Christmas dinner was casual and nice. When I gave my brother the sushi book, I explained that it didn’t go with the gift but it was so him that I had to get it. He looked at me and smiled. In that moment we connected and I knew I’d made the right decision.
• • •
The next morning—the day after Christmas—Liam came running up to us saying, “What’s wrong with my dog?” We followed him into the kitchen to Murray’s carrier, where he lay half in, half out. He raised his head slowly, with great effort. He was noticeably sick. Then he threw up.
Mehran stayed with the kids while Dean and I took Murray straight to the vet. The vet’s staff said he had a high temperature but that the vet was still out for Christmas vacation so we should go to the emergency vet. We drove straight there. They did an ultrasound and found a mass in Murray’s abdomen. I thought back to my cancer scare in Maui. Had Murray lived the best life he could? Had he taken life by the balls knowing that this day would one day come? I hoped that in spite of his hardscrabble life, Murray had enjoyed some prime bones in his youth.
The vet asked for permission to put him under so they could give him an X-ray and possibly surgery. She told us that she thought it might be cancer, and if it was, she had no idea how far it had spread. The rescue group had said he was probably ten, but she thought he was older. His chances weren’t good. I told her to do whatever it took to save him. She wanted to know if I wanted her to try to resuscitate him. I said, “Yes, of course.”
She said, “I’ve never seen it work.”
I said, “On animals or on people?”
She said, “Either.”
I said, “Do it. Please try.”
The nurse carried Murray out to see us. I held out my hands to him. He put his chin in my hands, surrendering the weight of his head, and just looked at me. It was like he knew the prognosis and had already accepted his fate. I wanted to give him hope, but the nurse was looking at me, so I self-consciously whispered in his ear. I said, “Don’t give up just because you found a home. Stay with us. There’s more for you. A family.”
Murray had five hours of surgery. When the vet called, she said, “He survived surgery. I can’t believe this guy. He’s a Christmas miracle. I never thought he’d make it.” But half an hour later she called again to say that he’d gone into cardiac arrest. They had tried to resuscitate him, they had done everything possible, but now she wanted permission to pull the plug. I gave it. Two days after we rescued him, Murray was gone.
The vet said that in surgery they discovered that Murray had eaten one of those little plastic squares they use to close the plastic around loaves of bread. She said he’d eaten it about a week earlier. It had torn him up inside. His fate had already been sealed when we brought him home. That bread clip was already going to kill him.
We didn’t say anything to Liam. He was only two and a half; we decided that was best. Two days later when he asked where Murray was, we said he was at the vet and that his sister was going to come live with us. Liam just said, “My Murray. My first dog.”
Why had we picked this dog? Out of thirty dogs, why did we connect to the one who had twenty-four hours to live? Why Murray?
Now, in the treatment room with Patti, I understood. In life there are miracles and disappointments at every turn. Murray was both for us, and I wouldn’t have done anything differently. Nothing. His old life was a mystery to me, but with us Murray had twenty-four hours of what he deserved. He had Christmas with a family and a boy. He wrote his own happy ending. If he could do it, I could.
• • •
My life was changing. I felt it. If she had told me six months ago to write my happy ending, I wouldn’t have known where to begin, but now I was starting. Letting go of perfection. Making time for small moments with my family. Instead of making my fear of flying magically disappear, I would work on it. I would rewrite it. I would teach myself another way of being.
After using up an entire tissue box, I left Patti’s office. I was starving. And I had a yeast infection. So I went to Gelson’s supermarket. In Gelson’s I wandered up and down the aisle looking for Monistat, which falls right between tampons and condoms on the scale of embarrassing supermarket purchases. As I searched, my internal fan radar started beeping. There was a girl on her cell phone who kept popping up. No matter which aisle I turned down, there she was. I was a mess from my crying jag, so not in the mood. I avoided eye contact. I found the feminine hygiene section, grabbed a box of Monistat, and went over to the hot food to find some lunch. Just as I was picking up a rotisserie chicken, I heard, “Hey, you’re Tori, right?” I had the chicken in one hand and the Monistat in the other. I turned around, trying to subtly drop the Monistat out of view. The last thing I needed was to see the tabloid headline “Tori Is Yeasty, Buys Chicken.” The box fell onto the hot food counter, faceup for all to see.
