Gizelle's Bucket List

by Lauren Fern Watt

  “You jump on first, Lauren. Call Gizelle. And I’ll lift her over,” he directed.

  I stepped one foot in, grabbed the lifejacket (pillow for Gizelle), then encouraged her to follow, clapping my hands over the canoe and saying, “Come on, girl!”

  She sniffed the edge and then gave me a puzzled look.

  “C’mooooooooon,” I soothed. She hesitated at first, but then lifted her front paw.

  “Good girl! Keep coming.” I held the canoe steady as Conner rushed to wrap his arms around Gizelle’s fragile second half to hoist her in carefully. She was quick to settle into her place, a curled-up ball on top of my feet. Conner climbed in next, grabbing the paddle and his backpack. At first we stayed close to the dock, just in case she hated it. Conner and I sat facing each other and Gizelle lay between us, looking at me.

  As we slowly paddled across the pond, Gizelle lifted her head and surveyed the horizon, ears forward, eyes focused. I watched her carefully, hoping she was enjoying this, and when her mouth opened to a pant where I could see her teeth and her jowls curved upward in a smile, I knew she was. Conner and I paddled her around the edge of the pond. We looked for beavers and other wildlife, listened to the birds, and watched a few mallards float alongside us. We drifted through a field of pretty water lilies spread across the surface of the pond.

  “See, this is just like that scene from The Notebook,” I imagined Gizelle saying as she propped her head on the side of the canoe, a light wind tickling her jowls.

  “She likes it!” I couldn’t help telling Conner as we cruised back into the middle of the water and pulled the paddles in so we could float wherever the slight current took us.

  I closed my eyes and stretched out my legs, leaning my head back to enjoy the warm sunshine of the late afternoon on my face. Conner cracked open two beers from his backpack. It was quiet, a quiet that couldn’t be found anywhere in New York City, not even in Central Park at night.

  Gizelle rested her head on my thigh and gazed at me. I rested my hand across the back of her ears, stroking softly. Every muscle in me felt calm, like my insides were made of butter. We floated for what seemed like a long time when—

  THWAK! Conner smacked the canoe with the paddle.

  WHAM! He smacked it again, cursing under his breath.

  “What are you doing?” I gasped, as Gizelle pushed into me, scraping her claws against the plastic and trying to stand, which caused the canoe to rock.

  “Spider!” Conner shouted back, lifting his feet to hit the canoe repeatedly like a game of whack-a-mole. “Damn! Missed it! Shit! Missed it again!”

  Gizelle continued scrabbling against the canoe. We rocked heavily from side to side, making waves in the once tranquil pond. Water sloshed in over the canoe’s edge. Beer was spilled.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” I yelled at him, placing my hands over Gizelle so we didn’t have a mastiff overboard. “Swim” was not something I wanted on Gizelle’s Bucket List, and “Rescue limping mastiff from pond” was not something I wanted on mine.

  “You’re freaking out Gizelle!” I screamed. “You’re freaking out Gizelle— Oh! Oh! Oh! SPIDER! Spider, spider, spider. That’s a huge-ass spider! Oh my god. It’s on Gizelle. It’s on Gizelle! Oh my god!”

  The spider had a fat body the size of a walnut, and he was hairy. He skittered across Gizelle’s back. Then he jumped. I grabbed the lifejacket. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I swatted Gizelle softly yet mindlessly—attempting to brush the spider off.

  “I’m sorry, girl! Sorry! Sorry!” I yelled, taking one final swing that ended the poor guy’s life, right there on the wall of our canoe. Conner loosened his grip and wiped beer from his lap. I exhaled. Gizelle looked around. Then resettling herself and relaxing pretty quickly, she rested her chin on my knee and was back again to her smiley pant as though everything was fine. I set down the lifejacket. The spider’s once-scurrying legs were now smashed across the side of the canoe. I felt bad. “Maybe that’s enough canoeing for Gizelle’s Bucket List,” Conner offered. I nodded. I couldn’t stop looking at the spider. Hopefully canoeing with a mastiff was on his bucket list.

  * * *

  A couple of weeks or so later, Rebecca left New York to come up to Camp Kittery for more of Gizelle’s Bucket List adventures. Her mom and dad even drove up from Stow.

