by Barb Howard
“Just tired. He doesn’t sleep well in the house.”
“Poor baby. I got a rifle that would fix that.”
The local vet lifted Louie onto the examining table. Louie stared at the vet’s bright paw-print shirt, as though searching for his own tiny mark among the oversized dog tracks.
“With an animal of this size, I’m sure I don’t have to give you my lecture on dogs riding in the back of trucks.”
“No. He won’t ride in the box.”
“I got a Bull Mastiff in yesterday,” the vet gestured towards a door marked “SURGERY” behind him. “Wasn’t even thrown—just slammed into the cab at ninety clicks when idiot-boy jammed the brakes.”
The vet put his stethoscope against Louie’s side, listened, and then looked up.
“Something racing through here. Probably beaver fever. Or could be stress. Is the dog stressed?”
“In the house. Especially near the door to the basement.”
“New surroundings. That might do it.”
“Did you ever hear about a mountain lion that lived in my house?” Paul asked.
“Yep. By the time I saw her, I had to put her down.” The vet shoved a gloved finger under Louie’s quivering tail. “Diagnosis: prolonged misery. Death by basement. You can’t keep a cat in a situation like that.” He snapped off his glove and set Louie on the floor. “Had to drive up to the house to do it. I was scared shitless, but that old lioness didn’t even stand up. She looked bored.”
Hal Ward drove slowly up the middle of Paul’s gravel driveway. His three-quarter-ton truck had the longest box Paul had ever seen. Long enough, Paul thought as he watched from the empty woodshed that stood beside his house, to ferry a little truck like his own.
“Play poker?” Hal asked, shifting his truck into neutral and resting an elbow out of the open window. Paul set his chainsaw down. He had been reefing on the starter cord without results. Each frustrating yank had brought him closer to driving to town and buying an expensive bundle of pre-cut firewood at the hardware store. Blisters were rising on the fingers that held the starter cord.
“Not much.”
“We lost Larry O’Shea when he went on the wagon.”
“I guess I could play.” Paul glanced at the pus bubbles on his fingers and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Friday night. May as well meet here since you don’t have a missus.” Hal nodded at the chainsaw and added, “Check your spark plug.”
“Oh thanks, I suppose Friday’s all right. But not too late—my daughter’s coming on Saturday and I was hoping to get things organized.” Hal’s truck started to roll back down the driveway before Paul finished speaking.
Paul, Hal Ward, and Bud and Stu from the other side of the highway sat around Paul’s kitchen table. Bud and Stu were brothers whose local fame was sealed when they sold off their Longhorn cattle and bought a herd of buffalo. Hal introduced Bud and Stu as the Bison Brothers. They both wore green baseball caps. Paul ran his hands through his thick hair—a long-standing nervous habit—until he felt Hal staring at him in annoyance. Paul quickly returned his hands to his cards.
Bud tossed out the last card of the deal, squared the remainder of the deck with his beefy hands. He slapped the deck in the centre of the table.
“Hey Paul, did that woman leave anything weird around the house? Any sexy stuff?” Stu asked.
“Not that I’ve seen,” Paul said.
Hal picked up his cards, swore, then tossed the cards on the table and stood up. He re-tucked his pressed shirt into his jeans and started towards the stairwell.
“I’m out. Beer’s down there? Who else needs to reload?” Hal pointed at the empties on the table.
Stu and Bud each held up two fingers.
“Flashlight’s at the bottom of the stairs,” Paul said.
“Could use a few more lights down there,” Hal said after taking a few steps and pausing. “Why keep the goddamn flashlight at the bottom?”
“Seems to be plenty of light coming down from the kitchen. Scared of cellars?” Bud asked.
“Don’t wanna break my friggin’ leg. Is that all right? Is self-preservation all right?”
When Hal came back up he was sweating and holding an armload of beer. He glared at Paul.
“City Boy, there’s still territory piles down there. Why didn’t you clean that up before you spent time building a dog run for the wiener?”
“Territory piles?”
