little puppy was using ambulance logic, switching from siren wails to horn blasts to get people’s attention.

‘Oldest is twenty-eight and working for a high-tech firm in Denver.’ He spoke calmly, but just over Heloise’s volume. ‘Next is twenty-six and in grad school. Next is twenty-four and in seminary. Youngest is fourteen and getting an advanced degree in hormones.’ Bill chuckled, darting driver’s glances at me. He must have read my face, revealing active calculation occurring in my brain. Numbers are not my strong suit, so it pretty much always looks like I’m chewing on a lemon rind when I do mental math.

‘Yeah, there’s a big jump there,’ he said, nodding and smiling. ‘My wife, now ex, went through a kind of withdrawal and, to be honest, it was kind of a last-ditch attempt to save our marriage. Glad we had Macie though. She’s a pistol, but a lot of fun. She has strong opinions on everything and lets you know ’em. But she’s been the most hands-on with the pups.’

I stared at this charming, handsome man next to me. This charming, handsome divorced man. Clearly after many years of marriage. I suddenly jerked upright, realizing I was twisting my wedding ring again, a nervous habit I’d had for the over two decades I’d worn it. But now a rush of guilt made me clasp my hands tightly in my lap for the remainder of the drive home.

SEVEN

Holding the surprisingly heavy and wobbling crate, I smiled weakly as Bill backed out of my driveway.

‘Okay, Heloise, we’re on our own,’ I told her. Matt and Lainey had already dashed inside, the door slamming behind them.

I hauled the crate into the kitchen, trying hard not to bump against the doorframe or swing her around too much. But she was standing, or trying to, inside the crate, which made her boat rock even more. Finally, I set the crate down on the tile floor.

‘Let’s let her out!’ said Matt, his workout bag over his shoulder.

‘Are you going to the rec center?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Are you going to let her out?’

Lainey arrived, saw Matt’s bag, and said, ‘Wait for me, Matt. I want to go too.’ She ran upstairs.

‘Mom?’ said Matt. I looked at him. ‘The dog?’

‘Uhh, I think I’ll wait,’ I said, as Lainey came thunking down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘Let her get used to the place a bit first from in there.’ I glanced around for Hairy.

Lainey pulled on her brother’s sleeve, her gym bag in her other hand. ‘Let’s go, Matt. We wasted the whole day getting the stupid dog and now she’s just going to sit in the stupid box.’ They left together, leaving the wooden door open, the storm door closing behind them.

‘Be home for dinner,’ I shouted behind them, closing the door and returning to the kitchen. I squatted in front of the crate. ‘Hello, little girl. Welcome home.’ Inside, Heloise cocked her head. We both were motionless for a minute, the silence washing over us like a tonic. Heloise wasn’t barking or yipping or even whining.

I sat at the desk and looked at her packet of information. Forms for vet visits, and monthly reports, heartworm tablets, and a dozen or more information sheets that I shuffled through without really reading. Finally I found something interesting, Personal Information Sheet for ____. Heloise was handwritten in the blank.

Her parents’ names were Kaylor and Raspberry, also handwritten in blanks. I scanned down the page till I found what I was interested in. Heloise’s birthday was January 19, a little over a month after mine. I looked at the calendar on the wall and counted. She was ten weeks old.

Heloise whimpered. Still seeing nothing of Hairy, I figured he was snoozing in the sun somewhere. Heloise barked. ‘Hush now, girl.’ I squatted in front of the crate again and this time her whole body started wagging. ‘Way-aait. Way-aait.’ As I pinched open the metal grid door, Heloise shot out like a pea from a shooter, straight for me. I realized, too late, that if I’d been kneeling she wouldn’t have knocked me over so easily. I looked like a ready-to-be-roped calf, my legs in the air, Heloise standing on my chest, licking me under the chin. I giggled like a schoolgirl as she covered my face with her sweet puppy breath and wet kisses.

‘Okay, girl, that’s enough,’ I gasped. I remembered Bill mentioning at one of the meetings that these dogs were bred to be very bold and confident and we weren’t supposed to let them jump up on us or be out of control. So much for that one. But she was so cute!

