by Julia Watts
Lily was trying to work. She sat at the kitchen table, with a spiral notebook and a sketch pad in front of her. When she was starting a new children’s book, she never knew which would come to her first: the words or the pictures. She rested her chin in her hands and stared into space. She rubbed Mordecai, who was resting under the table, with her bare feet.
Today, neither the words nor the pictures were coming.
But it wasn’t just that she was having an off day. Since the accident, since the Maycombs’ attack, Lily hadn’t made a single sketch or written anything more creative than a grocery list. Her hands, which in happier days had itched with the urge to create, were now numb and impotent.
The problem with being an artist, Lily thought, is that my work reflects my life. During her days with Charlotte, Lily’s happiness had spilled forth onto the pages of her books. Her playful spirit had perfectly matched the spirits of her young readers.
Now, though, her spirit was far from happy and playful, and she refused to write a children’s book that reflected her current state of mind. Lily couldn’t write a children’s book about the all-too-human capacity for inhumanity, oppression, and injustice. Children would learn about these things soon enough without reading a book about them.
And Mimi, who was now napping so innocently in her crib, might learn about these things all too soon. She might be taken away from the person who loved her most in the world by the people who thought that person wasn’t fit to live. Lily rested her head in her hands. She tried to take comfort in the McGillys’ confidence in the hearing’s outcome, but it was confidence she couldn’t share. The McGillys’
lack of concern concerned her.
Mordecai hefted his bulk up and ambled toward the kitchen door.
“Need to go out, tiny boy?” Lily called Mordecai by diminutive names, like “teensy lapdog” and
“my little Chihuahua.” The one-hundred-eighty-pound beast seemed to enjoy thinking of himself as a daintier creature.
Once Mordecai was in the backyard, she closed her notebook and her sketch pad. If the inspiration isn’t there, she had learned, there’s no forcing it. Still, she was going to have to get some inspiration from somewhere. Regardless of how the trial went, there would be a day in the not-so-distant future when she would be kicked off the McGilly family gravy train.
She used her once-creative hands to make tea and wash dishes. What a fine little housewife I’m turning out to be, she thought.
Ben, of course, was out with his new/old obsession. The golfing date had gone well; Ben had come home so excited about spending the day with Ken that Lily had suggested that he change his name to Barbie. “Besides,” she had said, “you don’t really want to go through life as a couple named Ben and Ken.”
“Is it any more ridiculous than going through life as Lily McGilly?”
Lily had conceded his point. She also had to concede something else: Her sarcasm toward Ben’s giddiness was due to nothing more than good, old-fashioned jealousy. It didn’t bother her that her ersatz husband was stepping out on her; she didn’t give a shit about that.
It was Ben’s happiness that drove her crazy, that made her think of her first days with Charlotte, when their love was green and about to blossom. That kind of joy was the complete opposite of what she was feeling these days. Tennyson may have believed that “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” but Lily wasn’t sure.
Of course, there wasn’t anything for Lily to be jealous of yet. Neither Ben nor Ken had admitted to the other that he was gay. Ben said they had each “dropped a few hairpins” during their game of golf, but being in a public place, neither of them had let his hair down entirely. Today, though, they were meeting in a more private setting. Ken had invited Ben to spend the afternoon at his house, listening to Brit pop and then eating sushi for dinner, which Ken had prepared from ingredients he had bought at the international farmer’s market in Atlanta. Lily had opined to Ben that he was home free: straight white men don’t make sushi.
Lily dried the last dish and sipped her tea. Just then, her eardrums were pierced by a high-pitched cry of pain. She dropped her cup into the sink and ran to Mimi’s room, only to find the little girl resting comfortably. She heard the cry again, and this time, with her maternal instinct laid to rest, she could tell the sound was animal, not human. It was coming from the backyard.
She ran down the hall and out the kitchen door. Mordecai was lying on his stomach, his face pressed against the chain-link fence, whimpering and howling in pain.
“It’s okay, Mordecai,” she said as she approached him. “It’s me, Mordecai.” Animals in pain, she knew, could strike out without thinking. She softly repeated his name to remind him that she was his friend.
When she got closer, she saw what had happened. Mordecai, famous for digging his way out of his dog pen at the big McGilly house, had attempted to do the same thing with the chain-link fence here. But he had, hit a painful snag.
The section of fencing he had exposed was torn, as though someone had clipped a jagged hole in it
— a hole just the right size to trap one of his mammoth front paws.
There was a lot of blood. In trying to remove his paw from the trap, he had only succeeded in digging the metal into his flesh.
“Poor baby,” Lily cooed. Mordecai whimpered in agreement.
Lily locked her fingers in the links above the hole and pulled upward. The big dog looked down at his freed paw with mournful eyes.
Lily had to agree that it did look pretty bad. His dark fur made the nature of his wounds hard to detect, but when he tried to stand, the injured foot dangled limply. For all Lily knew, it could be broken.