“Mountain lion crap. Piles of twigs and dirt that the mountain lion pisses and craps on.”
“Oh,” Paul said. Who knew? After spending everything on this house, why hadn’t he bothered to clean those piles up yet? Mainly, he decided, because he hated being in the basement. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take bad smells, and it wasn’t as though he got diarrhea like Louie, but surely, if even a big bull like Hal Ward got sweaty and ornery down there, it was understandable that Paul, too, might be nervous.
The poker game went on until three a.m. Hal Ward took about $50 off everyone. Paul flopped into bed as soon as they left. Cassandra was dropped off by her mother a few hours later while he was still sleeping.
“What stinks?” Cassandra asked when Paul showed her the basement. She stood on the gravel floor while Paul stood on the bottom step, creating the illusion that he was the same height as his tall daughter.
“Those piles.” Paul felt he might alarm his daughter if he gave her any information about the previous residents.
“Why don’t you clean them up?” Cassandra asked with a sniff.
“I don’t really notice them,” Paul said. He ushered Cassandra back up to the highlight of the house: her room, a wood-beamed loft that overlooked the kitchen. Then he pointed out the bathroom, which he also wished he’d cleaned, especially after the Bison Brothers had used it. While Cassandra stopped in the bathroom, Paul gathered a broom, a garbage bag, and a dustpan and started for the basement.
“Paul?” Cassandra yelled before he reached the second step. “You got any tampons?”
Cassandra started calling Paul by his first name when she was thirteen. Even now, after three years, he was not comfortable with it. He never said anything about it to Cassandra because his ex-wife had written in her latest book that calling parents by their first names was a healthy sign of a properly progressing adolescent. Probably yelling about tampons was a good sign in his wife’s books, too.
“Well, do you?” Cassandra called again. “You know, leftovers from a girlfriend or something?”
“No. No girlfriend. I’m on septic here. Don’t flush any of those things down the toilet.”
“Mom says you have issues with females.”
Paul continued to the basement, wondering why Cassandra called her mother “mom” but wouldn’t call him “dad.” He swept the stinking piles into the dustpan and dumped them into the garbage bag. He twisted the bag to shut out the smell and lugged it up the stairs. In the kitchen, he stopped to readjust his grip. The smell was so intense that Paul checked the bag for holes and then twisted the top again. A hot gust of air swept by the top of the bag. Louie yelped like he’d been shot. The front door of the house banged. Some sort of weird draft, Paul thought.
Paul emptied the bag into the firepit in the backyard. He squirted an arc of lighter fluid on the pile and tossed on a match. Cassandra joined him as the initial tower of fire settled into a steady flame. She lifted her heavy black boot and kicked at a boulder on the rim of the firepit.
“Give me the truck keys so I can drive to town and get some tampons.”
Paul pulled the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to her. He didn’t think she was a very good driver, having only recently gotten her license. But he didn’t want to leave the fire, and anyway, he didn’t want to take her on that particular errand.
“Don’t ride the clutch,” he said.
A minute later, he watched the gravel fly as Cassandra fishtailed his truck down the driveway.
Paul’s property included a high ridge o
n the east side which sloped into a valley on the west side. The realtor had told him it would take about half a day to walk around the fence line. Paul planned to walk it today, Sunday, with Cassandra and Louie. There would be wet snow to trudge through in spots, but it was a warm early spring day, perfect for walking. Cassandra was happy to go along for the tour; Louie refused to leave the deck. Ignoring Cassandra’s disapproval, Paul laid a row of Cheezies on the deck and down the steps onto the driveway. Louie ate his way across the flat surface, but stopped at the stairs.
“Why don’t you let him stay here?” Cassandra asked. “How’s he going to keep up with us on those two-inch legs?”
“It’s the principle,” Paul said as he attached a leash to Louie and tugged him down the steps. “First, he hates staying in the house. Now, since I cleaned up the basement, he won’t go in the yard. Someone other than a wiener dog has to be the master around here.”