I said, “Yes, I’m Tori. Hi.”
“Hi, I’m Miss Beverly Hills,” she said. “Wow, you’re much shorter in person. Do you want a picture of Miss Beverly Hills?”
I said, “Oh no, that’s okay.” Was she offering me a picture of herself? No, I didn’t feel a desperate need for her headshot.
She said, “You won’t take a picture with me?”
I said, “Oh, you mean with me in it? Sorry, not today, I’m looking really haggard.” Haggard was the least of it. I’d just been crying for an hour. Didn’t she realize that not only did I have no idea how to write my own happy ending but I was also feeling yeasty? I kept trying to push the Monistat out of view on the hot food buffet, but Miss Beverly Hills was otherwise occupied.
She said, “Here, I can take a quick picture. If you don’t like it, we can delete it. Wow, you really are short!”
I said, “I’m five feet five.”
She said, “Well, I’m six feet so everyone looks short to me.” She held her phone in front of us and took a snapshot. She examined it, then passed it to me for my approval. In the picture my face was a peanut on her boob. I was tiny, makeup-free, and wan. She said, “Is the picture okay?”
I said, “Yes, it’s fine.”
She said, “Okay, well, I’ll probably see you at the gym. Bye.” I watched her go, thinking, What are you talking about? I never go to the gym.
• • •
The next day Dean, my agent Gueran, and I boarded our flight for New York. Every single time I ever fly, when I’m entering the plane I put my right foot over the threshold first. Then I glance at the outside of the plane, checking to see if there’s any last sign that I should not get on the flight. I cross onto the plane and look to the left, into the cockpit, trying to make eye contact with the pilots. I always pause, hoping that a pilot will turn around, see the fear on my face, take pity on me, and bring me into the cockpit. Meeting the pilots and sitting in the cockpit seemed like it might give me confidence in their abilities and quell my fears. I’ve been flying since I was eighteen, and not once has either pilot ever turned around and talked to me.
So I went through my plane entrance ritual, then Dean, Gueran, and I went to our seats. A male flight attendant came over. He said, “Hi, Tori, how are you? Can I take your coat?” I was wearing a big teddy bear coat, vintage Gucci. As he took it, I saw him look at the label, smile, and walk away. I thought, Oh good, he’s one of mine. Maybe he was even the same flight attendant who had announced, “Welcome to Los Angeles, birthplace and residence of Tori Spelling.” The flight was already looking up.
Patti had inspired me to try to make this flight different. Wanting to reassure myself, I walked up to the front of the plane and in my little, apologetic voice I said to the friendly flight attendant, “I’m a really scared flyer. I just wanted to know if there’s going to be any turbulence.”
He said, “Oh, you’re scared? Would you like to come talk to the pilots? Would that make you feel better?” No way this was happening.
I said, “I’ve always wanted to talk to the pilots!”
He brought me to the cockpit. The pilots
turned around when we came in, and my flight attendant friend said, “Hi, I have Tori Spelling here. She’s a nervous flyer. Can she talk to you for a few minutes?” He opened up the jump seat for me and I sat down.
The pilots said, “So tell us, why are you scared of flying?”
I wasn’t about to explain the whole thing. My dad’s phobia. My what-ifs. My need to write my own happy ending. Instead, in my little voice, I said, “I don’t know. I’ve always been scared. Everything makes me nervous.”
Then I said, “I’ve always wanted to be asked to sit in the cockpit. I’ve been flying for almost twenty years and I’ve never had the chance.”
The copilot said, “Pretty girl like you? I can’t believe that.” Was the copilot flirting with me? We made conversation. They talked about the flight a little. The copilot was definitely flirting with me! He was so attentive that I started wondering if my hair looked good. I wasn’t dressed for flirting! Now I wasn’t nervous, just ready to go back to my seat, but they were still chatting away. Didn’t they have a plane to fly? They were so chill.
