by Jenny Mollen
“Jenny! Are you serious?”
“Who cares, Jason! We are all going to die anyway. What’s the point of anything?”
Even at my most nihilistic, I knew what the point was: Sid. As hard as it was going to be, I was going to have to let Teets go. I pulled over to the side of the road and waited to calm down. Teets nestled into my arms, happier than I’d seen him since I’d given birth. Maybe he had been this happy post-Sid, but if so I hadn’t taken it in. I barely noticed when his water bowl was empty. Our relationship had changed. As much as I promised myself I wasn’t going to turn into one of those assholes who cast off their dog as soon as they have a kid, that is exactly what I’d done. And as terrible as it was to say: I loved Sid more. I had to hide it from Teets, because it would break his heart. But I knew I was going to lose him. In a strange way, I already had.
We got out of the car and sat in a nearby park. We reminisced about the past: our first apartment together in L.A., our first kiss, our first fight…Like all breakups, you don’t just lose that person, you also lose the you that you were when you were with them. I was nostalgic for the past because the past felt simpler, less painful, less complicated. I mean, it obviously wasn’t. I was an anorexic, unemployed actress who spent her days driving aimlessly around Los Angeles with a ten-pound poodle for a boyfriend. But with the distance of time, we’re able to make even our darkest hours seem romantic. Those days had already been cataloged in an archive in my brain labeled Carefree times better than the moment I’m currently in.
After discussing it with Jason at dinner, I decided I had to try the radiation.
“Who cares if it doesn’t give him more time, at least he’ll be comfortable,” I said. Jason watched as I fed Teets a porterhouse steak off my plate at Wolfgang’s.
“Really, is this necessary?” Jason looked around, waiting for somebody else to object so he didn’t have to.
“I’m feeding him whatever he wants. He’s gonna be dead by the end of summer, so until then, he’s living it up!” I was loud and indignant, eager for someone to confront me just so I could shame him for insulting a cancer victim.
I did whatever I could to spend time with him. I invested in a double stroller so he could ride alongside Sid on our afternoon walks. Whenever I left the house to do errands, Teets came with. On the rare occasion that I was forced to leave him behind, he’d widen his eyes and I’d start hearing Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.”
Riddled with guilt, it got harder and harder for me to do anything without him. He accompanied me to business meetings, bridal showers, bikini waxings. I even got his blood work done so he’d be able to travel with us to Tahiti in the fall. And if he died before that, well, I figured it would be a great place to spread his ashes.
As I looked more closely, I realized I’d gotten myself into one of those relationships that my husband had always found himself in (before me, obviously), my white knight complex beginning to infringe upon my own happiness. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be around Teets twenty-four/seven, it was that I had a baby to tend to and Teets was monopolizing too much of my time. I knew I should be focusing my attention on Sid, but I accepted the situation because I also knew it was temporary. Or so I thought.
Several weeks after his radiation treatment, Teets started to change. His breathing was back to normal, as was his appetite. He was running around, humping things, and barking into thin air. My fragile, glassy-eyed ex-boyfriend had turned into a cocky, arrogant, cancer-beating Lance Armstrong. With every day that passed his sense of entitlement grew. He started bossing me around the house, furiously scratching the door to Sid’s nursery if I tried to lock him out. I couldn’t make a move without him all over me. He wanted to know who I was talking to, where I was going, what I was eating. Then every so often, just to underscore his dominance, he’d lift his leg and empty his bladder all over Sid.
“Yeah, I just don’t understand. I thought you said he’d be dead soon,” I said to the vet, two days before I was supposed to leave for Tahiti. It had been just over six months and Teets’s health hadn’t stopped improving. “Not that I’m disappointed or anything…It’s just, I planned for him to be dead by now, you know?”
As much as I loved Teets, the truth was, I kind of needed him out of the way so I could focus on my new life with Sid. Every time I pulled Sid next to me, Teets found a way to squeeze between us; if Sid left a toy on the floor, Teets would take it outside to bury it in a mass grave he’d dug. Instead of taking Teets to Tahiti, I decided to leave him in L.A. He was no longer on death watch and we needed a few days apart. When I returned, he looked younger and spritelier than ever. The facial hair he’d lost from the radiation was filling back in. He was starting to look like the dog I had ten years ago.