‘C’mon, girl.’ I sat up and lifted her above me, kissing her round belly. I guessed she weighed about the same as two small bags of flour, roughly ten pounds. I set her on the floor and heaved myself onto my feet. This would have been easier twenty years and thirty pounds ago. Heloise abruptly sat and chewed an itch on her haunches. Then she was still, legs splayed in a decidedly unladylike posture. She looked up at me, her liquid-chocolate eyes shouting, ‘That was fun! What’s next?’

‘Here, girl.’ I walked across the kitchen, calling. ‘Here, Heloise! Come!’ She sat for a moment, looking like she was expecting another roll on the floor and would wait, thank you, for that.

‘Here, girl, c’mon!’ I cajoled, slapping my jeans.

She cocked her head briefly, then bounded over to me, her tail a waving flag of anticipation and delight.

‘Good girl!’ I said, patting her side.

‘Hey, girl, look here.’ I showed her the water bowl. I’d set it on a flowered plastic tray to try to contain some of the splatter I knew was inevitable. She lapped some water with gusto, her whole body participating in looping her tongue under the water then flipping it up into her mouth. Finally she stepped back, dripping like a moose, dribbling water in a neat line outside the tray. I grabbed a paper towel and started to wipe it up, but Heloise immediately began biting at the paper. Still squatting, I scooped her up under my arm and wiped the water with the other hand as she squirmed. Suddenly a very bizarre sound filled the kitchen. Heloise and I both froze, my hand still on the paper towel, motionless on the floor. A low, guttural yowl, like a tremulous violin note in a suspense thriller, emanated from behind us. From her trapped position under my arm, Heloise twisted her head around my elbow to look behind us. Still squatting, I turned and looked, too. Hairy stood in the doorway of the kitchen, his excessive fur looking more excessive than ever.

His eyes were locked on the now-writhing yellow mass under my arm. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the hair around the cat’s neck swelled, making him look even more of a puffball than ever. Another low, meowing growl issued from deep within him. I understood him perfectly: What–the–hell–is–that?

Heloise, for her part, was anxious to meet her new playmate. Either she wasn’t naturally aware of what raised hackles meant, or she was too dumb to care, or she was certain her charm and exuberance would win him over. I suspected the latter. How could she know that Hairy was not only unimpressed by charm and exuberance, but that he actually held those qualities in contempt? But Heloise was more than willing to have a go. If I hadn’t dropped the paper towel and grabbed her with both hands, she would have squirmed out and made a dash for Hairy, who had now upped his warning to hissing and his sirenlike intruder alert, usually reserved for moths and crickets in the house.

‘Okay, guys,’ I said, my voice some weird mix of amusement and dread. ‘Hairy, meet Heloise. Heloise, Hairy.’ I got a firm grip on the puppy and put her in Hairy’s direct line of sight, but held her tightly. He hissed again. Heloise squirmed wildly in an effort to get to him. Bill had said to proceed slowly with the introduction and trust my instincts. My instincts made me fear for Heloise’s safety. I didn’t want her to get a claw in the eye, although I had taken Hairy to the groomer for a nail trim just two days earlier in preparation for our new arrival. But I also wanted Hairy to learn where his escape routes and safe hiding places were. And I wanted him to know he might have to run. I didn’t know if he even knew how to run.

I put Heloise back into my one-armed football hold and carried her across the kitchen. Hairy’s fine white fur was now perpendicular to his body, and he arched menacingly. The arching surprised me. I’d thought his stomach too big to lift. But he was actually kind of graceful in this modern dance of warning. Still fully arched, he pivoted slowly in place as we passed into the living room, a radar tracking the enemy. I slowly lowered Heloise toward the wood floor, still clutching her vibrating torso.

‘Get ready, Hairy!’ I called. Hairy had moved to the middle of the kitchen. His hair was beginning to relax and his back was no longer arched. Oh, dear. I could tell from his superior expression that he assumed I had fulfilled my duty and removed the offensive material from his kitchen. Little did he know that offensive material would be residing with us for over a year.

