The Beginning of After

by Jennifer Castle

  Getting up in the middle of the night for a drink of milk was a thing I’d done forever. When I was a toddler, I took a sippy cup to bed. My parents let me, probably because it helped keep me asleep all night, but my first cavity at age five put an end to all that. They offered me a cup of water as a compromise, but I refused. Then I’d wake up and reach for something that wasn’t there anymore, and start to thrash when I realized I couldn’t suck milk through my teeth and wash away the bad dreams. I started sneaking into the kitchen to take a swig from the gallon jug in the fridge, swish it around my mouth, and then go upstairs and back to sleep.

  Even during these days after the prom, it was the one time besides going to the bathroom that I ventured out of my room. I didn’t want Nana to know. I was aware of her keeping track of my bathroom visits, could feel her listening to my movement across the hall and back. She and Masher were alike that way; if Nana’s ears could have pricked up like a dog’s whenever the door of my room opened, I’m sure they would have.

  But Masher was the only one who knew about my milk trips. I’d just make it into the kitchen and reach for the refrigerator door when I’d hear the click, click, jingle, jingle of his toenails and collar on the hardwood floor behind me. Before the prom, I welcomed the company, taking a few moments to pet him before heading back upstairs.

  Now he stared at me as I opened the milk carton and raised it to my lips, a needy intrusion. I ignored him.

  When I was done, I looked at the carton. In the past, it was always a gallon jug; we needed that much milk in the house, between Toby and me drinking it and Dad’s coffee and Mom’s tea, and cereal and scrambled eggs and the occasional cookbook recipe.

  I hadn’t seen this difference until now; Nana was buying less milk. I looked around the half darkness of the kitchen, illuminated only by the stove light. What else had changed?

  In the pantry, the shelves were full but familiar things were missing. Like the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos that Toby loved so much. My mom would buy them for him and then yell about the neon orange dust on everything he touched.

  The counters were clean. That was unusual. My mom and dad played a game of Wiping Chicken when it came to the counters. Each one thought it was the other’s job and would only give in with sighing resentment. Which didn’t happen all that often; crumbs and spill stains were things I’d stopped noticing a long time ago.

  Then I noticed the knife block. Nobody in our house could agree on which knife went in which slot. We each had our own way of doing it. Dad always put them in so the blades were facing left because he was left-handed; Mom and I did it randomly. Toby always put the small knives in the big slots out of sheer laziness. But now they were organized perfectly; each one in its place, each blade facing to the right. I pulled one out and it looked shinier, sharper than ever.

  Holding the knife with the blade against my palm, it became so clear how my life would only contain shadows now. Shadows of things gone; not just the people themselves but everything connected to them. Was this my future? Every moment, every tiny thing I saw and did and touched, weighted by loss. Every space in this house and my town and the world in general, empty in a way that could never be filled.

  I can’t do this.

  The thought doubled me over and I sank to the floor, the knife still in my hand.

  And besides, why should I?

  Seeing the silver of the knife in contrast to the textured skin on my wrist, I couldn’t push the dangerous question out of my head.

  What do I have to live for that’s worth this much pain?

  I’d seen the movies in health class and gone to the school assemblies. I had considered myself depressed a few times, in middle school and for a good solid month in ninth grade. I’d wondered about the different ways you could off yourself, and which one I might choose if it came to that. Didn’t everyone think about that stuff?

  But the word suicide had always seemed rather cliché.

  Yeah, yeah. Don’t make that “final decision.” We get it!

  But now I got it in a totally different way.

  “You know how Hemingway killed himself?” my dad once asked me when he saw I was reading A Farewell to Arms for English class. “He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I have a lot of respect for that. Messy, but quick. Who wants to bleed to death in a bathtub or free-fall for several seconds off a building?”

  “I like the car-running-in-the-garage approach,” I’d said. My father and I had a way of turning these types of conversations—horrifying, really—into an easy joke.

  “Too wimpy,” he said. “So you go to sleep and it’s not messy or painful. I mean, if you’re going to do it, do it!”

  If you’re going to do it, do it.

  There was nothing at this moment to stop me. I looked at the knife again for what could have been two seconds or two minutes. Everything around me and inside of me froze.

  “Laurel?”

  Nana’s voice like a phone ringing, that high, clear startle. The kitchen flooded with light.

  I looked up at her, as she looked down at me and then at the oversized utensil in my hand.

  Her expression made me drop it to the floor with a clang.

  Chapter Twelve

  Suzie Sirico’s office was really just a small converted den in her very large house. It was on the first floor and had its own entrance around the back, and I felt a little like hired help as I made my way along the stepping-stones across the grass to a white wooden door.

  Inside were a couch and two chairs, with a coffee table between them. Everything was overstuffed and brightly patterned, like one of those rooms you see in a home catalogue that you can’t imagine real people ever actually using.

  “Oh, look,” my mom would say when these things came in the mail. “One-stop shopping for people who don’t have any style but want to pretend they do.” She could be a snob about who was born with an artistic eye and who was not.

  Suzie sat in one of these carefully designed chairs with a legal pad and pen on her lap, resting her hand in her chin as she gazed at me with curiosity.

