The First Year

by Jeff Rosenplot

  Adrenaline pumping. Hold the poker in front of me, race out the door as well.

  Takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. I hear the fight nearby, to the right, on the beach. The two smaller animals bark and yip, but they’ve already retreating to the tree line. Moonlight catches the flash of fighting fur on the beach.

  “Oliver!”

  Run down the beach. There’s a sickening yelp and then a flash of moonlit fur. The sound of battle has ended. My eyes have fully adjusted.

  “Oh, God, Oliver!”

  Fall to my knees in the sand. Bury my body into his. Something wet and sticky smears my cheek. Put my hands under his body. Try to lift him. Drop the poker. Oliver’s heavy. It takes several tries, but I carry him up the beach, onto the deck and back into the house. His breath is angry, spastic bursts. In the firelight, his eyes look empty.

  “No, no, no, no. I’ll fix you. I’ll fix you.”

  Jump up and run past the open French doors. Slam them shut and run to the bathroom to find the crate of first aid supplies. Turn on a flashlight and push the crate across the floor to where Oliver lies.

  The flashlight beam is unforgiving. Oliver is caked in blood. It mats his fur and continues to ooze from somewhere under his neck. Frantically unwrap gauze and hold it against what might be the source of the injury. Speak softly and quickly to him, sounds more than words. Feel the distant beat of his heart through my fingertips.

  Oliver’s eyes roll around trying to find me. I kiss him and hold him. Slowly, almost deliberately, his eyes grow glassy and his tongue slips out of his open mouth.

  I scream and cry at the same time. Fury, pain, grief, it burst out of my like an explosion. I pull Oliver’s body onto my lap and cradle him against me. My tears won’t stop, and I don’t want them to.

  Heartbreak

  I hold him long past dawn. I only know it’s daytime because of the light hitting my cheek.

  His body grows colder the longer I hold onto it. I keep hoping my warmth will make him comfortable. I just don’t want to let him go.

  “I’m sorry.” This is my fault. I left the door open. I wanted to hear the ocean. Such a stupid, selfish thing. I needed to hear the ocean so I could sleep. Just like everything else, it’s all about me. And Oliver, all he wanted was me. Some attention, some love. He defended me. He saved my life. I can’t thank him for it.

  I disentangle myself from his body. Take the shovel and take him and I do the thing I’ve become so skilled at doing. Afterwards, I sit in the cold dirt in the shade of the house and lay my hand on top of his grave. I sit here for a long time, long after sunset, simply holding on.

  Later, in the dark, I sit in the armchair. The firelight dances over the empty sofa. I can’t bring myself to lie down. The emptiness is unbearable. So instead I sit and stare. What else is there to do? I miss the rumble of his breathing. The house is hollow. I don’t cry. I have no more tears left. In my heart though, I’m still weeping an ocean.

  Why is this so hard? I lost my family. Iburied my family. I knew Oliver for half a year, and yet my grief for him outweighs anything I’ve felt before. Is it the shock? The whole thing was over in moments. With my family, death took time. But Oliver is a dog, he isn’t my mother or father. All things being equal, I shouldn’t even be batting an eye.

  Is this what it means to be in love? Because this sure feels like heartbreak. Maybe it’s the fact that when I finally began to believe I’d be alone forever, I suddenly wasn’t. We never shared a conversation but I understood him in ways I never understood another living thing. It might have been because our relationship was simple. We were both survivors. And however differently we each interpreted the world, we both clearly understood how rare each of us were. And now no one else knows.

  Slip into sleep despite my best efforts. In the dream, I’m standing in front of the beach house. It’s as it had been before the hurricane. I stare down at the beach. The sun reflects off the ocean, blinding me. Shield my eyes. Out of the glare, Oliver bounds up to me. I run out to him, falling onto the sand and feeling his exuberant kisses on my face. As I wake up, I can smell his breath in the air.

  Alone

  It’s not the first of anything that’s the hardest. That’s the thing they don’t tell you. The first sunrise, the first anniversary, the first year, the first day you go back to what has to pass for normal. You plan for those times. You know they’re coming. No, it’s not the first. It’s the third, or the fifth, or the hundred-and-fiftieth. That’s where grief finds you. Because you can steel yourself against the first. That’s what you plan for.

