Back Where He Started

by Jay Quinn

  I opened my eyes and took in the wonderful blue, yellow, coral, and ochre of my great big rug. The wintry sun flooded through the uncovered windows and filled the large empty room. I almost wished the furniture I’d picked out so carefully and ordered so many weeks ago wasn’t coming at all. When I met Zack I didn’t have much. Now, looking at the intricately knotted pattern border of the rug’s blue field, I felt almost as light and free as I did back then. It seemed magical surrounding my sleeping, dreaming old dog. Empty of crowding furniture, the room was as immense as the future, full of promise and possibility.

  A wave of optimism welled up inside me. Everything was going to be all right. The phone rang loud from the kitchen side of the great room, and I practically sprinted to catch it. I was breathless when I picked up the receiver.

  “Chris, are you okay?” my eldest asked.

  “Trey! Yes, I’m great. I should know better than to really run to get the phone. How are you?”

  “Really busy, Chris. I’m between meetings, but I got a message you called.”

  “I won’t keep you,” I said. “I just needed to let you know I have all of the Christmas ornaments. I thought you and Susan might like some of them for your own tree.”

  There was a long pause while this mundane business found a niche in Trey’s complicated organizational thinking. I pictured him weighing his emotional obligation to me against the sentimental value of all the Hallmark ornaments he loved, then again against meetings and potential schedule conflicts. “Sure Chris, that’s really nice of you to think of us. I’ll have Susan call you and we’ll set up a time to visit and pick them up. I want to get a mental picture of you situated in your new place, in any event.”

  “Great. That’s super, you know … whenever.”

  “Chris? I really have to go, but are you really okay?”

  “I’m fine and happy, Trey. I’m waiting on my new furniture to be delivered and Beau’s sleeping in the sun. We’re great.” I hoped Trey didn’t think I sounded depressed. God forbid I should come off as needy when I didn’t feel that way at all.

  “That’s a load off my mind, Chris. Pat the ol’ boy for me. You take care.”

  “You too, bye.”

  “Bye.” Trey was off and gone. I wondered if he honestly heard a word I said. With the heavy weight off his shoulders of getting me out of the old house and into the new one, he’d necessarily moved on to other things. Knowing him like I did and imagining the demands on his attention, I supposed he’d have a spontaneous recall of the entire conversation about the middle of next January.

  I had also left messages for Andrea and Schooner. I thought they might like having some of the old ornaments, even if they just kept them stored away in boxes. Andrea had always been very much into themed occasions and decorations; I fully expected her to have a Christmas tree with peacock feathers and gilded bird’s nests. Of course, Andrea needed to do things her own way. She always had. Not having a mommy in the literal sense of the word always put her at odds with me, which left her to intuit how to do girl things in her own idiosyncratic fashion. In her grown-up patterns of domesticity I saw strong echoes of how I ran the house when the kids were growing up, but I took great pains not to tell her so.

  I opened the drawer to the left of my new Viking range (another expensive sop to my damaged ego, encouraged by Wade Lee’s solicitude and paid for by Zack’s guilt money), where I’d placed my wire whisk, my stainless steel ladles and strainers, my wooden spoons and spatulas, my carving set, my manual can opener, and my corkscrew. In Andrea’s kitchen you’d find the same assortment of crap in the left-hand drawer by her stove. I’d never been a fan of cutesy tchotchkes, and Andrea’s kitchen counters were littered with them, but when it came to a certain kind of junky organization, I’d made my mark.

  Schooner was the one I most wanted to hear from. He loved the cheesy, tinkly, fragile glass ornaments—especially the tiny blown-glass bells that we always hung from the tips of the tree branches and the hulking mercury glass ornaments of the later, prosperous years.

  Andrea and Trey were each sturdy enough in their own ways. It was Schooner I worried about, in the collision of his father’s blind will to reinvent his life with the way the kids saw their dad, me, and themselves. In the frantic redrawing of boundaries, Schooner had pulled away from all of us. Alternately distant and tender, Schooner blew in and blew out of our last Thanksgiving in the old house with a mysterious agenda and unspoken obligations elsewhere. He had never been a secretive kid, but I had the distinct impression he wanted to be as far from us as possible to avoid our questions and clingy expressions of concern. It’s hard for some boys to become men. They have to wean themselves from the source of nurture with a relentless, set-jaw determination that really is pitiful. I could understand that—being male myself—but it was especially poignant when I saw that inclination in my baby.

