Lily and the Octopus

by Steven Rowley

  “That’s the octo—” I start to say, but stop. Enough is enough. “That’s her tumor.”

  The veterinarian takes a pocket light and shines it in Lily’s eyes. There is no real response.

  “Is she blind?”

  “Yes. The tumor has taken her eyesight. And just about everything else.”

  She runs her other hand gently over the mass and slowly lets Lily’s head rest again in my lap.

  “She has seizures. Bad seizures. And I think dementia. And this morning she looked at me like she was … done.” This is the last I can say before I have to fight to speak, to do battle for each individual word. “I want you to take her. I want you to take her and to fix her. I want you to tell me you can make everything okay. To make this all go away. And, short of that, if you can’t do that, if you can’t produce a miracle, I want you to tell me I’m making the right decision.”

  There’s a panic attack looming. I can feel it. The right decision. The wrong decision. The happy memories. The sad reality. Good. Bad. Up. Down. Win. Lose. Life. Death.

  The doctor holds Lily’s head in her hands and covers her ears.

  “You’re making the compassionate decision.”

  There will be no miracles.

  There will be no tomorrows.

  I nod like my head weighs a hundred pounds and make some sort of noise. Pain mixed with acknowledgment mixed with consent.

  Again. “It’s the compassionate decision.”

  My eyes blur.

  I’m underwater.

  Fishful Thinking has capsized.

  I am drowning.

  “How does this work?” I already know that I don’t want the answer.

  “I’m going to take Lily and fit her with a small catheter in her leg so we can easily inject the drugs intravenously. There will be two. The first will render her unconscious. She will be asleep, but still alive. You can have a moment with her to say goodbye. And then when you say, we will inject the second drug to cause cardiac arrest. Once we inject that second drug, it should be over within thirty seconds or so.”

  “Two drugs,” I say.

  The woman reaches for Lily, but I don’t let go.

  “Right now we’re just going to find a vein and fit her with a catheter so things will go as smoothly as possible.”

  She reaches for Lily again, and this time I loosen my grip. She promises to be back in a few moments.

  I’m alone in the room and for the first time I can stand. I walk in three tight circles the way Lily does before lying down. Except I don’t lie down. I pound my thighs with my fists.

  I need to feel pain. Physical pain.

  I slam my arm against the metal examining table in an effort to break something. The pain splinters up to my shoulder and it feels good. So good I do it again.

  But I don’t need to break anything.

  My heart is broken enough.

  Time stops.

  Time passes.

  The woman returns, this time with an assistant. The assistant offers a half-smile but otherwise does her best to be invisible.

  The veterinarian places Lily on the table. She’s still wrapped in my blanket. Her leg is exposed. I can see the catheter. It is taped in place with plastic.

  I kneel down in front of Lily so that we are face-to-face.

  “Hi, Monkey. Hi, Tiny Mouse.”

  Lily chuffs a few deep breaths.

  “There is a wind coming,” I cue her.

  Silence.

  There is no Cate Blanchett. There is no response. She can no longer command the wind, sir. She no longer has the hurricane inside of her.

  Lily makes one last effort to stand, and that’s when I really lose it.

  We can still run. We can still break out of here. We can still choose life.

  But what kind of life would it be?

  Instead, I shower Lily’s face with kisses.

  “So many adventures we had. And I loved every one.”

  Lily’s head droops and I kiss her again.

  The assistant holds her back legs and I hold her front.

  I nod at the veterinarian.

  “Okay. I’m going to inject the first drug. The anesthesia. She’s just going to fall asleep.”

  Sleep well, my beautiful slinkster dog.

  The anesthesia is fast.

  For a few seconds, nothing. But then Lily’s eyes open wide as she feels the whoosh of the drug inside her. Then her eyes grow heavy.

  She blinks once, maybe twice.

  She staggers left.

  We slowly lower her to the table, where she falls gently asleep.