‘Okay, calmly, dear,’ I told Heloise, for all the good that would do as I let her paws touch the floor. My hands still on her sides, her little legs immediately began churning under her. I held tight. Heloise squirmed and flailed, desperate to be released. Hairy’s fur immediately engorged again. He looked like a furry blowfish. I let go of Heloise very slowly. For a few seconds, her slipping paws against the polished wood floor took her nowhere. Hairy watched her, a look of confused amazement on his face as he viewed her spastic ballet. Then he discerned that Heloise was, in fact, making slow but sure progress toward him. As she hit the tile floor of the kitchen, and traction, Hairy flicked his tail, and in three decidedly graceful moves for a fellow of his girth, jumped from floor to chair, chair to desk, desk to counter. Heloise was still a churning ball of slobber, headed in his general direction, so he continued his upward ascent, now in a not so easy jump and clamber, nails clawing on metal, to the top of the refrigerator.

His sides heaving with the exertion, he assumed a vulture pose, staring down at the yipping and leaping Heloise. Because he’s a Persian, and because Persians have no nose to speak of, Hairy always had a sort of angry, disdainful look, but this was indignation of the highest order. As far as I knew, Hairy had never been on top of the refrigerator in his life. He’d never had to be. He ruled the roost just fine from the floor and furniture.

I did feel kind of sorry for him. There didn’t seem to be anything for it but to let them do their thing. But Hairy hadn’t had that much exercise since … well, ever. He was the most sedentary of cats. Jabba the Hutt comes to mind. But my lack of affection for Hairy didn’t rule out a modicum of compassion for the poor, wheezing cat. His life was now unalterably changed. He and Heloise would have to work it out. Or Hairy would be spending the year atop Mt. Kenmore.

I grabbed Heloise, clipped on her leash, and headed for the backyard, leaving Hairy to recover his pulse and dignity. I slipped on the boots that I’d shed in the mudroom, opened the door, and Heloise immediately forgot about Hairy as she pulled me, lurching down our two back steps, into the backyard.

‘Oh, how fabulous!’ she screamed in body language, her ten pounds pulling with the strength of a small tractor. ‘We have a backyard!!’ The sun was now shining and much of the snow was melting. From what remained, I cleared an area with my boot, and, nose to the ground, Heloise spent a minute sniffing the wet grass. Finally she squatted, and, as instructed by the manual, at that very moment I began exuberantly giving the command to eliminate. ‘Do your business! Do your business, Heloise! Do your business! Yay! Good girl!’ As she peed, she stared dubiously over her shoulder at the lady cheering her urinary success. When she finished, I began what Bill said was the most effective training device: praising.

‘Good girl!! What a good girl!! Good girl, Heloise!’ I went on and on as she wagged happily into my arms.

Well! Look at that. She was already on her way to being housebroken. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

EIGHT

It was a short honeymoon. Heloise slept for about an hour, allowing me to make dinner, but then it declined from there. I’d pulled out the old baby gate, so she was confined to the kitchen, but she’d peed on the tile floor not once, not twice, but four times before bedtime. She’d also demonstrated an endless appetite for chewing: fingers, clothing, Lainey’s and my hair, shoelaces, her crate, the desk chair legs, the cat – although he was learning to stay just out of her reach. Neil and the kids had played with Heloise a bit right after dinner, but between my anxiety about how we should play with her, and her propensity to relieve herself at inopportune moments, all three decided she was too much trouble and were downstairs watching TV before her second pee. Finally, at about nine, she collapsed in fatigue, and I’d carried her up to her crate in our bedroom. Then I, too, collapsed into bed.

Now it seemed I’d slept mere moments and she was whining. Again. I hadn’t even gotten back to sleep from the last time she’d woken me. Us. I couldn’t help but wonder if the person who’d made the requirement that the puppies sleep in the bedroom of the raiser was in fact a puppy raiser himself. I fumbled for the small alarm clock by my bed: 1:49. A.M. She hadn’t even made it an hour. She’d woken twice already, once around eleven thirty, and again shortly after one a.m. I’d taken her out to the front lawn, into the cold night, both times. The first time she’d peed; the second she’d just chewed on a stick.