  I heard air brakes outside and saw the truck outside idling—the driver was looking for the house number on the pilings holding up the house. Stepping over Beau, I opened the French doors onto the deck and stepped out to wave to the delivery guys.

  “You don’t want your new house to look like Pottery Barn, circa summer 2003,” Wade Lee had said on another refugee trip I made up to Norfolk to outrun the emptiness Zack’s departure had left me with. Watching the delivery guys uncrate and bring up the clean, tailored new furniture Wade talked me into buying, I was glad I had listened to him.

  I had the guys set the sleek new armchairs and a low, coral lacquered table by the fireplace. I tugged the sections of a leather mango-colored Roche Bobois sofa into position myself while they set up the red Italian contemporary bed in my room. I pulled the new wicker chairs for the sunroom in front of their bank of windows while the crew brought up a new teak sideboard and tucked it behind the hair-raisingly expensive sofa. With the new guest bed set up properly and the round pedestal table assembled by the bookshelves, the new stuff was all in place.

  I was mentally arranging the antique dining table and yellow-ochre leather Cassina cab chairs Wade Lee was holding for me when the driver presented me with the delivery slip to sign. After I scribbled my name awkwardly and slipped him a generous tip, he said, “Buddy, you might want to keep an eye on your dog. He don’t look so good.”

  Through all the commotion and comings and goings of the delivery men, Beau hadn’t moved. He lay on his side, with his legs pointed stiffly away from his body. His breath labored his sides, and his paws were trembling. Alarmed, I handed the delivery guy his clipboard and walked around my new furniture to Beau’s side and knelt down.

  “Beau? Beau-baby? Are you okay?”

  My old dog opened his eyes and looked at me. A little bit of blood-flecked foam had gathered at the corner of his mouth. He tried to raise his head and made a sound that was more of a mew than anything like his usually rumbling greetings. I put a hand under his head and lifted gently. There was no help from him in the movement—his big old head rested heavily in my hand. I looked up at the delivery guy and said, “Can you help me get him to my truck?”

  I couldn’t recall ever seeing one on the beach road, but I remembered seeing a vet’s office across the bridge on the mainland. Making my way there, I cooed to and comforted Beau as best I could from the driver’s seat. He was a good boy. He never whimpered or cried once. Halfway to the bridge, I spotted the sign for a vet’s office in a strip shopping center and nearly rolled the Expedition when I braked hard and took a sharp right into the parking lot.

  I must have been pretty wild-eyed, because the receptionist took one look at me coming in the door and called out “Dr. Heath!” A moment later, the man himself strode through a swinging door behind her, accompanied by a younger man I automatically assumed to be the doctor’s assistant. I didn’t really have time to notice the doctor except to note he was male, fairly tall, and kind of rawboned. The young man with him only took one look at his rangy, ropy self to know he was trouble—trouble for me, anyway. Even in the midst of my pa
nic, I thought Jimmy Worley and tried to avoid his eyes.

  “It’s my dog,” I said on the verge of panic. “I’ve got him out in the truck. I think he’s dying.”

  The doctor followed me out to the parking lot, let me get the back hatch open, and promptly climbed in and sat down by Beau’s head. He gently stroked Beau’s shoulder and flank, then opened his eye to check his pupils. Putting on his stethoscope, he flashed a glance at me as he placed the end of the instrument on Beau’s side. He looked up at me searchingly and motioned for me to sit opposite him as he took off his stethoscope.

  “What’s his name,” he asked softly.

  “Beau,” I said as I gently smoothed back Beau’s ear.

  “I’m Dr. Aubrey Heath, but most people just call me Heath.”

  It was starting to dawn on me that I was really losing Beau, but I pushed the thought of it away. I said, “My name’s Chris Thayer.”