  I strolled to the Maine Meat shop in Kittery and picked up a gleaming hunk of beef—a well-marbled slab of grass-fed rib eye with a lovely swath of fat attached. The woman behind the meat counter, who knew Gizelle’s order by now, told me I “couldn’t go wrong with this eighteen ounces of pure heaven.” I hoped she was right about that whole “couldn’t go wrong” thing because unless adding Itso Hot Sauce to takeout ramen or cooking quinoa in a teakettle counted as culinary skills, my kitchen expertise left quite a bit to be desired. The audience gathered in the kitchen as I unwrapped the raw meat from the white paper and told Gizelle this was all for her, not entirely worried anyone else would be fighting over my first rib eye.

  I cranked up the stove. It made a bunch of intimidating clicking sounds before it suddenly lit. I threw a bit of butter in the cast iron, then tossed in the meat. Ssss! The steak sizzled. I waited, then flipped the meat every fifteen or so seconds like one does with a pancake. My first rib eye, for some reason, was looking more like a fast-food hamburger patty than the pretty steaks with argyle char pattern that my dad used to prepare back in Tennessee. The smell of seared meat and fat permeated the kitchen air as Gizelle sat intently, leaning into my leg with her nose touching the kitchen counter, her ears pushed forward, eyes on lock, as if the meat were about to scurry across the pan.

  “Almost ready, girl.” I told her, giving her head a pat, as I turned off the stove and poked the meat with my finger. It seemed to be the right amount of springy. Its outside was brown, with pink peeking through the cracks. “Medium rare okay, girl?” I asked. She didn’t glance away. Yes, medium rare would do nicely.

  I slid the spatula under the meat and tossed it onto a plate. Rebecca rested her chin on my shoulder and peered at my masterpiece. She stared at it for a second and when I looked at her, we both chuckled.

  “Gizelle, she worked wicked hard on that steak, okay?” she said, patting Gizelle’s head.

  “Yeah, Gizelle, this isn’t a steakhouse steak, it’s not Conner’s Michelin-starred leftovers, and it’s not Dad’s, but I worked hard on this. I made it especially for you,” I told her, walking out to the backyard as Gizelle and the rest of our new family followed.

  I stood barefoot in the grass with the plate out in front of me like a tray, realizing we hadn’t decided whether we should cut the meat up and feed it to Gizelle in bites or give it to her whole. We went back and forth, but then we imagined Gizelle in the backyard thrashing the full piece of meat in her mouth, ripping it apart piece by piece, savoring its juiciness as if it were a wild animal dangling from her massive jaws. Let’s give it to her whole. The audience stood and held iPhones and cameras in front of their faces. I dangled the eighteen-ounce rib eye over Gizelle’s head as she opened her mouth, her brown eyes so wide the whites peeked out.

  “Okay, girl!” I beamed. “Here it comes . . .” I released the meat from my fingers, and like a pebble dropping into a well, the steak disappeared. Gizelle swallowed it like a Tylenol, without one chew. We stood in silence for a moment, and then Gizelle’s audience slowly lowered their cameras. Rebecca tilted her head curiously, squinting at Gizelle. I imagined the steak floating in her tummy like an inner tube down a winding river. Gizelle looked up at us with concerned, eager eyes, as if to say, “Can I have another bite?”

  14

  The Leaves Turn

  “What are these orange blob things, Lauren?

  Should we be concerned?”

  Contrary to the vet’s prognosis—that Gizelle might not make it to the fall, it was October and she was still enjoying life. I found it hard to believe that last Halloween I was researching costume ideas thinking, We’ll show those lobster Chihuahuas who’s boss.
And now it was Halloween season again, and I was researching more ideas for a Bucket List, trying to show cancer who was boss, grateful Gizelle was still here at all.

  “Make Gizelle the firehouse dog for the day!” one friend suggested. Sirens? Burly men in big hats? Fast, unpredictable trucks? Let’s not put Gizelle’s worst nightmare on her bucket list.

  “What about Doga? It’s yoga you do with your dog.” Oh! But what kind of poses?

  “Take her to the little-dog park—let her be her true self for the day.” We’d tried that once. Those Chihuahuas were pissed.