Jason and I couldn’t help but resent him for it.
“Can you believe you were basically ready to put this dog down six months ago?” Jason shook his head as we drove home from the sitter. I looked at Teets, who stood on Jason’s lap as he drove, his head hanging out the window. “LIVE STRONG, BITCHES,” I pictured him bellowing at the top of his doggy lungs as we passed a pack of Rottweilers. For a split second I had a dark fantasy of pushing him out of the car. It was all just too much! The roller coaster of emotion, the tug-of-war between my past and my future, the fact that I still wasn’t sad enough to stop eating. Something needed to change.
By February we were back in New York. Teets was still an egomaniac and I was still trying to adjust to a polygamous lifestyle. He’d breezed past his fourteenth birthday with ease and was about to make it past Sid’s first when I reached my limit. The vet had told me months earlier that when he was ready to go, I’d know it.
“Are you by chance ready to go?” I asked him one night before bed.
Teets looked up from a giant bone he was hoarding in his dog bed. “Not even a little bit,” his eyes replied.
“I mean, I love him. You know how much I love him, but how long is this going to last?” I was in bed next to Jason and whispering under the sheets. Teets was drinking water in the living room, so I was certain he couldn’t hear us. “I just…it’s February and I always pictured Sid’s first birthday having a sort of Circle of Life theme.”
“Like what, you would have made our son’s birthday double as Teets’s funeral? Are you sick?” Jason whispered, too, equally scared of Teets’s wrath.
“NO! God, no!” I gasped in horror. “More like his wake. Super-chill. Lots of dancing. Maybe a piñata in his likeness.”
Against all odds, Teets and his nasal tumor Lived Strong all the way through to July, when finally he started slowing down again. Sure, in concept I was ready for things to end. After all, I was only one death in the family away from my goal weight. But as eager as I was for a grieving widow body, losing Teets would undoubtedly be the most painful thing to ever happen to me.
By August, his nasal congestion was back and worse than ever. Even at his most sedentary, his breathing sounded like a Jewish guy in a down comforter store. I tried to teach him to sleep with his mouth open like I did, but the vet said it was impossible. He dropped from nine pounds to five, so thin I could count his vertebrae from a foot away. I’d sworn the first time I did the radiation that it would be the only time, but the second I saw him struggling, I was on a plane back to Los Angeles to do a second pass. All the skepticism about cancer-beating miracle drugs went out the window. My apartment became filled with Metacam, Yunnan Baiyao, Proin, Endosorb, metronidazole, turmeric, green tea, stasis breakers, omega-3 fatty acids, Rx Biotics, Clavamox, and a neoplasia support dog food. I would let Teets go peacefully but not painfully.
The day before his second treatment in Los Angeles, he lost all interest in food. Even the Umami burger I’d picked up for him from the Grove lay cold and untouched on the bathroom floor. I didn’t think he was strong enough to make it through another round of radiation, but the oncologist insisted his blood work looked good. So in a last-ditch attempt, I went for it.
Teets narrowly escaped cancer the fi
rst time around. He’d outlived his prognosis by nearly a year. I was proud of him for fighting as long as he had. And as frustrating as it was at times, I was eternally grateful that he’d gotten to know Sid and that Sid had gotten to know him. Whether or not Sid would remember him, I had photos and videos and silly stories that would be indelibly etched into my memory.
Sitting in the waiting room of the VCA hospital on Sepulveda Boulevard, I started to wonder if maybe Teets had stuck around as long as he had just to make sure things were serious with my new beau. Once he was sure I was going to be okay, maybe he’d be ready to let me go…
Not the case. At fourteen and a half now, he’s beat cancer twice and has already made it clear that he has no intention of letting me go anywhere. For his quinceañera he has requested a life-size piñata of Sid. When RSVPing, please be forewarned that he does read my e-mails.
