by Nancy Laracy
“We have to take Sunny tonight, not tomorrow. It’s huge, Mom.”
Besides needing live crickets and worms, which required several trips a week to Scuffy’s, Sunny had been a low-maintenance pet for seven years. She had never been to a vet, unlike Bunny Boy, a frequent flyer.
Ward took Chris to Oradell Animal Hospital, twenty-four-hour facility. He called home around midnight. Sunny either had an ovulated, unfertilized egg in her stomach that had not passed and had gotten infected—or she had a tumor. Neither scenario was good. The veterinarian suggested they leave her overnight for observation to the tune of several hundred dollars.
“Let me speak to your mother alone,” I heard Ward say in the background. “Nance,” he whispered. “Come on, it’s a lot of money for a lizard, don’t you think?”
“Of course it is, but it’s Chris’s pet,” I said, thinking about the thousands of dollars we had spent on Bunny Boy. “If it were Bunny—”
He cut me off. “She’s a lizard, Nance.”
But I was firm, and he acquiesced. Sunny would stay overnight.
They returned after two in the morning. Chris crawled into bed with me while Ward slept in his room. Throughout the night, Chris called out Sunny’s name several times in his sleep. It broke my heart. Sunny was Chris’s first pet—a hand-me-down. When Julie had asked for an animal for Christmas one year, we ruled out dogs and cats because of Ward’s allergies and hamsters and birds because of Julie’s asthma. The tiny Australian bearded dragon hatchling arrived Christmas morning with a glass terrarium, a mound of supplies, and two plastic cups. One was full of crickets, the other full of mealworms. Julie looked at the creature in disbelief. “Whose idea was this? Chris’s?” she said.
It didn’t take more than a week or two of trying to toss live crickets and mealworms into the terrarium for Julie to pass down the lizard. Chris jumped right in and successfully raised Sunny from her pinky-finger size to a stately eighteen inches long. She was a healthy, pristine, well-trained reptile who hung out on a log beneath her sunlamp for hours and ate crickets, worms, and an abundance of leafy greens. She was also Bunny Boy’s friend, sometimes taking rides on his back.
In the morning after his restless sleep, Chris’s forehead felt hot.
“I think he’s got a fever,” I said when Ward came into the room.
I gave Chris some Tylenol and tucked him back under the covers. Bunny Boy appeared, hopping up onto the bed and burrowing under the blanket. Happily, I realized it was the first time he had hopped onto anything since he broke his jaw. As he snuggled into Chris’s armpit, he started purring for the first time since his surgery. Our beloved Bunny Boy was back! We could always rely on him to comfort any one of us, at any given time. His instincts never failed him.
It was the day of the holiday party. I had to get everything ready—but there was also the matter of Sunny. I went into party mode, washing glassware, folding red and green napkins, and baking about eight dozen cookies. Then I called the veterinarian. Sadly, Sunny had cancer, and the veterinarian said she could be suffering. We would have to euthanize her.
I walked upstairs to break my little boy’s heart.
“I want to speak to the veterinarian,” Chris said, trying to push back his emotion. With great courage, his voice cracking, Chris asked the doctor, “Is putting Sunny to sleep my only choice?”
I watched as Chris listened to the other end of the line. Then he said, “I can’t watch her suffer. I love her too much.” Tears trickled down his warm cheeks. “I’ll pick Sunny up this afternoon,” he said, as if he’d be driving to the vet himself. Then he hung up.
I brought my sick, heartbroken little boy back to bed, twirling his soft hair between my fingers until he fell back to sleep. I was feeling choked up myself, and also overwhelmed. We had fifty guests coming around six o’clock, and we had to end the life of one of our family pets.
I called the animal hospital back. “Is it possible to pick Sunny up tomorrow?” I asked. There was a ghastly sigh at the end of the receiver. I capitulated.
I assigned the task of picking up Sunny’s remains to Ward and resumed my party preparations. My body pain was escalating rapidly from the stress and sheer physical work but I refused to give in and pushed myself, sitting down in between tasks and focusing on the goal at hand, while also handling a burst pipe in the basement and checking on Chris, Julie, and the caterers, who had just arrived. When Bunny Boy met them enthusiastically at the front door, one of the caterers backed up, frightened, thinking he was a baby fox, while the other tripped, nearly dropping a platter of cocktail sandwiches. The third stepped over him as though he were a stuffed animal left on the floor by a child.