Neil groaned angrily, wrapped the pillow over his head and rolled over. Heloise started barking. I stumbled out of bed, felt my way across our dark bedroom to her crate, making shushing noises. Before I could open the door, Neil sat up in bed. ‘Deena! Shut the damn dog up! I’ve got patients in the morning!’

All I could think was, You sure don’t have patience at night. But I said nothing.

‘Put it in the basement.’

‘I can’t. She’s supposed to be with me.’

‘Then put it in Sam’s room and sleep in there.’

‘Fine,’ I said, kneeling by the crate.

‘Fine,’ he said, then grunted, pulling the covers over his head.

When I opened the door to her crate, Heloise was in my arms in a single leap, all wags and licks, delighted at my touch. But I was aching with fatigue, and her charming ways were losing their appeal as the night wore on.

‘It’s okay, girl,’ I whispered. After my interview, Bill had brought over an extra crate for Heloise to sleep in so I wouldn’t have to carry one up and down my stairs each night and morning. He’d also told me that the puppies could usually make it through the night by the time they were twelve weeks old or so. I had a minimum of two more weeks of this. I wearily rubbed the back of my neck with one hand. But, weary or not, I had to take her out again, just in case. As I rose, Heloise in my arms, my knee banged into the corner of the metal door, slamming it with a clang. Still gripping Heloise in one arm, I grabbed my knee with my other hand, holding my breath in a silent scream of pain, trying to balance on one foot with a puppy in my arms. My balance wasn’t up to the task, and I took several hopping steps, banging my shoulder into the wall. ‘Shit!’ I whispered loudly. Neil groaned again under the covers.

With Heloise chewing on the sleeve of my pajamas, I leaned against the wall till I could breathe. I looked at Neil in our bed, in a cocoon of covers, already using the whole bed, his legs forming a long L across my side. I tucked Heloise back into the crate, closing the door. I quickly lifted it by its carrying handle and walked out of the bedroom.

I paused in the hall at Lainey’s room, her door open to let Hairy come and go. Her old fairy nightlight that she still loved, but hid when she had a friend over, cast just enough glow to see that she was on her side, face resting peacefully on just the lower corner of her pillow. Hairy was contentedly sprawled across the rest of it. I tiptoed on. Matt’s door was shut.

At the end of the hall, I stopped at Sam’s door. I’d kept it pretty much closed since he’d left, entering only to dust and sigh. I held Heloise tight with my arm and turned the knob with my free hand. The door opened with a small creak. The single wedge of light from the hall made the trophies, team pictures, and memorabilia on the shelves look somehow historic.

Heloise started squirming, so I stepped in and set her crate under Sam’s desk, next to the twin bed. Before she could start up again, I grabbed her leash and we headed downstairs, and out into the night. Again.

It was colder than even an hour ago, but this sky seemed to be yielding up a second layer of stars. I snapped on her leash, set her on the lawn, shivering in just my flannel pj’s and Matt’s boots, praying for her to quickly do her business. I’d only read chapter one in the manual, overwhelmed by the many rules, not the least of which was that the puppies were always supposed to be on their leash when eliminating. Heloise looked up at me, wagged her tail, and began sniffing the grass. Good girl. But she soon found a small stick and plopped down with it, the ends protruding from either side of her mouth. It pushed her lips up in the back, giving her a toothy grin. I sighed. She didn’t have to pee. She needed a puppy cigarette break. I was in no mood to enable her habit. I pulled the stick from her mouth and carried her back upstairs. At the top, I started to turn right, to the master bedroom, remembered, turned again, and carried her into Sam’s room. I tucked her into her crate and closed the door. Immediately she began to whine.

‘Shhh, Heloise!’ I whispered. I stuck my finger through the silver squares and she mouthed it. I withdrew. Sitting, she pointed her little snout up toward the ceiling of her crate, barked twice, then twice more.

‘Shh!’ I whispered with more urgency. Heloise stood, wagged her tail and barked again.