  I need to eat. I need to sleep, walk, plan, do. I need to do these things independent of Oliver. I’ve already done all of these things independent of Mom and Dad. Grace. Gabe. I’m an expert at it. I’m the best in the world at moving on.

  He’s just a dog. That’s my four-word mantra. He’s just a dog. I repeat it as I walk along the cold winter beach. I write it in my notebook, line after line, page after page. I hear it in my ears as the icy rain sprays the windows.

  I’m just a human. That’s a better mantra. That’s the honest one. There’s no such thing as just a dog. I know this because I’m the one saying it. He died for me. And I’m repaying him by trying to minimize his entire existence. I’m just a human. The last human. And what a truly human thing to do.

  The problem with doing anything, whether for the first or the dozenth time, is that I’m doing it alone. Driving into town, sitting on the sofa, walking along the beach, all of it’s tainted by Oliver’s absence. Every place I look is a place he used to be. I’m surrounded by what no longer exists.

  What do I do now? Such a simple, stupid question. I’ve done this before. I’ve answered this question before. I spent a month walking. Is that what I do now? Leave again? Leave behind another mound of dead earth and pretend a second time that it doesn’t matter?

  I don’t know what to do. Oliver gave me a reason to do something. If nothing more than just waking up so he could pee outside, that alone was something. The difference between something and nothing turns out to be the warm, wet nose of my best friend.

  That’s it, isn’t it? Oliver was my best friend. Without ever saying a word to each other, at least none that we understood, we knew each other better than anyone else. Two living souls that spent every moment of every day with each other. Never getting tired of each other. Never running out of things to say, despite the fact that we had nothing to say.

  I’ve become a professional griever. That’s my job. I go to work each day in the factory of grief I’ve built, turn on the lights, start up the machines and the product I build is sadness. I have no customers for it. I’m its only consumer. I build it and I use it.

  Oliver helped distract me from this work. He gave me permission to shutter the factory but we’re open for business again.

  What a waste. What a fucking waste. And what’s the point? Why take everything from me and then give me something so wonderful in its place, and then take that, too? There’s no reason for it.

  I’m still looking for reasons why. I guess that’s the problem. The first grave I dug in the cold, hard dirt of Detroit, that should’ve told me. The message should’ve been loud and clear. But I didn’t listen. There always has to be a reason. But there’s no reason. If there was, I would’ve found it by now. Life is short and life is meaningless. Life is leaving the French doors open. It’s every human being and most of everything else dying of the flu. And life is me, stupid, stubborn, scrawny little Hannah Barton still trying to escape all the junk left behind after the world closed down, and pretending there’s still a reason to do it. The reason is simple. Thereis no reason. There never was. Not even when everyone else was still here.

  The parade’s moved on. Not even Oliver is left here with me now. But I’m still opening up the factory. I’m still building my sad little widgets and I’m still the only one who gives a damn.

  FEBRUARY

  Avenging

  There always has to be
a plan, doesn’t there? Without one, all I do is float in the air like a child’s lost balloon. I know what happens without a plan.

  In the time since Oliver’s death, I’ve wandered. Sometimes through the house, other times up and down the lonely beach. But everything that used to calm me now only reminded me of what’s missing. I pick up a stick out of habit. I prepare to toss it across the surf and then I remember. Each remembering is a fresh stab wound to my heart. None of the wounds are fatal. And that makes them worse.

  I’m angry. Mostly at myself, and for lots of reasons. I’m the one who left the door open. I had the fire poker in my hand but I hesitated to use it. I wasn’t fast enough to get down to the beach and stop the coyote’s fatal attack. I’m guilty. The unending waves of loss dwarf anything I felt for my family. I try to put it in perspective, to point my agony back to Mom and Dad and Grace and Gabe. And I’m lonely. That last one, the emptiness, that’s the hardest. Loneliness sneaks up on me in the dark, whispering in my ear and reminding me that the breath and the body of my brother-in-arms is gone forever.