  “Well, Mr. Thayer—”

  “Chris. It’s Chris,” I said.

  “Chris, I’m sorry. Beau’s gone.”

  “Tough break,” the younger man commented. I didn’t realize he’d followed us to the truck. “But he looks old for a Chessie.”

  I just looked at him, astonished at his heartlessness.

  “Steve knows Chesapeakes—he breeds them,” Heath explained gently.

  “My name’s Steve Willis,” the young man said. “I’m real sorry about your dog.”

  I looked at him and nodded, warmed slightly by his sincere tone after his initial tough comment.

  “I got a bitch ready to find puppies about New Year’s. You let Heath know if you want me to keep you one. You know, if you’re ready by then,” he said, and stuck out his hand. I took it and felt his callused palm give me a quick, tough squeeze. He said, “Well, I’d better get on the road.” He let go of my hand and nodded brusquely. “Heath.”

  “See ya then, Steve,” Heath said.

  As he walked away, I said impulsively, “I’ll be in touch.”

  Without looking back, Steve raised his hand and strode across the parking lot to a truck I took to be his. The truck was jacked up for four-wheel driving and spattered with mud.

  I looked back at Heath searchingly.

  “Steve’s a good guy,” he said. “Don’t mind him being abrupt. He really meant well, it’s just how he is.”

  I nodded and looked back down at Beau. I felt so disloyal even thinking about this Steve guy’s offer of a new puppy with Beau not even cold.

  “I can take care of Beau for you now if you’d like, Chris.”

  Heath’s warm voice was scarce more than I could take at the moment. I felt the tears come and I choked back a sob.

  “Would you like a moment to say good-bye now?” he said.

  I looked at him gratefully.

  “I’m not trying to be crude, but Beau’s going to start to leak a little soon. His muscles are relaxed. I just want you to be aware—it won’t be long—so you’re not surprised, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m going to step back inside and get a towel for Beau, okay? When I come back, I’ll have someone help me get him inside for you and you can let me know what you’d like to do then. Sound good?”

  I tried my best to smile at him, but my tears couldn’t wait. “Why is it so hard?” I demanded of the man. “Why is this so goddamned hard?”

  “It ain’t never easy. Believe me.” Heath patted my shoulder and left.

  I lifted Beau’s old head and slipped my weight across the gate of the Expedition to cradle it in my lap. I stroked his muzzle, apologizing for bringing him so far from home. It was so far for both of us to come just for him to die. I cried for both of us. I cried until Heath came and took Beau away.

  “So, have you grieved?” Andrea demanded.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I cried when I got home,” I lied, eyeing Wade Lee as he placed wingback chairs covered in a white denim at opposite ends of the marvelously patina’d mahogany Regency dining table he’d brought up, along with a 25-foot U-Haul load of things he’d selected and things I’d bought. “Hold on, Andrea … Wade, aren’t wingbacks a little much?”

  “Not considering how much time you spend sitting at your kitchen table. And face it, honey, this may scream ‘formal,’ but it’s really whispering ‘kitchen.’“

  “Chris, who’s that?” Andrea asked.

  “It’s Wade. He’s brought down some stuff I picked up in Norfolk to go in my new house.”

  “Oh. Well, that’ll be worth a trip down to the beach just to see how he’s tarted up the place. Anyway, have you really grieved?”

  “Andrea, what do you want me to tell you? Of course I grieved. Beau was always really my dog. Despite what all you kids might claim, I fed, walked, and watered him. I’ll miss him a lot.”

  “Chris, it’s okay to let the loss of Beau take on more significance than you might think appropriate. You should let Beau’s death be a means to grieve for all that’s happened to you—to our family—in the past year.”

  I rolled my eyes at Wade Lee. “Hon, I understand that. Really, it’s Schooner who seems to have taken your advice. He liked to fell out crying when I told him over the phone last night. It took me quite awhile to let him get it all out of his system.”

  “Besides that, how is my baby brother?” Andrea asked. “He didn’t seem himself at Thanksgiving. I mean, I really expected him to be a little more emotionally available, considering how sad it was for all of us to be together one last time in the old house.”