‘Mah-amm! Shut the dang dog up!’ Lainey yelled from her bedroom, her voice cracking with sleep and anger. I opened the crate again and took Heloise out, just as the door to Sam’s room opened. I turned, startled. Matt stood in the doorway, wearing only his pajama bottoms, his broadening chest incongruous with the little-boy knuckle rub he was giving his eyes.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘I don’t know, honey. I guess she misses her mom.’

He nodded sleepily.

‘Everything’s okay, honey. Go back to bed.’ Matt shuffled back into his room. I waited, breathing only when I heard his bed creak.

‘Are you too young to have left your mother?’ I whispered, kissing Heloise’s soft ear. I left her on the floor and moved to Sam’s desk, did a little figuring with a pencil, but couldn’t get the seven-years-to-one ratio to work out in weeks. But it seemed like she was comparable, developmentally, to a human one-year-old, mobile, exploring the world with her mouth.

A one-year-old taken from her mother?

That didn’t seem right! I turned in my chair and reached for her. There was no Heloise. Panicked, I peered under the desk, in her crate, calling her name in an urgent whisper, ‘Heloise! Hell-oh-wheeze!’ I scanned the room and realized Matt had left the door open. The stairs! I stepped into the hall, terrified I’d see her crumpled little body at the bottom. But there she was, safe and sound, not at the bottom, but at the top, just finishing up a nice little pee.

Heloise woke me again at six forty. I’d finally drifted off in Sam’s bed sometime around three, after locating the carpet foam and working on her pee spot. Still, I managed to spring out of bed when she started whining, not wanting her to wake the household again. Holding her in my arms, I stepped around the spot, which I’d marked with three of Sam’s old summer league swimming trophies as stanchions, positioned equidistantly around the circle. The gold figurines, each bent at the waist, hands behind them, looked ready to dive into the pee spot.

Downstairs, I clicked on Heloise’s leash, quickly slipping my feet into Matt’s boots again. We stepped outside. It was no warmer out, despite the rosy eastern horizon. Finally she lowered her haunches, and I sleepily told her to do her business, praising her as she did. When she finished, I lifted her under her front armpits, her little body hanging below so any little drips could air-dry as I carried her into the house.

In the kitchen, I scooped two cups of puppy chow into her stainless steel bowl on the counter, as she manically jumped at my legs and against the cabinets. ‘No, Heloise. Down.’ Damn. Chapter one said not to say ‘No’ or ‘Down.’ Down was solely for lying down. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say instead of ‘No,’ and frankly, ‘No!’ pretty much covered my feelings on the matter.

I’d gotten her too soon. I hadn’t studied enough. I was in over my head. There was a puppy meeting that night, but the day stretched out miserably between then and now. Already my body ached with lack of sleep.

I grabbed Heloise under one arm and put her bowl on the floor. She was flailing wildly, so I positioned her about two feet away. ‘Easy now, girl. Wait. Wait.’ I slowly let go and she shot toward her food, her mouth gulping before it even touched the mound of nuggets.

I stepped to the refrigerator, grabbed the egg carton, thinking my family deserved pancakes this morning, given all of Heloise’s noise last night. But by the time I put the eggs on the counter, Heloise had already finished her breakfast. I looked at the microwave clock. Almost seven. I was behind schedule. The kids would be down for their breakfast any minute.

Think and they shall yell. Right at that moment, Lainey hollered from upstairs, ‘Mom! Why are Sam’s swim trophies on— Ewww! Never mind! I think I know. The dog wee-weed here, didn’t she?!’

‘Just step around it, honey,’ I yelled. It was then I heard the preliminary retching. I spun around. Heloise looked like she was studying one particular square of tile intently, her little rib cage squeezing in and out. Then, in one enormous spasm, up came her breakfast, just as Lainey was walking into the kitchen.

‘Oh, God! Oh, how gross! Oh –my–God!’ She pivoted, her pink puffy slippers scuffing back up the stairs, her complaints continuing to drift down. ‘Oh, gag me, why don’t you! First this, then that. Why did we get a stupid—’ Her bedroom door slammed.