  I sat on one end of the couch—the end farther from Suzie—with both hands tucked between my knees.

  I was here. Bathed, dressed, out of the house.

  “Laurel, you will do this. For me. Yes?” Nana had half asked as she put me to bed the night before.

  Yes, I would do this. For her.

  Now Suzie smiled a bit, still curious, like I was a package she’d found on her doorstep but didn’t want to open yet. We had been sitting in silence for a full minute.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said finally.

  It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer.

  “I heard that Gabriel Kaufman was moved to a long-term care facility in New Jersey, and that David’s staying with relatives nearby.”

  “Oh.” Even just hearing Mr. Kaufman’s name was like a slap in my face, but I didn’t let on.

  “I thought maybe you’d heard from him, since you still have his dog.” She made it sound like I’d borrowed one of David’s CDs and kept forgetting to give it back.

  “No, I haven’t.” I stared at my thumbs lined up next to each other and noticed how the two sets of knuckle creases didn’t quite match.

  “I bring up David because I understand you recently had an upsetting experience with him.”

  Yeah, thanks for reminding me.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I looked at her now and just shook my head. Suzie regarded me for a second, then wrote something on her pad. I watched the tip of her pen wiggle as it made a smooth scratching noise, as if whispering something back to her.

  “Okay,” she said abruptly, plopping the pad down on the end table next to her. “Then I have something fun I’d like to show you.”

  Suzie got up and went to her bookcase, found a wooden box next to a figurine of a fairy sitting on a rock, and sat back down. She opened the box and pulled out what looked like an oversized deck of cards
.

  “We call these Feeling Flash Cards,” she said, smiling as she glanced at one. “I think of them as a game. I show you a card with the beginning of a sentence, and you say the first thing that comes to mind to complete the sentence. Shall we try it?”

  This sounded stupid, but I didn’t even have the energy to say that. It was easier just to shrug and nod.

  Suzie pulled out a card, eyed it with another grin, and flipped it toward me.

  Below a picture of a red wilting flower were the words: I BELIEVE WHEN SOMEONE DIES, THEY . . .

  Are watching me.

  That’s what popped into my head, taking me by surprise. But I couldn’t echo it with spoken words. I hated to think of what that would lead to.

  Instead, I said, “Gone.”

  Suzie raised an eyebrow. “Gone, how?”

  “Just gone.”

  I looked back at the card expectantly, like Hit me again. Suzie frowned but flipped over the next one.

  I AM ANGRY BECAUSE . . .

  Nothing will go as planned.

  Huh? No.

  “I have to be here today.”

  Suzie gazed at me, again with the curiosity, and then gingerly laid the card back on the deck. She took great care to slowly replace the first card, put the top on the box, and place it on the end table next to her pad. Her movements seemed calm, yet hostile.

  “Laurel,” she said, looking at me now with commitment, her face clear of questions. Right in the eyes. “Do you believe your relationship with your parents and your brother is over?”

  The force of this made me unfurl. My shoulders hit the back of the couch and my hands came out from between my knees. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I folded them protectively over my stomach.

  “Of course it’s over. They’re dead.”

  “So they will never be part of your life again?”

  “Well, yeah. They’re dead.” Why did I have to repeat that? Had she gotten me mixed up with someone else?

  “They won’t have any more influence on you? They won’t contribute to who you are or the decisions you make?”

  Now it was my turn to look at Suzie with curiosity.

  “Laurel, you have suffered a terrible, horrible loss. Greater than most people can imagine. But you can survive this trauma, and one of the many ways that will help you do that is to think of your relationship with your mom, your relationship with your dad, and your relationship with your brother as things you can work on and develop, even though these people you love are not living.”

  I felt something latch open inside me, and the first heat of tears in my eyes. It was an unfamiliar heat, of relief.

  Suzie did not smile or nod or seem at all victorious at breaking through like this. She looked at me with even more determination.

  “This will be hard, Laurel. But it will be worth it.”

  I slept that night, but woke up early to the sound of someone gagging and coughing. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Selina on the pillow next to me, staring with disgust at the source of the sound.

  Which was Masher, in the middle of my room, spitting something onto the purple rug. There was a foamy pink stain next to a pile of my clothes.

  Gross, I thought. What had he eaten that was pink?

  But my color-mixing skills as a painter snapped on and reminded me, Red and purple make pink.

  He was puking up blood.

  I jumped out of bed and grabbed Masher gently by the ears, forcing him to look at me. His eyes were bloodshot, and although this was the first time I’d touched him in days, he didn’t seem to react. He just pulled his head away and dropped it to the floor, where I noticed an older pink stain a few feet away.

  “Nana!” I yelled.

  I heard frantic footsteps getting louder, and then Nana burst into my room, looking panicked. “What? What happened?”

  “Masher’s sick.”

  She closed her eyes and put her hand on her chest. “For goodness’ sake, Laurel!” She steadied her breathing. “The dog?”

  “Did you notice anything last night?”

  Nana looked at Masher distastefully at first, then softened.

  “No. He wanted to go out, so I let him. He came back a little later than usual, maybe.”