  “Skydive?” Ummm . . . as much as I would like to give Gizelle the ultimate head-out-the-window experience . . . No.

  “Grill a steak?” Check!

  “Netflix night?” Check!

  “Share pasta like Lady and the Tramp! . . . Have a dance party! . . . Find G a boy!” Check, check, check!

  Then I received a text from Dad.

  “See fall foliage with Grandpa? LOL Dad”

  Dad had still not figured out the meaning of “LOL,” but his feelings about Gizelle had come a long way since she was “that big puppy” and just another enormous reminder of Mom’s lax parenting. Even though I wasn’t entirely sure his motives were all Gizelle, given that he hadn’t visited me in a while, and Gizelle was colorblind and therefore didn’t see reds and yellows as we did, I couldn’t agree more. Watching the leaves change sounded like the perfect addition to Gizelle’s Bucket List. So Dad booked a flight from Nashville to New York and soon we were driving up the coast of Maine away from Camp Kittery with Gizelle in the backseat.

  Mom and Dad were officially divorced by now, which was more of a relief than anything else for me. I’d never seen my parents happy or laughing or lounging on the couch together in front of a movie as I saw my friends’ parents doing. I knew my mother and father didn’t get along. “Can’t you just divorce her?” I’d bluntly ask my dad in college, whenever Mom was acting up again. He’d always tell me it was more complicated than that. Then he’d remind me there’d been a time when they’d been happy, and maybe I didn’t remember. But divorce finally happened, after five years of them being separated and twenty-eight years of marriage. And their divorce didn’t faze me much.

  I knew a little about Dad dating other women. He had just visited Erisy in Santa Barbara and she reported that he kept taking selfies and sending them to a woman named Linda. Tripp, Jenna, Erisy, and I chuckled about it over texts with one another: “Dad? Dating? A woman named Linda?” As though he was only supposed to be our dad and nothing else. We were happy for him, but it was still weird to think about him with other women. He moved on from Mom, and sometimes I was jealous he could divorce her and cut ties and find someone new. Sometimes I wished I could move on from my mom, too. But I was still hurt and mad and confused by her, and I desperately wanted her back.

  We hadn’t booked accommodations for the night, which was rare for Dad, who liked predictability, especially in the “knowing where I’m going to sleep tonight” department. Tourist season in Maine was winding down, and as we rounded the curve of US Route 1 in Cape Neddick, I noticed a driveway leading to a collection of tiny white cottages. Spread among a clearing surrounded by bright-yellow trees, the cottages sported rocking chairs out front and sky blue shutters. It looked like a place out of a magical storybook, it was mastiff friendly, near the ocean, and within five minutes we were the only people staying there. Gizelle and I unpacked our bags, claimed a spot on the foldout couch, and strolled outside to look at the trees.

  When I noticed a pile of golden leaves in the distance, I had to resist my childish urge to run and jump in, knowing that my large shadow would do her best to run after me. So I walked slowly, with Gizelle at my heels. Her back left leg barely brushed the ground anymore, unable to support her weight. What the vet had described as mere heat was now a visible, egg-sized bulge protruding from Gizelle’s hock. I missed the sound of Gizelle’s paws thundering against the dirt. I missed us chasing each other in the park. I missed running together. But we waded into the pile of golden foliage slowly, and once we were standing side by side, there was no need to avoid the childish urges anymore.

  “Ready, Gizelle?” I spread my arms and sat down heavily into the crunchy pile of leaves. Gizelle plopped right on top of me.

  “Okay, okay, girl. This is fine. You can sit here.” I rubbed her sides. Then I looked up at the sky and watched a yellow leaf float from a branch, twisting and dancing through the air. A red one followed. Then a burgundy.

  As I watched the colors falling from the trees, I thought about how something could turn so beautiful right before it went brown and left the world forever. Kimmy once told me that leaves were the only thing that were most beautiful before they died, but when I heard a heavy rustling in the leaves next to me, I knew this wasn’t true. I looked over at Gizelle, who had climbed from “her seat” and was now rolling on her back in the leaves, belly to the sky, legs spread in total unladylike fashion. Her tongue dangled from the side of her mouth, and her jowls revealed her bright white teeth. There was foliage clinging to her jowls like a beard. She was panting and smiling and as beautiful as I’d ever seen.