I looked down at Heloise again; she was enthusiastically reconsuming her breakfast. I turned away. I figured she couldn’t be too sick if she was so eagerly eating it again, but I thought I might be sick. I stood at the sink, my hands gripping the counter. I looked out the window at the new day starting as I listened to the happy smacks behind me.

I couldn’t face food. I pulled out several boxes of cereal from the pantry and left them on the counter. The kids would have to fend for themselves this morning. I took Heloise upstairs with me.

Neil was in our bathroom, shower on, door closed. I pulled our bedroom door shut and let Heloise roam. I’d put safety plugs in all the empty sockets and otherwise baby-proofed the bedroom, so I knew she was safe. Plus, she’d peed less than twenty minutes ago. I pulled on my jeans and a sweatshirt. I found my sneakers and was sitting on the edge of the bed tying the second one when Neil emerged from the bathroom in his robe, a towel around his neck.

‘Hey. Where’d you sleep?’

I stared at him, then said, ‘I took Heloise into Sam’s room so she wouldn’t bother you all night. Remember?’

He ran the towel over his ear and wet hair. ‘Not really. Where’s the dog now?’ He said ‘the dog’ like the words were large cotton balls rolling out of his mouth. But he was smiling.

I pointed. ‘She’s right there.’ Heloise was emerging from our small walk-in closet where she’d been exploring. She looked up, saw Neil, and I swear to God she smiled as she ran to him, her wagging rump making her course across the bedroom floor zigzag slightly. She jumped at his ankles, begging for his touch.

‘Hello,’ he said, tentatively reaching down to her. She happily wrapped her teeth around his finger in greeting.

‘Ow!’ He jerked his finger back, straightening.

I dashed over and picked her up. ‘Sorry. She must be teething. I’ll take her into the bathroom with me so you can dress.’

Neil glared, massaging his finger.

Safely in the bathroom, I closed the door. I set her on the damp bath rug, which I immediately had to pull from her mouth. I put it in the tub, and she turned her attention to sniffing the floor. I had just started brushing my teeth when Neil yelled.

‘Jesus H. Christ!’

I opened the door, toothbrush still in my mouth, and saw Neil, white-faced in the closet. His right hand gripped the hanger bar. His robe had come undone; his temper was not far behind. His right ankle was propped against his opposite knee in a kind of sideways flamingo pose. A small, smashed brown pile was on the floor under him. The rest was between his toes. A foul odor filled the room.

‘Oh, Neil! I’m so sorry. I took her out just a few minutes ago. She— I—’

‘Could you get me something to wipe this mess on, please?’ he said evenly, his face now filling with color.

‘Oh! Yes! Sorry.’ Careful to keep Heloise confined, I darted back into the bathroom and emerged with a roll of toilet paper. I unwound a wad and began to pull the mess off his foot. He grabbed it from me, doing the job himself. He dropped the tissue onto the pile and hopped, an angry pogo stick, into the bathroom. I followed him, grabbed Heloise, and retreated. The door slammed behind us and I listened as the tub faucets came on.

I looked at the poop and sighed. This was not turning out to be what I had pictured. I was beginning to wonder what I had pictured. Me and puppy rolling around in a flower-filled meadow. Me and puppy out in the world. Me and puppy creating a whole new life for me. Basically, a TV commercial.

It occurred to me, as I stood holding the contented Heloise in my arms, that any commercial that uses an adorable little puppy to sell their product should be required to also show dog poop oozing through the toes of an angry spouse. And if we’re going for truth in advertising, then ads with cute little babies should also show complicated, remote teenagers. Or the empty bed of a son who left for college and has barely been heard from since.

Everyone should have to tell the ending, if they’re going to lure you with a beginning.

NINE

Neil left for work without another word to me. The kids had also made a hasty departure, walking the six blocks to school. They usually begged me to drive them. I usually did. But this morning, they’d dashed out without a word.