Paul continued to pull the leash until one of Louie’s black nails caught on a split in the wood, and he yelped in pain. Cassandra scooped the dog up in her arms. She wiped blood off the torn nail with the cuff of her sweater.
“Satisfied, tough guy?” she said to Paul. She put Louie in the house.
As he walked away from the house, Paul took a deep, satisfied breath. They were going to walk around his land. Just his name on the title. He turned to Cassandra. She wore an oversized red sweater and loose jeans, and she looked pissed off. Paul would’ve liked to give her a hug, partly by way of apology about Louie’s nail, partly because he loved her, and partly because he felt happy with his property. But Cassandra kept her distance behind him.
Paul chose a trail that ran parallel to the ridge, underneath the uppermost rock outcropping. He pointed out the distant roof of Hal Ward’s horse barn, and further along, the buffalo moving across a rise on the Bison Brothers’ property. Cassandra nodded but didn’t respond. Paul left her to her silence and began mentally planning projects for when he finished the dog run. Fencing, for the animals he would acquire. A horse to ride for checking the fences. Mosquito netting around the deck. Bird feeders with squirrel busters on the bottom.
His plans were interrupted when Cassandra tapped his shoulder. She pointed to the outcrop. Paul studied the stubby trees and jagged rock. Nothing. He shrugged.
“Don’t you see the mountain lion?” she asked.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Paul said. “Those things are unpredictable.”
“Do you want to see my deer impersonation?” Cassandra spread her hands above Paul’s head to make antlers. “Heeere’s dinner!” she called to the ridge.
Paul grabbed one of her upper arms and squeezed hard.
Cassandra twisted free and tossed her hair. “Get over yourself,” she said, and resumed strolling down the trail.
Paul watched the packed snow plopping from the base of Cassandra’s big boots. Sulky teenager. Get over himself? What was that supposed to mean?
Paul looked up to the outcrop again. A slight movement caught his eye. Feline and feminine. The silhouette of a cat was on the ridge, undeniably huge.
By the time they reached the house, Paul and Cassandra were walking side by side. As they stepped onto the deck, Hal Ward rode up the driveway on the General. Hal brought the big horse to the edge of the deck.
“Larry O’Shea’s off the wagon. Now that he’s drinking, we don’t need you as a poker fourth anymore,” Hal said.
“This is my daughter,” Paul said.
Hal tipped his hat at Cassandra. “Best you keep her away from the local wildlife,” he smirked.
“Like the mountain lion we saw today?” Cassandra asked, with wide-eyed mock naïveté. Paul noticed she even threw in a hillbilly inflection. Hal shifted in his saddle.
“Now that’s rare. A big dog, maybe?” Hal directed his question at Paul.
“No, a mountain lion,” Paul confirmed, “on the ridge.” As Paul spoke, the General released a steaming fountain of diarrhea.
“Be in touch,” Hal said, tipping his hat again and turning the General down the driveway.
“Look,” Cassandra laughed, pointing down the hall after they had hung up their coats.
While they were out, Louie had tipped over the garbage in the bathroom. A used tampon, partially wrapped in toilet paper, lay between him and the bathroom door. Louie was growling and backing up against the bathroom cabinet, trapped by the tampon.
Cassandra said, “Looks like he can’t relax in his own territory either.”
Paul said, “Stupid wiener dog.
HYDROCYST
Saturday afternoon. Lola has left her packing list on the kitchen table: squash racquet, snowboarding pants, two swimsuits, volleyball knee pads. I walk to the sink, look out the bay window, remind myself that Lola is eighteen. She doesn’t need my input. Probably things have changed since I went to university. Still, it’s hard to imagine there will be time for all her extra-curricular activities during first year engineering.
From the bay window I scan the treed slope in the backyard. Lola and I live on a forested edge of the city and, like our neighbours, we haven’t fenced our yard. It gives the illusion of acreage living. Our neighbour, Brad, has built a deer feeder—a wooden manger full of hay—and the mule deer have worn a path that traverses our yard and ends at his feeder.