  I can’t shake any of it. Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but I already gave up on time. For all the pain time has caused, it’s the most effective antibiotic. Time has sutured my original wounds. The scars are ugly, but they long ago stopped bleeding. Maybe that’s how I was able to cope with my family’s deaths. Time has healed those wounds, or at least provided basic first aid. With Oliver, it’s different. I was supposed to look out for him.

  I failed. There’s no other way around it. And because I failed, I’ve lost what’s most important to me in this new world. Love is a luxury item and relationships are the rarest of diamonds. I can survive, I’ve already done that. But survival is simple mechanics. Survival is a humanoid robot, able to mimic the behavior of life but lacking the secret magic ingredient. I had that ingredient. Now it’s gone, and everything I’m doing has become robotic and mechanical again.

  The plan grows organically from a tiny seed I don’t even remember planting. It slowly grows to overtake everything else. The plan is proactive. Grieving is not. I grab hold of the plan with both hands.

  I’ve never been vengeful. Even when Cody Riley had chosen me as his target to torment in sixth grade, I never thought about getting even. Cody Riley was a jerk who ridiculed and teased other people. I knew that Cody would eventually move on. Fighting back against stupidity seemed like a waste of energy. But this isn’t Cody Riley. And I’m not that girl anymore. Maybe I’d fight back against Cody now. It’d sure be a spectacular fight.

  I see the coyotes every day, lurking in the woods. The coyotes are gray, thin, muscular. I hear them at night, their claws clicking against the deck boards outside. There’s a practical reason to kill them. They’ve won the territory. They killed Oliver. And they’ll eventually kill me. Whatever fear they once had, it’s long gone. They’re adapting to the new order. Without humans, without dogs, the coyotes are in charge. The apex predators. I remember reading that phrase somewhere. The top of the food chain.

  The plan to kill the coyotes gives me something to focus on. I pretend I’m doing it to protect myself. In truth, it’s all about getting even. I need to draw blood.

  I’m still gun shy. I check out crossbows. The sporting goods store has an abundant supply. The one I picked up when I found the gun was left behind in the beach house with some of the other crap I didn’t bring with me. Besides, choosing the weapon is part of all this process.

  Some of the bows are shaped like traditional Robin Hood bows and arrows. Others are more like guns, with the bow and arrow portion strapped horizontally across the weapon’s stock.

  I never killed the deer. What makes me think I can kill the coyotes. And what’s the difference?

  “I didn’t let the deer go. All I did was miss.”

  Ihad fired the gun. Despite how I later spun the story in my own head, I had pulled the trigger with the intention of killing the deer. I’ve already crossed that threshold.

  I find an angry-looking black crossbow. It’s light in my hands, smaller than the other bows. It fits my small palms well. I pick up all the arrows I can find. In the parking lot of the sporting goods store, I set up a makeshift target range of empty water bottles scavenged from the back of the truck.

  It’s harder than it looks. I mimic the stance and posture of the person on the packaging. The bow string is very tight. The sharp metal arrow fits snugly in place. The bow has a kick, though not nearly as powerful as the rifle. My first few dozen shots fly high and to the right. I hold the bow steadier, aligning myself with the water bottle targets.

  Hit one of the bottles dead on. The arrow carries the light plastic across the parking lot. Shoot again, over and over, and eventually I hit more than I miss.

  The plan is to kill a deer and leave its body as bait. When the coyotes pick up the scent and come in to investigate, I’ll shoot the leader, the one who killed Oliver. The plan seems clear. It’s theonly thing that seems clear. It allows me to focus on something besides emptiness, and the fury that keeps threatening to take its place.

  I collect the arrows from the parking lot and pack everything up in the truck. Out of habit, I open the passenger door to let Oliver in. Feel the scab of the wound peel off. It’s like that, a thousand insignificant things, the absence of his snoring, opening the door first thing in the morning to let him out to pee, that collect together to make missing him unbearable. We’re connected in ways I’ve never been with any other living creature. We needed each other but more than that, wewanted each other. Survival bound us but love was what kept us.