Then I got ready, stepping into the shower and turning the water onto the hottest setting I could handle to soak my pain-ridden body. I literally began to laugh. What else could I do? We were a nuthouse. I dried off and put a lidocaine patch on my lower back to ease the muscle pain. The six-by-eight-inch patches, which had recently become available through prescription by my doctor, were invaluable for small areas, and I had to keep them on for twelve hours. Then I stepped into my black velvet dress with matching pumps and curled my hair loosely with electric curlers; blow-drying my hair was too difficult for my sore arms. “You clean up well,” said one of the caterers. I wasn’t sure whether to be complimented or offended.
When Ward came in, he was carrying a small pink box.
“Is that Sunny?” I asked somberly, reaching to kiss him in gratitude.
“No, it’s a late birthday present for you. Of course, it’s her.”
My eyes welled up. “Let’s call Chris down to see her. Sadly, we will have to put her in the freezer.” I felt pained and heartless, but we didn’t have time for a proper burial.
“May I take that?” One of the caterers had just walked in. “Do you have a small platter I can put the chocolates on?” she asked, gesturing to the pink box.
“It’s our dead lizard,” I said in a deadpan tone. “Not chocolates.”
She looked at me as if she could not have possibly heard me right.
Chris turned the corner into the kitchen, sporting a crisp pair of black pants, a white shirt, and a Christmas plaid bowtie. He still insisted that he was in charge of pouring the champagne for our guests. He looked dashing except for his glassy eyes. Ward handed him the pink box.
“I tried to take such good care of her,” he said. I sensed a gush of tears was imminent.
Chris carried Sunny up to the playroom and sat on the sofa, fiddling with the pink box and talking to her. When Bunny Boy approached and swatted the package with his front paws, Chris lost his temper with our bunny for the first time since Bunny Boy shredded his Nintendo wires. Bunny Boy scampered away, his ears flat. He knew he had done something to upset Chris. I picked him up and put on his Santa hat.
By the time the holiday guests arrived, Sunny was tucked away safely in the freezer in the garage, and soon many of our guests were taking turns holding our Christmas bunny, feigning their love for rabbits.
• • •
On the morning of Christmas Eve, we had yet to bury Sunny. She was still nestled among the Buffalo chicken strips and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches. Twelve inches of snow had fallen the day after our holiday party, but Chris was adamant.
“I want to bury Sunny today.”
Of course, he had chosen to bury our lizard on one of the busiest days of the year. Christmas Eve was the most important holiday celebration for the Buchalskis. Our tradition stemmed back to the year my father died in 1981. That year, we had gathered at my childhood home on December 24, just nineteen days after Dad had left us. We mourned our profound loss together, but amid our sadness, we stumbled upon something. Being together on Christmas Eve left Christmas Day free for my brothers to spend the holiday with their in-laws. So began our family tradition of celebrating on Christmas Eve, which the Laracys have been hosting since Ward and I were married.
With so much preparation to do before my f
amily arrived, I felt myself going into Martha mode, but then I stopped. I forced myself to become Mary for a moment. How meaningful would it be to bury Sunny on Christmas Eve? After all, she had come to us one special Christmas Day.
“I think that’s a fantastic idea, Chris,” I said, kissing the top of his head.
I went to the tree to fetch a silver gift box addressed to Chris. It contained Sunny’s headstone. I had picked it up from our local garden center and had planned on giving it to Chris on Christmas morning. I slipped it into my pocket and then went to retrieve Sunny. Chris’s lip quivered when he saw the pink box. He started rummaging through the kitchen cabinets and closets, desperately looking for an airtight container for Sunny. He feared the insects would get to her once she was buried. I had an idea. I opened the refrigerator and took out my two Christmas tins packed full of baked goods that I had been making all week. I arranged half of the brownies and cookies on a platter and consolidated the rest in another container.
“We can put Sunny is this.”
“Sunny came to us on Christmas, and now she’s leaving us on Christmas Eve in a Christmas tin.” He beamed. “It’s perfect.”