II. LAST TANGO IN PARIS, OHIO
Harry should have been a one-night stand. The type of dog you watch for the day, then never see again. He wasn’t hostile or mean. His personality could actually be quite charming if you caught him at the right moment, and his looks were unrivaled. He was a gorgeous male model of a miniature pinscher who, like all male models, is best enjoyed at a distance, in his underwear on the back of a passing bus. Taking him into your home and trying to domesticate him is only asking for trouble. Harry and I lived together for the better part of eight years not because I wanted to but because I had no choice. Aside from enjoying long walks on the beach and having little to no patience for candlelit dinners, we had nothing in common—besides Jason. Harry had come with my marriage, and as cold of a bitch as I could be, I would have never forced Jason to give him up—until I did.
I met Harry a couple weeks after I met Jason and I could tell right away he was hot but not my type. He had a great body and an adorable face but he had rocks in his head. He was needy, high-strung, mildly homicidal. He couldn’t sit still long enough to listen and if left alone would devour underwear, shoes, wallets, and trash. One time he ate an entire bag of fertilizer and vomited shit all over Jason’s brand-new carpet. Another time he devoured a giant pot brownie and spent the rest of the night fucking all the cashmere throws. Next to Teets, who was patient, respectful, and could probably qualify for Mensa, Harry was a total himbo with separation anxiety. He never wanted to be left alone. At night he expected you to spread your legs and let him burrow in. If you left him outside the house, he would bark at the top of his lungs until you opened the door. If a piece of food fell on the ground he would turn into a complete savage, willing to take your arm off in order to consume it. If you invited guests over he would suddenly be compelled to shit in the spot most likely to get stepped in. Like an asshole stepson who was either going to end up moving out of state with his mom or stabbing you to death in your sleep, you just had to keep your mouth shut and keep all your valuables hidden. On more than one occasion I asked Jason’s ex if she’d be willing to take Harry back, but even Baz knew better than that. In my most desperate hours I probably offered to throw in her beach caftan to help sweeten the deal, but she still wouldn’t budge. Harry was a problem child and everyone but Jason could see it.
I always knew that Harry’s demise would be of his own making. As many times as I was tempted to lather his body in chicken fat and take him on a leash-free hike through Runyon Canyon, I refrained. Harry was Jason’s dog and the burden of breaking up with/murdering him needed to fall on Jason. Though it was annoying and cost me thousands of dollars in obedience school, steam cleaning, and boarding, I refused to be the bad cop. Instead, I mentally checked out, allowing entropy to take hold until Jason saw fit to do something about it.
For most of the first year and a half of Sid’s life, Harry was boarded at a place in Sylmar. I never feared that Harry would intentionally harm Sid, more that his reckless behavior would somehow lead to our house burning down. Unlike Teets and Gina, who are basically throw pillows with eyes, Harry needed constant supervision. He was like that emotional guy at your house party who spends his night on the roof threatening to cannonball into the swimming pool. Unless you were willing to devote your entire evening to looking at his sketchbook filled with Hunger Games fan art and hearing about the time he tried to kill himself, he was determined to make a scene. In L.A., Jason and I had space for these kinds of antics. At least there, Harry could channel his restless energy into hunting squirrels or digging mass graves with Teets. But in New York, we didn’t have the luxury of outdoor space or playrooms filled with enough toys that you wouldn’t notice five or six missing. We were living in an apartment with a baby, a nanny, two other dogs, and three Elmos. And if any of those Elmos were to get chewed apart and spit out under a couch, it would affect all of us dramatically.
Still, once we’d committed to the East Coast full-time, Jason insisted that we bring Harry out of boarding to join us.
“He’s my dog, Jenny. He can’t just stay in L.A. indefinitely.”
I wasn’t opposed to Harry staying in L.A. indefinitely, actually. But I was annoyed that he’d been with our dogsitter long enough that we’d paid for her face-lift. I had a face to worry about, too. And though I’d tried to block Harry out of my mind, he kept sneaking his way back in. Like that annoying guy you accidentally slept with at a holiday party fifteen years ago who’s still inviting you to his birthday drinks, he wouldn’t let me forget him.