Finally another flight attendant came in and said, “We’re ready to go.” There was a plane full of people, all in their seats waiting.
I didn’t know how to say good-bye. Should I shake hands? Salute? At a loss, I said, “See you on the ground safely!” and gave them a “way to go, fellas” air punch. So dorky. They turned to their instruments and I stood up to go. I wasn’t even fully turned around when the copilot turned his head to check out my ass. Yes he did!
Back at my seat I told Gueran that the copilot had looked at my ass. I said, “Doesn’t it look flat in these leggings?”
He said, “No, it looks good.” Okay, then. Everything was working in my favor. This flight was really coming together. Ding.
• • •
It was the first flight in my life that I didn’t shed a single tear. It really happened. I changed. Not completely—I was still nervous. But it was odd. I was nervous in a way that was kind of familiar and not unpleasant, like the way I might be nervous at the dentist about having a cavity. I just kept saying to myself, “Stop fantasizing about tragedy. Start writing your happy ending.” Something had changed. Something in my core being wasn’t nervous. My heart wasn’t pounding the way it usually did. The butterflies weren’t butterfly army training in my belly. There was some inner calm. When we had turbulence, the bumps made me go back to negative thoughts, but even then I’d just start talking myself to the happy place again. I pictured myself at Liam’s wedding. In the visual I kept seeing him wearing a bow tie, which wasn’t my ideal, but I could get past it. It was his wedding, after all. I couldn’t make that decision for him, though I could certainly make a recommendation. Then I pictured Liam getting married on that plane. It wasn’t an ideal party location—I don’t see him having a theme wedding—but I could work with it. The table numbers would be displayed on airsick bags. The servers could wear flight wings. Yeah, that could be fun.
• • •
One morning a couple of weeks ago I stirred and opened my eyes to find Dean lying on his side, propped on an elbow, staring at me. I immediately panicked. Was I drooling? Had I been snoring like a beast again? Were there crusty sleep boogers caked in my eyes? I said, “What’s wrong?”
Dean smiled. He said, “Here’s me. Here’s you. I love you.” It was the same thing he’d said to me at a little bar in Ottawa when we first met and fell in love.
Still trying to rub nonexistent eye boogers away, I looked at him and said simply, “I love you too.” It was one of those moments of reconnection, where a look or a sentence or both put everything back into perspective. In that moment I had never felt more in love with my husband.
Our lives kept changing. We had babies and work, hobbies and sickness, new and unexpected demands on our time. But at the heart of it all there was us. Tori and Dean. Dean and Tori. Good and bad, up and down, we were in it together. We had each other, always, to propel ourselves forward and to fall back on.
Even though I’d only had six hours of sleep and knew that the kids would wake soon, suddenly sleep didn’t matter. All I wanted to do was make love to my husband. Liam and Stella must have gotten the memo because for the first time ever they both slept past eight a.m. So Dean and I behaved like two teens in love and made crazy love, cuddled, laughed, and talked. We talked, and we heard each other. It was an amazing morning in the McDermott household.
Dean still races motorcycles, but I know that his number one hobby is his wife and kids. I try not to nag or to communicate with Dean through our two-year-old son (although that was kind of fun). We realize how lucky we are to have each other. I love Dean more every day, every year that passes. He has given me the life and love and family that I always dreamed of as a little girl. There will be more ebbs and flows. That’s how a marriage evolves. But for now we are just loving each other as best we can.
Afterword
Not long after we got home from New York, I had a sweet moment with Liam. Stella was taking her nap. Liam and I were in his room. He was sitting in my lap with books fanned out around him on the floor. For some reason he was going through the dogs’ names. He said, “I like my dogs. I like Ferris. I like Chiquita.” Then he laid his head back in my lap, looked up at me, and said, “I like you.”
I said, “I like you too.”