Within minutes, our funeral procession moved slowly across the yard. Underneath our winter coats, the kids and I were still in our Christmas jammies; Ward had on Christmas boxer shorts. Julie and I squeezed together under my umbrella as a gentle rain fell, leaving tiny holes in the melting snow. Bunny Boy was cradled in Julie’s arms. Chris led us deep into the woods. I thought of Flop, picturing our family’s funeral procession of seven and her grave in the backyard of my childhood home.
Chris chose a spot in a small clearing behind a holly bush. Ward dug a hole as I said a few prayers. Then, I pulled out the silver box from my pocket.
“What’s this, Mom?” Chris asked.
“Open it and see.”
Chris gingerly unwrapped the box with his small hands.
“Oh, Mom and Dad, it’s perfect.”
We were ready. Ward placed the Christmas tin in the hole and covered it with dirt. The sound of the soft raindrops on the bushes and the rustling of the squirrels provided a beautiful, natural background chorus while we said our tearful goodbye to Sunny, huddled together in the woods on Christmas Eve.
When we returned to the house, Julie put Bunny Boy down, and he darted across the family room and stopped short in front of Sunny’s terrarium. He stared through the glass, like he had done for the past few days. Then he stood up on his hind legs, stretched his head down into the glass container, and sniffed around, clearly looking for her.
I had forgotten that Bunny Boy was in mourning, too.
By noon, exhausted from all the gift wrapping and holiday preparations, I took my usual cocktail of four Advil tablets and Tylenol and curled up to rest on the sofa with my version of Red Bull—two Earl Grey tea bags steeping in my Santa mug. Recharged, I got up and found Julie and Chris in the kitchen—equally recharged from chocolate and sugar! They had skipped right over lunch and were popping my holiday cookies into their mouths. The platter was looking sparse, so I reached for the remaining Christmas tin, hoping to replenish the platter—
“Waaaaaaaard!” I screamed, racing toward the landing to the stairs. “She’s here! Sunny’s here!”
There was Sunny’s pink box, in the tin. We had mixed the boxes!
We all hovered over the tin, staring in disbelief.
“So, let me get this straight, Nance. You’re telling me that I buried the desserts?” Ward said.
Our nuthouse had just gotten nuttier.
• • •
Besides our little mishap, Christmas was as wonderful and joyous as it always was. Despite the amount of pain it caused me to decorate the house and host parties, I was determined to push through to create the perfect “Bing Crosby Christmas.” Our lawn was lit up with two reindeer constructed of wood and wire, and a giant, spotlighted wreath with a red velvet bow hung on our door. Fresh wreaths hung on the six ground-floor windows, and artificial candles lit up the windows on the second floor. Whenever we returned to the house and approached the porch, we would see Bunny Boy through the window, sitting on his haunches and gazing up at the twinkling lights. He looked absolutely enchanting, like a Norman Rockwell image. Inside, the living room was decked out in gold, the perfect backdrop for fresh pine wreathing, antique-style felt fruit clusters, white poinsettias, and large gold bows. Dozens of white votives scattered among the tables gave the room a soft glow, and brass sconces wrapped in fresh mistletoe flanked the mantel. The wooden stairway leading up to the landing was draped with wreaths, magnolia leaves, mistletoe, white pine swags, and oversized plaid bows. Bunny Boy was often found swatting the greenery on the railings with his forceful back paws when he got bored with the Christmas trees.
It was my Christmas wonderland.
Christmas was special for a few other reasons that year. Bunny Boy had beaten the odds and was still very much alive. Ward had also found my favorite gold bracelet that I thought I had lost forever at one of his corporate parties, on the mat of the passenger seat in the car. It was seemingly impossible.
“Someone wanted to make sure you had a Christmas present other than Bunny Boy,” Ward said, shaking his head in disbelief. I felt as if an angel had wrapped its wings around me.
That Christmas night, Bunny Boy took his very first swim in the hot tub. The whole family had gathered in the outdoor jacuzzi, and Chris had plopped Bunny Boy onto the deck in the snow. He popcorned blissfully, sending powder flying into the air and leaving paw prints across the snow-covered deck. Then, he fell on his side and started wiggling his back paws, forming his own snow angel. His face was sprinkled with snow, making him look like a sugared confection. Bunny Boy was in snow bunny heaven.