  “I think we need to call the vet. The number’s on that emergency list by the phone downstairs.”

  Nana looked at me, then back at Masher. I don’t know which of us looked more pathetic.

  “Do you want me to get it?”

  “If you could,” I said.

  Dr. Fischer had been our vet for years. Her daughter was in Toby’s class. Then I thought of her and her staff, seeing me. Knowing what had happened on prom night. Knowing, period.

  Nana was almost out the door when I said, “I don’t think I can take him. Can you do it?”

  She turned slowly and made a little ha! noise. “No, Laurel. You took this dog in. You are responsible for him.”

  I turned to Masher, his eyes not even pleading anymore, and pushed David’s face out of my mind so it was no longer connected to the dog.

  “Then bring me the Yellow Pages,” I said. “I’ll find another vet.”

  Ashland Animal Hospital was on Ashland Road in the town just east of ours, but lucky for them they were listed first in the phone book. Nana pulled into a parking space and glanced at me in the rearview mirror. I was sitting in the backseat with Masher in my arms.

  “Do you want me to call David’s grandmother? I’m sure she can get in touch with him.”

  “No!” I said.

  “Laurel, he should know.”

  “It’s my fault he got sick. I’ll deal with it.”

  “You’ll have to tell him eventually.”

  “Not if I can help it. . . .” My voice was on the verge of anger. I could only see Nana’s eyes and eyebrows framed in the little rectangle of the mirror, but from her silence I knew she got it.

  “Do you want me to come in?” she asked, sighing a little. Giving in.

  “Only if you want to.”

  “I brought a book,” she said, pointing to a paperback lying on the front seat next to her, which I took to mean that Nana would be reading in the comfort of the car and not a smelly animal hospital waiting room.

  “Okay. I’ll come out and keep you posted.”

  I hooked Masher onto his leash and lifted him out of the car, then guided him slowly into the building. The second we walked in, a tiny dog wearing a red sweater started barking at us. Masher could have nibbled that thing like a snack, but he cowered from it, and that told me just how serious this was.

  We made it to the front desk by walking the perimeter of the room, away from the yapping mini-whatever.

  Just five minutes later, we were in an exam room with Masher lying on the table, staring at the wall. I followed his gaze to a poster of two fluffy kittens wearing sunglasses and berets, with the caption “A Couple of Cool Cats!”

  “Yeah,” I said to him. “That’s just wrong.”

  There was a quick knock on the door before the doctor came in.

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Benavente,” he said in a voice that sounded much younger than he looked. He had salt-and-pepper hair and big glasses, and looked more like a mad scientist in his white coat than a vet, but also like someone you could trust.

  “I’m Laurel, and this is Masher.”

  He smiled sadly at Masher. “Hi, buddy,” he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at me and added, “Nice to meet you. So what’s going on with this guy? They tell me he’s coughing up blood?”

  “Yes. And he seems pretty out of it.”

  “It just started this morning?”

  “Yes.” I thought so. Truth was, he could have been doing this for a day or two and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  I watched as Dr. Benavente examined Masher’s eyes, ears, and mouth, and felt around his belly. His face was like a stone, and I couldn’t read it.

  “Has he had diarrhea? Anything with blood in it?” th
e doctor asked.

  “I—I don’t know.” How could I tell him nobody had been walking Masher lately? Then I remembered something from the day before: Nana yelling at him downstairs, saying things like “disgusting” and “shouldn’t be doing this” loud enough for me to hear.

  Dr. Benavente looked at me a little differently now, like I’d just slid into a new category for him. Someone who did not take good care of her pet.

  “We’ll run some tests, but my gut feeling is that this guy has ingested rat poison. It’s unfortunately very common; to dogs, rat poison looks just like kibble. But it’s also potentially lethal to them. I think we may have caught this early enough, but he’s going to need some emergency treatment.”

  I put my hand over my mouth and then struggled to say something intelligent. “So why is there blood?”

  “Some rat poisons kill by interfering with an animal’s blood clotting, so Masher’s bleeding internally. I think he ingested it at least twenty-four hours ago, so it’s too late to induce vomiting, but we can give him vitamin K injections that will help his blood clot and stop the hemorrhaging. I’d like to keep him here for a couple of days for treatment and observation. Does that sound okay?”

  He’d had me at “bleeding internally.” The tears were streaming down my face now, and I couldn’t even look at Masher; I had to focus on the ridiculous beret kittens to keep some control.

  “Please do whatever you have to do,” I said.

  “Go out front and give this to Eve,” he said, handing me a yellow paper with illegible scrawl on it. “We’ll get started, and I’ll give you an update as soon as I have one.”

  I just nodded, and while Dr. Benavente picked up Masher, I locked eyes with the dog once and said, “I’m so sorry . . .” before running out.

  At the front desk, a girl a few years older than me, maybe college age, was punching at fax machine buttons and cursing under her breath.

  “I’m supposed to give this to Eve,” I said, waving the yellow paper.

  “That’s me,” she said, reaching out to take it. She glanced at the notes and her lower lip jutted out, turned down. “Poisoning is rough. But you’re in good hands.”