  “Let me know when you’re ready and I will inject the second drug.”

  “Wait!” I snap.

  I’m not ready.

  OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?

  Why is this happening?

  It’s Thursday.

  Thursdays are the days my dog Lily and I set aside to talk about boys we think are cute. I look at the tape on the catheter, the bandage holding it in place.

  Rip the Band-Aid. Quick. It’s the only way.

  “Okay.” I can feel the letters vomit off my tongue.

  O.

  K.

  A.

  Y.

  I watch the vet insert the syringe into the catheter and inject the second drug. And then the adventures come flooding back:

  The puppy farm.

  The gentle untying of the shoelace.

  THIS! IS! MY! HOME! NOW!

  Our first night together.

  Running on the beach.

  Sadie and Sophie and Sophie Dee.

  Shared ice-cream cones.

  Thanksgivings.

  Tofurky.

  Car rides.

  Laughter.

  Eye rain.

  Chicken and rice.

  Paralysis.

  Surgery.

  Christmases.

  Walks.

  Dog parks.

  Squirrel chasing.

  Naps.

  Snuggling.

  Fishful Thinking.

  The adventure at sea.

  Gentle kisses.

  Manic kisses.

  More eye rain.

  So much eye rain.

  Red ball.

  The veterinarian holds a stethoscope up to Lily’s chest, listening for her heartbeat.

  All dogs go to heaven.

  “Your mother’s name is Witchie-Poo.” I stroke Lily behind her ears in the way that used to calm her. “Look for her.”

  OH FUCK IT HURTS.

  I barely whisper. “She will take care of you.”

  I look up at the vet, pleading. Inject me. Give me the poison, too. At least enough to make my heart stop breaking. Anything. Just please make it stop.

  After ten more seconds, the vet pulls her stethoscope away. She doesn’t need to say anything.

  Lily is gone.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She puts her hand on my shoulder while motioning for her assistant. “Take all the time with her you need.”

  I don’t even notice them leave.

  Time passes. I don’t know how much. I’m aware I’m alone in the room with Lily and that is the only thing I’m aware of. I kiss the tip of her nose.

  “Oh, god, please forgive me.”

  I’m sitting on the floor with my legs tucked to my chest and I’m rocking back and forth.

  The tiniest bit of tongue hangs out of Lily’s mouth. So pink. So still. So lifeless.

  So many tears. I can’t remember ever in my life crying this hard.

  This is some sort of mistake. It has to be.

  I slide my hand under the blanket and place it on Lily’s chest. She’s still warm, but her chest does not rise and fall like it does in even her deepest sleeps. I keep it there long enough to make sure, but after some time even I’m forced to concede that her heart has stopped.

  I put my head down and sob, as there’s nothing much else to do. My brain detaches from my heart and creates independent thoughts. It wonders how
long I should stay in here so people don’t think that I’m callous. It wonders how long I should not stay in here, how long before people will think that I’m creepy. It tells me to remember every detail of this. That it’s important to catalog. So I do.

  The clock.

  The white walls.

  The blanket.

  The cold empty chair and the rolling stool.

  The metal table.

  How hard the floor feels.

  How hard my face feels.

  Lily.

  Her tongue.

  The octopus.

  The octopus! I look at the octopus and he lies there with his eight arms fallen limp and his one visible eye rolled back in his stupid head.

  You did this. You could have left, but you didn’t. I hope you rot in hell.

  There’s no point in saying it out loud. He can’t hear me.

  The octopus is dead, too.

  I pull the blanket over Lily’s head just enough to cover the octopus, so that it is just her and me, like it had always been.

  “I will love you forever. For the rest of my days and even all of the days after that.”

  With one last look, I pull the blanket up high enough to cover her completely. It takes me a minute to stand, but when I do I walk out of the room and, without looking back, I close the door behind me.

  1 P.M.

  I sit in the car for a long time not knowing what to do or where to go. Eventually, I pull out my phone and call Trent.