Soon, Bunny Boy was as intrigued with the hot tub as he was with the snow, and he took his place among our family soak—accidentally. He binkied too close to the edge, falling in butt-first. Bunny Boy started tunneling and swimming like an otter, frantically, swallowing some water.
“Grab him!” I screamed, jumping from my seat.
His wet, thrashing body slipped through our hands. Bunny Boy was in survival mode, oblivious to all of us. But Julie, with her calm and cool demeanor, came to Bunny Boy’s rescue. She grabbed her towel from the railing and scooped him up.
“You’re a lunatic, Bunny Boy!” I shrieked, sounding like a lunatic myself, fearing that the exposure to the bitter cold and the 104-degree water might cause him to have a heart attack.
We traipsed into the sunroom, tracking snow all over the rug. Bunny Boy’s soggy, wet head stuck out of the towel as he licked himself profusely. He seemed no worse for the wear. His nose was twittering at the appropriate speed and his ears were straight up in the “happy” position—my bunny vital signs.
“You gotta love Bunny Boy, Nance,” said Ward. “He doesn’t want to miss a thing.”
“Spa night’s over for everyone,” I said. “Except Bunny Boy. Julie and I will blow-dry him upstairs.”
Ward closed up the hot tub. It was twelve fifteen. Our magical Christmas was over.
Chapter 23
Another New Year’s came and went. Bunny Boy’s jaw healed perfectly against all odds, and by mid-March my gamma globulin infusions were finished. With great trepidation but little choice, I had started giving myself injections of Enbrel. The parvovirus antibodies had been suppressed by the gamma globulin treatment, and now the Enbrel would hopefully treat the connective tissue disease in the long term. Sadly, my usual short protocols of the steroid prednisone were no longer keeping my connective tissue disease under control. Steroids are extremely effective for short-term use, but when used over many years in the long term, they are dangerous and can shut down your entire immune system instead of just one part of it. Now that I was on Enbrel, I was feeling stronger and more energetic than I had in a long time.
It was time for spring cleaning.
I compiled a list of jobs to be done in the upcoming weeks and dele
gated like a true corporate executive. Julie and Chris protested the event vehemently, as they did each year and as I had when I was younger. Tina, the dear that she was, went into overdrive, ticking off items on the list I had posted on the refrigerator. Closets and cabinets were reorganized and thinned out. Bags of trash and old clothes, school supplies, and toys, along with dozens of magazines and books, were piled up in the garage like the Grinch had come through. “It’s gotta go,” Tina said. Meanwhile, I was just in drive, and Julie and Chris were parked. On the sofa next to Bunny Boy.
When I returned home one afternoon, I noticed that the door to the lagomorph lounge was only open a crack. Hoping to sneak up on Bunny Boy and give him a big smooch, I opened the door slowly. I broke into hilarious laughter when I saw Bunny Boy on the carpet, sloshing around in white frothy foam with the distinct smell of lavender. He seemed to be enjoying a good bubble bath. But I was also puzzled.
It turned out that Tina had sprayed deodorized carpet shampoo on the rug. She thought she had closed the door, but our nosey, mischievous bunny must have squeezed through the small opening. Tina had found the can of carpet cleaner in the garage; it had to be at least six years old, pre–Bunny Boy. The label read “pet-safe,” but I didn’t trust it. I gave Bunny Boy a real bath in the kitchen sink while Tina vacuumed up the foam. Then we closed off the room securely until the rug could dry.
After his bath, Bunny Boy stationed himself on the landing to the family room and looked up at me, waiting for me to open the door.
“It’s off limits, Bunny Boy!” I said sternly.
He stood on his hind legs and started scratching at the door. He sniffed the gap between the floor and the door, then flipped his hind legs forcefully against the door, trying to open it. I was amazed at the strength of his thumper legs and the loud sound they made. I ignored him, and my lack of concern for his plight seemed to anger him. He tore down the stairs after me, leaving caution to the wind and grabbing my pants with his teeth, trying to get me to follow him up to the landing.