  The deer congregate in a marshy area near the marina. I took notice of them when Oliver and I had begun taking inventory. The deer are hard to miss. There are at least three dozen, most of them young, and none of them particularly concerned by my presence. Maybe this group of young deer has never experienced human beings. Maybe they’ve never had their best friend run over by a speeding car. These deer are far more nonchalant than the three I’d tried to shoot. I assume the coyotes haven’t found them yet. I don’t know what coyotes eat. I hope it includes deer.

  I’m calm. The plan, it’s gruesome. And cold-hearted. If I think about it clearly, the whole thing will probably make me sick. But clarity isn’t part of the plan. I’m angry.Hateful is a better term. I hate the coyotes. I hate myself, I hate death, God, everything that has conspired to take Oliver away. And now I want revenge. The plan’s clarity makes me calm. I don’t have to think about it. All that’s required is for me to put it into action.

  Park the truck at the top of a small rise overlooking the marsh flats. The herd of deer are scattered across the spongy ground. It’s quiet. I’m still amazed by the silence. Humans made so much noise, even when they weren’t doing a damn thing except sleeping. Left alone, the world is a very quiet place.

  The deer are beautiful. They have a slim, athletic elegance that reminds me of dancers. Mom took us to seeThe Nutcracker one Christmas. We had to dress up, wearing fancy clothes and even high heels. Walking into the auditorium was like an obstacle course. The heels made me feel like I was walking on stilts. I slipped them off as soon as I sat down. Grace complained. Gabe slept. But me, I was mesmerized. The dancers seemed weightless. Their legs and arms and torsos were fluid and moved in such perfect synchrony that I almost believed each individual dancer was part of the same body. The deer have the same agility. Even grazing, their movements are interconnected.

  What am I doing? None of these animals deserve what I’m about to do. What happens when I kill one of them? What happens to their group? Will they miss their friend as much as I miss mine?

  It’s a selfish plan. Beyond that, it’s ahuman plan. I’m dominant. I can do whatever I want. The deer had no part in Oliver’s death. My greed, my grief, it makes me want to destroy. If I do it, if I follow through with my plan, what will it matter? Oliver is dead. That’s a reality I can’t change. Killing a deer, killing the coyotes, what reason is there other than revenge? Getting
back at them. Making them suffer like I’m suffering. I’m now the minority in the world. The deer, the coyotes, the cougar, the bears, they won the coin toss. They’re dominant. So much for human superiority. Human beings lost. For all our gadgets and inventions and roads and oil and distracting entertainment, it was just a microscopic bug that brought the whole thing tumbling down. I’m an antique. The last of my kind. And instead of recognizing my new role in the world, all I want to do is punish the coyotes for doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.

  Isn’t that supposed to be what set humans apart? That instead of catering to our basest instincts, we can reason? How often had I ever seen that happen in my own life? Reasonable human behavior was as rare as a unicorn. Despite having the capacity to think higher thoughts, we lived low to the ground. We killed each other all the time, not for any reason but for selfish greed. Revenge, anger, brutality, jealousy, rage. These were the calling cards of the human experience. For every profound idea, there were a hundred thousand brutal ones. The news was a nonstop parade of the worst things one human being could do to another. Was that what dominance looked like? Was that true superiority? Or were human beings simply too stupid for their own good?

  “Is that how I want to live?” A few of the deer cock their long ears in my direction.

  Maybe that’s whatdidset humans apart from the other animals. Maybe it’s what will setthis human apart. If I really am the last one, don’t I bear some responsibility?

  I hold the bow in my hand. I want the coyotes to hurt. That desire burns like a brush fire in my stomach. It won’t bring Oliver back, and that’s what I want. I want my family back. I want to sit in a boring classroom watching the clock counting down the seconds to lunch. I want to listen to Grace and Mom arguing. I want to sit with Dad on the roof and hear him talk about the stars. I want a rainy Saturday with board games and hot cocoa. If all of that means the rest of it has to come back, too, the brutal ruthlessness of human life, I’ll take it because embedded deep inside it is my human life. And I loved that part.