Now it was just me and Heloise. She was sniffing around the kitchen. I was sitting at the desk, staring sightlessly ahead, my hands wrapped gratefully around a mug of coffee. Heloise made her way over to the baby gate I’d put across the entrance to the living room. The other entrance to the kitchen, the front hallway, had a door, which was now securely closed. I’d found out the hard way that Heloise could push open doors if they weren’t fully latched. She’d nosed her way out of our bedroom, and I’d had a few panicked moments looking for her, again worried she might fall down the stairs. I’d found her in the kids’ bathroom, enthusiastically snacking from Hairy’s litter box. If I was to last with this puppy, I was going to have to work on my gag reflex.

I’d put three chew toys on the kitchen floor for her to choose from, but she was too busy exploring. I smiled at her concentration, her whole body involved in reconnaissance. I turned back to my coffee, sipping slowly, needing the gestalt of the coffee – the smell, the warm ceramic in my hands, looking into its quiet blackness – as well as the drug. I raised the mug to my lips, just about to take a sip, when I heard a horrible scraping sound. I spun back around.

‘No, Heloise!’ I pulled her off a cabinet, wincing at the tooth gouges in the wood. I set her in the center of the floor and put the little blue rubber bone in her mouth. She placed one of her big paws over it and began chewing, her teeth squeaking against the rubber. I sank with a thud into the desk chair and took a sip of coffee. I pulled the note pad toward me and began a list of chores for the day: #1 – Vacuum upstairs spots. I’d gotten more trophies, and now little gold swimmers guarded both of Heloise’s spots, each covered with carpet foam.

I’d just put pencil to pad to write another chore, when I heard it again. Gnawing on wood. I spun around. This time she was working on the sink cupboard.

‘Heloise! No – er, stop!’ I tucked her under my arm and dug out the bottle of bitter spray that had come in my starter kit. I sprayed all the cabinets at her level, using almost half the small bottle.

‘Okay. That ought to do it,’ I told her, setting her back down in the middle of the kitchen with her bone.

I added some hot coffee from the pot to my mug, took a sip, then finished my list of chores. When I looked up, Heloise had fallen asleep, on her side, in the middle of the kitchen floor. Her little ear flopped over backward and her toes were twitching. She looked completely innocent and darling. I looked at her and sighed.

I suddenly realized there was no time to waste. Nap time is a mom’s most productive time. I couldn’t vacuum, that would wake her, so I quietly grabbed the dust mop from the closet and stepped over the baby gate. Heloise immediately woke up and rushed to the gate.

‘Oh, baby,’ I said, stepping like a large wading bird over the gate, picking her up and stepping back over again. ‘Why couldn’t you stay asleep?’ She licked my chin. I smiled. ‘Okay, you stay here with me, where I can keep an eye on you.’

I set to dust-mopping, Heloise set to sniffing. I watched her make her way over to the bookcase, trying to wedge herself in the space between it and the wall, but I knew it was too narrow, even for her sinewy little body. I slid the dust mop under my grandmother’s antique desk and pulled out a small wad of fur and dust. I had to admit, however, it appeared to be mostly Hairy’s fur. I got down on my hands and knees for a second pass.

My excavations were interrupted by a screeching meow, followed by Hairy streaking through the living room, hair on end and hotly pursued by a euphoric Heloise. Hairy’s ears were flattened against the back of his head, his tail straight out behind him. Heloise’s ears couldn’t have been any more forward, her tail high.

‘Stop!’ I yelled, crawling bravely into their path, dust mop extended. Hairy, maintaining impressive speed, turned at the dust mop and dashed under the love seat. Heloise had to make a last-minute adjustment and came up short, her paws again slipping out from under her on the wood floor. She slid on her side, with enough momentum to upend the standing lamp. I lunged for it but was too late. The resulting crash sent Heloise scrambling in the other direction, but once she hit the throw rug, she made no progress whatsoever, as it merely bunched up under her. Finally, she jumped off the mound of rug and resumed her tear after the cat, who stupidly shot out from the relative safety under the love seat. The white and tan blurs then careened into the sunroom, with me bringing up the rear, yelling and shaking my dust mop.

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