  “He’s fine—final exams are this week. He’s promised to come down to the beach for a few days after he’s finished. So, Andrea, would you like any of the old family Christmas ornaments? I thought you and David might like some, just for your kids someday, even if they’re not what you’d really like. I mean, what would go well with your overall Christmas design—”

  “Chris, I really can’t deal with Christmas just now. I don’t even think we’re going to decorate. I just have too many unresolved feelings surrounding the breakup of our family. Our things scattered to the four winds. Beau dying. It’s all really too much.”

  “Andrea, I respect your feelings and everything. But sweetheart, you must learn not to be so fragile. Our family hasn’t broken up. We’ve just shifted. We’ve adjusted ourselves to accommodate someone your father loves very much—even a new baby.”

  “I don’t see how you can be so emotionally accommodating, Chris,” Andrea replied. I could hear her microwave come on and the tense slam of cutlery hitting her kitchen counter. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive the old goat.”

  It was as if she were still 13 years old. “He’s still your father Andrea, and I’ll not listen to you talk about him that way,” I reminded her who was the mom and who was getting to be Miss Fussy-Pants. “I don’t see myself as emotionally accommodating, I’m just a grown-up. I can’t begrudge the man a happy life—”

  “Even at your own expense?” Andrea demanded. I was getting tired of the whole conversation. Wade Lee was unrolling a particularly beautiful frayed silk prayer rug that fit wonderfully in the space between my serving island and the new table.

  “Andrea, my own girl-baby, I love you. You’ve grown into a very wise and mature young woman in so many ways. But just now, I don’t want to talk about all this anymore. I’m grieved out. I want to get on with it, okay?”

  “I want to come see you. I miss you,” Andrea said softly. “No matter where you are, that’ll always be home, Chris.”

  “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  “Let me speak to David and we’ll see when we can get down, okay?”

  “That would be lovely. Give David a hug for me, okay?”

  “Okay, Chris. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Filing Andrea’s neurosis away for further pondering at a later time, I hung up the phone and gave my attention to my friend.

  Wade Lee gazed critically at the rug on the floor and moved it a foot farther away from the table. “What do you think?�
��

  “I think that’s probably one of my favorite things I bought for the house,” I said.

  “I agree. Now, let’s have a nice, large bourbon before we start unpacking the blue and white. I need some inspiration to find a place for those huge temple jars and all that damn Blue Willow crap you bought on eBay.”

  “You love Blue Willow and don’t lie and say you don’t,” I replied.

  “I got rid of all mine years ago, thank you very much. I’m all about Vieux Paris gold-plated porcelain at the moment.”

  “No shit?” I said as I walked barefoot across the soft, worn rug on my way to the cabinet for glasses and the refrigerator for ice.

  “You’ll see for yourself if you come up for Christmas.”

  I found the bourbon still in a box in the pantry. There was dust on the bottle and the seal had never been broken. I hadn’t even thought of a drink in the whole week since I moved in. I poured a generous slug over the ice in both glasses.

  “What do you think?” Wade asked as he reached for his drink and gestured toward the large blue-and-white temple jars. They were sitting side by side on the teak-stained hardwood floor under the sideboard behind the sofa.

  After I pondered the tableau for a moment, I said, “I think if you give two faggots enough money perfection will be achieved. Accessories will complement and taste will triumph over all adversity and heartbreak.”

  “Except for the internalized homophobia, that sounds like a toast to me baby,” Wade said as he clinked his glass against mine. “Now, drop your suddenly slimmer ass down by the fire and tell me all about this hunky vet.”

  “Do you really think my ass is smaller?” I asked.

  “Tragedy is a diet that can’t be beat, sweetheart. You look like you’ve fallen off quite a bit.” Wade looked at me critically as he sank into a club chair by the fire.

  “Thanks!” I said. I was definitely cheered.

  “Seriously, Chris. You need to get back into the life. You’re too young to lock yourself up in this house alone. You’re looking great for your age. You’d do well on the computer-dating scene. You could even use a current picture.”