“Hi Mom,” Lola says, flip-flops snapping as she enters the kitchen. “Do you have any spare shampoo? I’m out.”
She leans over the table, picks up the pencil, scribbles on the list. Her low-slung sweatpants don’t exactly show her crack, but they certainly hint at it. Butt cleavage. There’s no sense commenting. She leaves tomorrow.
“Take whatever you want from the bathroom,” I say. “There’s a spare tube of toothpaste under the counter. And cream. Take it all.”
“Thanks. I only need shampoo.”
I suppose those are the pants she’ll wear around the residence at university. Maybe she’ll wear a longer shirt, not the tiny, tight one she has on now.
“I’m going to put a load of laundry in,” Lola says, tossing the pencil into the air, catching it between two fingers.
“I’ll do it for you,” I say.
“That’s okay,” she says.
I hear her gathering clothes in her upstairs room, then coming back down the stairs, through the kitchen with an armload, and into the laundry room off the hall. Even though I’ve spent years training her to do her own laundry, I want to do it this time. A leaving-home present. A way to check on the state and nature of her underwear. A way to feel more involved in the process of her departure. So far, my only jobs are to keep quiet and drive her to the airport tomorrow.
I check Lola’s list again. She’s added “hiking boots.” I can’t help myself. I call into the laundry room.
“Honey, do you think you’ll have time for hiking trips at university?”
“You betcha, Mom,” she says. I hear the lid of the washer shut, the ratcheting sound as Lola sets the dials.
My friend Janet phones me as I start the kettle for another pot of tea. “Has Lola gone yet? I tell you, I was sure glad to see the back side of Kyle last week. His little emperor routine was driving me nuts.”
“Tomorrow morning. She’s not driving me nuts.”
“Oh, come on. It’s a biological thing so that we’re happy to see them go.”
“She has a stupid packing list.”
“She’ll be fine,” Janet says. “The kids are always fine.”
While there are many deer that cross the slope on their way to Brad’s place, these days I watch for one doe in particular—the doe with the growth between her forelegs.
I first noticed her in June when I was looking out the window and mulling over Lola’s high school graduation ceremony (where Lola and I had been an inadequate twosome amidst all the cheering family support-pods). One deer had paused, interrupted my mulling by turning away from the poplar stand on the slope,
tentatively making her way toward my house. She came right down, stopping to forage on the long blades of grass at the edge of the deck. I could see a round lump about the size of a baseball growing on her chest. Her ears flicked, and then, lifting her black-tipped tail, she sprang to join her companions.
“I put your stuff in the dryer,” Lola says, coming into the kitchen.
“Thanks.”
I had forgotten that I put a load of wash in last night. I’m absent-minded these days. How long would a load like that sit mildewing in the washer without Lola around?
Saturday night. Lola has finished packing her duffle bag with sports gear, plus a few items of clothing and, at my urging, some pens and paper. She sits at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of ramen noodles, even though we just finished a chicken dinner. Her phone beeps, she reads the new text message.
“Hey, Mom, Stef and Katie say they’ll drive me to the airport tomorrow. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“I was looking forward to doing it.”
“Your car is due for servicing. The light has been flashing for a month.”
“The car will be fine. I’ll take it in next week.”
“But you’re okay with the Stef and Katie plan? I won’t see them until Christmas.”
“Sure. I guess that will work. If that’s what you want.”
“Don’t forget to book your car in next week. At least get the oil changed.”
It shouldn’t be a big deal whether I say goodbye to Lola at home or at the airport. She’s young. Her friends are important. That’s normal. Although, of course, I had imagined a huggy Hallmark scene, with me included, at the departure gate. Initially I had even imagined driving her across the country, a chummy mother and daughter road trip ending at the front door of the student residences. I could check out her new room, maybe leave an African violet and some vitamins on her desk. But no. I never suggested such a plan to Lola. And although some of her friends were leaving town with a firmly attached mother-appendage, she never suggested it to me.