Then he said, “You’re my mommy.” We’d never had a conversation like this, where he took a moment to see and love our relationship.
I said, “You’re my baby.”
He sat up straight, turned to me, and said, “I am not a baby.” Then, in a more modest, matter-of-fact tone, he said, “I’m just Superman.”
I said, “Well, you’ll always be my baby.”
But he said, “No, Mama, Stella’s your baby.”
I said, “Okay.”
Then he said, “Read, Mama, read.” I started reading a book called Fuzzy Land. Liam knew the words to the book by heart. He said them aloud as I read. So I sat there reading the story, hoping he couldn’t hear me crying. Then my tears started dripping onto his hair and I hoped he couldn’t feel me crying. He wasn’t my baby anymore. It had happened so quickly. He wasn’t even three years old. If he could grow so much, learn so much, and change so much in so little time, then so could I. I was doing it for him, for Stella, for Dean, and for myself.
And so my quest goes on. Balance still eludes me. I haven’t found the magic key that will unlock my health problems, and sometimes I think I’m so out of whack that it’s hopeless. But I’m determined to search. I’m open to answers. I have hope.
I’ve found work that I love, and with it came a new stability. Dean and I have a home and a family together. To the outside eye it looks like my life is in place. But I feel something life-changing on the horizon. Sometimes I fantasize about moving to a little house in the country where I can live a simple life and be that girl who ran away to her parents’ laundry room. Dean’s on board for that, so long as there’s a dirt bike track. Dean’s always on board.
I love what I already have—my children, my husband, my friends, my work, my mother and brother, the life that I always dreamed of, and my ambitions for our future together. No matter how overwhelming it is, I still see the joy and promise of that life. I’m still living it, and I’ll continue to fight for it. That’s what balance is about, right? Tightrope walkers may appear to walk effortlessly across a line, but they are working with all their muscles, with all their being, to fight the forces that constantly pull them in different directions. The more you train those muscles, the easier it is to walk that fine line. And so I creep forward, wobbly and fearful, but committed to all that I have and all that I am.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank all the people in my life who have been a part of my amazing, fun, emotional, zany, humorous, insightful, and rewarding journey so far and still choose to stick around as together we enter uncharted terriTORI . . .
Dean . . . My soul mate. We’ve been t
hrough a lot in a short time and continue to prove that true love conquers all. You are my one true love and have given me the life and family I only thought I’d ever find in my dreams. You MADE my reality.
Liam . . . My sweet gentle soul. My beautiful baby boy. My Monkey. Keep entertaining. Mommy loves you, Super Dude.
Stella . . . My angelic girly girl. My Buggy. You have mama’s fire and love of purses and shoes. I love your heart and soul. I love you.
Jack . . . It’s been a pleasure watching you grow from a little boy into a bright, confident young man. I love you.
Mom . . . I’ve always loved you and always will. We know our truth. Family is everything.
Randy . . . I love you, Genie. I am so proud of the man you’ve become and the life you have created for yourself.
Mehran . . . You are the greatest UN-love of my life. You love me unconditionally and never cease to have patience for my crazy brain. You believe in me even when I forget to believe in myself. You are my chic rock. Truly my best friend and my gay husband forever.
Jenny . . . My best friend and sister. You’ve exemplified the meaning of “old friends are the best friends.” You inspire me daily and give me strength when I sometimes feel like I have none. I love you.
Scout and Bill (aka The Guncles) . . . You have given my family love beyond love. Before I can ask, you know and are there. You make me laugh and nurture me when I need to cry. You’ve shown me that family is there for you no matter what.
Amy, Sara, Jennifer, Marcel, James . . . Friends come and go BUT true friends are forever. Thank you for your patience and love over the past year and never giving up on me.
Patsy . . . Fate brought our lives together, but love made us family. You have shown me unconditional love and have taught me the value of family. You mean the world to us. Always.
Dale . . . Although we are far apart I know you are always there for me, Big Sis! Thanks for reminding me that family always has your back and gives unconditional love.
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