  “Lily died.”

  “Come to my house. I’ll leave work right now.”

  Somehow, I drive to Trent’s house. Once, in college, I had to drive home to Maine from Boston during the throes of a migraine headache, and when I got home I had no memory of how I got there. This drive is like that. Except the migraine is heartbreak.

  Trent greets me at the front door and pulls me into a hug and we both cry and I say “pills” and he already has them laid out for me. I let a Valium dissolve under my tongue and I kneel down to pet Weezie. Sweet, sweet Weezie. She just wants to play, but I can’t.

  I help myself to two shots of this Russian vodka from a bottle I gave Trent for his birthday. We first enjoyed this vodka at the restaurant Red Medicine, a neo-Vietnamese joint that we had sought out because the LA Times named it the “bad boy” of the Los Angeles dining scene, and it goes down smooth and it is just that: medicine. I don’t know if it’s the vodka or the Valium that takes hold first, but the weight lifts from my lungs just enough so that I can breathe.

  Trent asks me how it all went, and I tell him as much as I can but it isn’t much. Weezie is nipping at my heels but I just can’t throw this rope chew she wants me to throw for her and my head gets very fuzzy. I collapse on Trent’s sofa and he puts on the TV and we both sit down to watch, but before either of us knows it I’m asleep.

  2 P.M.

  The waters lap softly at the sides of Fishful Thinking, lulling us into a rhythmic hypnosis. As anxious as we are to get home, I’ve killed the engines just now so we can drift in the quiet and take in the great beauty that surrounds us. The blue of the cloudless sky matches the blue of the water and the air is soft and the sun from the east makes a sparkling golden path for us to follow home. There is total silence except for the gentle sounds of the waters kissing the hull. Since we’re stopped, the octopus sinks and the weight of his corpse raises the hull just enough so that it feels like we’re sailing to the heavens, or at the very least wherever Sandy and Danny flew off to when they left Rydell High at the end of the movie Grease.

  Lily is by my side.

  I’m almost startled to see her and I start crying, and since the octopus is dead, Lily looks like her old self, her younger self—there’s a lightness to the way she moves, and I hold her head in both hands and scratch behind her ears and just say “oh, my baby” over and over again.

  “What?” Lily asks, confused.

  I say the only thing I can think to say. “You’re here.”

  I lift her off her perch in the deckhouse and we stroll out to the bow and lean over the front of the ship.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It is,” Lily agrees.

  Lily places her front paws on the edge of the boat and stands on her hind legs for a better look. Her tail starts wagging in perfect synchronization with the lapping water, her inner metronome setting the beat with slow metrical ticks, and I remember what happiness feels like.

  I stand back just to drink it all in. If I had the ability to press a button and pause time and live in one moment forever, this is the moment I would choose.

  A breeze picks up from the northeast, and Lily’s ears rise in the wind like the outboard flaps on airplane wings at takeoff.

  “What do you see, Monkey?”

  Lily takes in the expanse between us and the horizon. There’s a softness to everything, and it really does feel like we’re flying, not floating.

  “Everything,” she replies.

  “We’re going home now. To return to our lives. How do you feel about that?”

  Lily remains silent, transfixed by the sun’s reflection on the water. I wait a moment for her to respond.

  “Puppy?”

  Lily gives me something of a nod, I think, but she still doesn’t really answer me, and this strikes me as odd. My question hangs limply in the air, uncomfortably, like an unreturned I love you. Why wouldn’t she be ready to get back to our lives? To return to the quiet stability of our everyday togetherness? Does she know of something unpleasant waiting for us on shore?

  Suddenly, red ball falls from the sky and lands on the deck with a deafening thwack. Startled, Lily and I both jump. Red ball bounces in a high arc and lands again closer to the deckhouse. Lily springs into action as it bounces in a series of increasingly smaller arcs toward the stern. She catches the ball in her mouth just before it bounces over the rear of the boat and into the water where the octopus anchors us down. She trots proudly with her catch back toward the bow and plays with it near my feet.