I tried to separate my own feelings from the equation, and the more I thought about it, the more moving Harry to New York seemed like a bad idea not just for us but for him, too. He needed a life that the city couldn’t offer. He needed a life I couldn’t offer. Before Sid, I had more patience, a higher threshold for chaos. Now I had a toddler who kicked and screamed and had just mastered the art of opening a door. There was nowhere to hide. Even when I was sitting on the toilet Sid would find me and threaten to stab himself in the head with a curling iron. Jason and I needed to be on high alert at all times, like two racquetball players with freshly minted nose jobs.
It was Sunday morning and the clock was ticking. In less than a week Jason was flying to L.A. He and Harry hadn’t seen each other in more than nine months. Though he missed his dog, I could tell that even Jason was daunted by the repercussions his decision would likely yield. While Jason grappled with his conflicting emotions, I did what I do best: surreptitiously surfed Instagram and judged strangers.
I scrolled aimlessly through my feed before stopping on a picture posted by a woman I’d come to know as @Fleamarketfab. Jen, aka Flea, was a designer I’d bought an Icelandic sheep hide off months earlier when I’d decided I was an interior decorator. Jen had the kind of eye for décor that’s so good it makes you want to gouge out your own useless eyes with the arm of a Hans Wegner wishbone chair. I loved her page and her home, and never failed to heart any pic she posted of an Africa juju hat casually hanging next to a fiddle-leaf fig. But on this day, she posted something different. It was a candid snapshot of a miniature pinscher dressed as a dragon. I paused for a minute, trying to remember if I’d ever noticed a miniature pinscher on her page. I knew she had a shepherd and some sort of redheaded foxhound, but I’d never seen a minpin. Maybe this was a new addition? Or maybe she’d had him all along and I just had a mental block that prevented me from seeing minpins in general?
I impulsively shot her a text. “Hey, Jen, Do you have a minpin?”
“Yeah…Why?” Jen’s phone had the option turned on that tells you the exact moment she’d read your text, letting me know she was a way better person than me.
“Do you want another one?” Having never met her, I decided there was no point in beating around the fiddle-leaf fig tree. For all I knew, she was already living in her own personal minpin hell.
“Whose?” she wrote back instantly.
I looked at Jason across the room. He sat on the floor with Sid, counting how many blueberries they could balance on Teets’s catatonic body. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gina sprawled out across a recent issue of T ma
gazine, staring at her nails and sunbathing on the windowsill. For approximately two minutes, everything in my apartment was calm. I pictured Harry and what his energy would do to the rarely tranquil environment.
“Mine,” I wrote back.
I could see that Jen had read my text, but she refrained from answering. As the owner of a miniature pinscher, I understood how someone offering you another could be taken as a total fuck-you. So, taking Jen’s nonresponse as all the response I needed, I turned my attention to a post of Lamby Dunham in a leotard.
A few hours later, Jason and I started our “leaving the house routine,” which usually took an hour. Sid was standing on the dining room table refusing to put on pants. I tried to coax him down by offering him a chia bar I’d disguised as a piece of candy.
Just then my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Jen. She told me that she’d talked it over with her husband and that not only was he open to taking Harry, he was giddy at the idea. Was she serious? I know I had offered, but seriously, what kind of person would willingly open their home to a ten-year-old problem child? What was the catch?
Ultimately, it didn’t matter why Jen was willing to take Harry in. Only that she was. Now I just had one other person to convince.
“How do you know this person?” Jason stared at me skeptically as he finished his coffee and I soothed Sid by pretending to eat his legs.
“I’ve known her for months. She’s the woman I bought that sheepskin from.” I was trying to keep things vague.
“And you’ve met her in person?”
“She has a big house, three other dogs, her kids are grown, just look at these pictures of her place.” I pulled up Jen’s Instagram feed, showing Jason her Architectural Digest–worthy digs, then went to the kitchen to pack up Sid’s diaper bag.
Jason perused the pics, impressed. “Where is this?”
“Umm.” I paused, pretending to look for a sippy cup.