  * * *

  The next day, the clouds moved down from the sky and stretched across the Maine coastline. It was chilly and raining, then sunny, then sleeting, then foggy, then raining again. All in one day. All we did was switch the windshield wipers from on to off. Dad was new to the idea of a dog bucket list but excited when I assured him that Gizelle’s Bucket List was quite flexible—you can make things up as you go, and Gizelle enjoyed doing the same things over. We found the best lobster rolls, again and again, and then another time. We visited our favorite empty, rocky beach while my dad took pictures, holding his iPhone far out in front of his face and staring at the screen, smiling, while I attempted to lure Gizelle near the waves again.

  “C’mon, buddy, let’s all take a beach selfie. Get in here, Gizelle,” Dad said as he met us at the shore, kneeled in the sand, and stretched his arm in front of us, angling to fit Gizelle’s head in the frame and struggling to make his finger hit the right button. I laughed and rolled my eyes, somewhere in my mind marking that taking selfies with Dad on the beach was a nice addition to Gizelle’s Bucket List, and maybe my own, too.

  “It’s pretty sweet, the way Gizelle watches you, Fernie,” he told me back in the car.

  I smiled at him and reached back to pet Gizelle on the head.

  “She watches you so carefully. Like she’s your mom. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animal watch someone the way Gizelle watches you.” Then he said how happy he was I had her in Knoxville and New York with me because he knew “the big puppy” always kept me safe. He told me he was sorry she wouldn’t be around forever. My stomach lurched when he mentioned the Gizelle-going-somewhere part, but I let out my breath and kept my hand in the backseat stroking Gizelle’s head, trying to focus on the present moment.

  We spent most of our time driving through the coastal towns, admiring lighthouses, listening to Jimmy Buffett. We watched surfers, fed seagulls fries, fed Gizelle fries, fed ourselves fries. I took my dad to Gizelle’s dock behind America’s oldest general store. Then we stopped at a tiny pub near Kennebunkport. It was raining. The ceiling was low and the floors were a red, creaky wood. Gizelle sat underneath my barstool. I sipped on a pumpkin ale, and Dad had the lightest beer he could find. Gizelle had more fries. Lauren did, too.

  We wound around Wells Beach and Dad made a fast U-turn when we passed a pumpkin patch in front of a white church with a tall pointed steeple. We parked the car and walked Gizelle through the pumpkin patch in the drizzling rain to let her pick out a pumpkin, which ultimately meant we watched her roll in the grass until she toppled over a pumpkin and was slightly startled by it. “That’s the one!” I cheered. The pumpkin was square shaped, muddy, rotted on one side, and missing a stem. “It’s perfect, Gizelle,” I assured her, wiping some of the mud off it and onto the grass, then tossing it in t
he rental.

  * * *

  After long days of short walks on the beach, meandering drives, and hot meals, it turned out our nights, sitting at a tiny table in the tiny kitchen, were what I loved the most. Gizelle lay underneath the table, with her head resting across my feet. Dad took a sip of his leftover, twist top Miller Lite he’d saved from the night before, and I opened another pumpkin ale. “Rummy?” he asked, splitting a deck in two and shuffling it on the table.

  He dealt.

  I lost.

  I dealt.

  I lost.

  I kept losing.

  I rubbed my feet on Gizelle’s extra neck skin, and she nibbled my toes. “I keep losing, Gizelle!” The light from the little lamps and the yellow walls created a comforting glow. I peeked out the window at the wintry darkness that was creeping over our temporary little corner of the world. The outline of bare branches silhouetted against the black sky and the remaining leaves shivered in the wind. Deep down, I knew that if Gizelle saw the winter, she wouldn’t see spring.

  We sat at the card table for a few hours, and soon the conversation turned to Mom. There weren’t many people I spoke to about Mom. I was embarrassed: My mom was a drug addict.

  “I’m mad at her,” I told Dad. I looked around the little beachy white cottage and thought how much my mother would love being here if she were sober. “She’s missing everything. She’s missing her whole life. It’s so sad.” I stared at my cards, bitter about all of the years I’d spent picking up my mother’s messes, when I was the one who still needed a mother myself.