  It’s clear now, the source of her distraction—she never responds to me when she senses red ball is near. My insides settle and I watch her play as life ambles toward normalcy. It is the perfect moment, a perfect marriage of stillness and life, of beauty and harmony, of aloneness and togetherness. Red ball glides smoothly across the deck of Fishful Thinking and Lily chases it with ease and I’ve never felt more calm.

  But it doesn’t last.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see fire in the sky, like a comet, coming toward us with increasing velocity.

  “What the …” I manage, as the comet grows nearer.

  A second red ball lands on the deck with a wallop and bounces high above us. Lily turns to watch it rebound, confused as to what to do. She looks at the one red ball already trapped under her paw, and then back at the other as it settles near the rear of the ship.

  I catch Lily’s look of confusion just before the third and fourth red balls hit. A shadow falls over the boat, and we both look at the sky as hundreds of red balls blot out the sun. They rain down upon us with increasing ferocity, making a deafening racket. Lily is frozen, terrified, as am I. She might have once dreamed of something like this, but the reality of it is horrifying.

  We scramble for the cover of the deckhouse, but the red balls come too fast and I quickly lose Lily in a heap of rubber. I claw and scrape to get to her, to unearth her from the sea of red, but the balls pile up too fast. The ones that hit the water do so with a horrible splash and kick ocean spray into my face. I desperately wipe the salt from my eyes as the balls multiply around my chest and there’s a tightness and I can’t breathe and the last thing I remember is screaming “Lily!” and then everything goes dark.

  3 P.M.

  Trent’s hand is on my shoulder and I look at him and there is no pain, just the presence of my friend, and for one brief second I feel okay until everything comes rushing back and it’s like someone has their hands around my heart and is squeezing.

  “You
were screaming,” he says.

  “I was?” I was.

  “Yeah.”

  The TV is still on and Trent has started watching Friday Night Lights, a favorite of mine that I’ve been trying to get him to watch for years since he’s from Texas and loves football. I’m from Maine and I hate football, and I still love the show. We watch together silently. The show is so good, the drugs are still doing their thing, and part of me is transported to west Texas—but only a small part. There is too much pain anchoring me to Trent’s couch.

  At the end of the first episode, when quarterback Jason Street goes down, Coach Taylor gives the first of his trademark speeches. Something about life being so very fragile. Something about us all being vulnerable. Something about how, at some point in our lives, we will fall. “We will all fall.”

  I’ve never played football or any kind of team sport. I’ve never sat through a coach’s halftime pep talk. I’ve never been in the room with someone rallying the troops to turn the tide of the fight. But hearing Coach Taylor speak, I prop myself up on my elbows. I am forty-two. This is the halftime of my life, and my team is losing. I’ve never been more in need of this speech.

  He continues about how what we have can be taken from us. Even what we have that is special. And when it is taken, we will be tested.

  I’m captivated by this speech, and even though I’ve heard it before, even though I own it on Blu-ray, I’m also hearing it for the very first time. It is in this pain that we are tested. Since I am in this pain, the pain of having what is special taken from me, I look inside myself and I don’t like what I see: a man who is broken and alone. I think of all the time Lily and I spent together, just the two of us—the talks about boys, the Monopoly, the movies, the pizza nights—and I wonder how much of it was real. Dogs don’t eat pizza; dogs don’t play Monopoly. I know this on some level, but everything feels so true. How much of it was an elaborate construct to mask my own loneliness? How much of it was built to convince myself the attempts I made at real life—therapy, dating—were not just that: attempts?

  Somewhere, sometime, I stopped really living. I stopped really trying. And I don’t understand why. I had done all the right things. I had Lily. I had Jeffrey. I had a family.

  And then I didn’t.

  I don’t understand how my life got so empty, or why the octopus came, or why everyone eventually goes away.