“Sit tight, Mordecai. Let me go inside and get the baby and the car keys. We’re gonna get you some help.”
The one thing she could say in favor of the monstrous Chrysler New Yorker Big Ben had bought was that it was a vehicle of sufficient size to comfortably transport a toddler and a rottweiler. Lily’s old Honda, which was sitting unused in the condo parking lot in Atlanta, barely had enough room for her and Mimi, let alone a one-hundred-eighty-pound dog. She had wrapped Mordecai’s paw in a clean towel.
Even so, she was sure he was bleeding all over the car’s plush upholstery. She knew this kind of thing would cause Ben to have a hissy fit, but she didn’t care. The day she cared more about personal property than living things was the day she’d have her woman’s symbol tattoo removed and become a cheeseburger-chomping Republican.
After Lily was already on the road, it occurred to her that she could have called Jeanie and asked who Mordecai’s regular vet was. But it was too late for that. Since he was losing blood, expediency seemed the best path. Down the road from the sock mill, she had noticed a green double-wide trailer with a sign,
FAULKNER COUNTY ANIMAL CLINIC. Lily hoped they would see animals on an emergency basis.
Once they arrived, Lily had no doubt that the Faulkner County Animal Clinic was where Mordecai went for his shots and checkups. He had been exceptionally cooperative about getting into the car at the house, but now, at the sight of the foreboding trailer, he froze in terror. Being careful to avoid his hurt foot, Mimi tried to pull him out of the car, but it was impossible. His huge muscles were locked, such that moving him was as impossible as moving a heavy marble statue.
“Okay, fine. You wait here.” She left the window cracked for the obstinate canine and freed Mimi from her car seat. Mimi grabbed her hand and toddled alongside her to the trailer’s entrance.
A round old lady with a pink slash of lipstick on her puckered mouth sat at the desk in the paneled waiting room. “May I help you, dear?” she asked, through puckered lips.
“Um, yes, I hope so,” Lily said. “I don’t have an appointment, but I have an injured dog in the car.
He’s Big Ben McGilly’s —”
“Mordecai?” the old lady asked.
Lily was amazed. She had already discovered that every person knew e
very other person in this town, but until now, she hadn’t realized that this knowledge extended to lower members of the animal kingdom. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Well, you can bring him on in.”
“Well, actually, I can’t. He won’t budge from the car.”
The old lady smiled. “Well, I guess if Mordecai doesn’t want to move, it’s kinda hard to make him. Have a seat. I’ll get Dr. Jack to help you.”
Lily sat down on a green vinyl chair. Mimi stood at the waiting room’s coffee table, clearly fascinated by the lamp that sat on it. A ginger jar lamp, its clear glass base was filled with dog biscuits.
The old lady, who had disappeared into the back of the trailer, returned to her post at the desk.
“The doctor’ll be with you in a minute.”
Moments later, Lily looked up as she heard the sound of boots clomping down the linoleum-floored hall. Looking down the dimly lighted corridor, Lily saw that Dr. Jack was a muscular but short man, wearing blue coveralls and a pair of dirt-caked brown cowboy boots.
In the full light of the waiting room, however, Lily saw that Dr. Jack wasn’t a man at all.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m Dr. Jack Jennings. How you doing?” She extended her hand to shake. Her close-cropped brown hair and square jaw made it easy to mistake her for a man at a distance. But close up, the smoothness of her cheeks made it clear she was a woman. Lily shook her hand, which, while big, was too soft to be a man’s.
“You okay?” Dr. Jack asked.
“Um... yeah. Fine.” If Lily had seen a woman who looked like Jack at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, she barely would have noticed her. But here in Versailles, where most premenopausal women were hyperfeminine slaves to Mary Kay cosmetics and the tanning bed, seeing a butch was shocking — like seeing a bull-mastiff in a litter of poodles.
“You thought I was gonna be a man, didn’t you?” Dr. Jack sized up Lily with clear blue eyes.
“Um... yeah, I guess so. Just from the name and all.”
Dr. Jack looked stern suddenly. “Now I hope you don’t think that being a woman makes me less of a vet.”
“Oh, gosh, no,” Lily said quickly. “I mean, I minored in women’s studies in college.” What an idiotic thing to say, she thought. But it was too late; she’d already said it.
“So... Mordecai’s out in your car?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it looks like you’ve got your hands full with your little girl there.” She looked down at Mimi. “Hi, doll face.” She smiled at Mimi for a second, then looked back up at Lily. “So, if you’d give me your keys, I can just run out and get ole Mordecai for you.”
Lily handed over the keys.
Jack flashed her a gap-toothed grin. “I’m not a car thief, I promise.” She propped open the screen door and disappeared outside. In a couple of minutes, she was back, carrying the one-hundred-eighty-pound dog as if he weighed no more than Mimi. She nodded at Lily. “Why don’t y’all just follow me back to the exam room?”
In the examination room, Dr. Jack set Mordecai down on a long metal table. “I’m not exactly Mordecai’s favorite person, but he knows he’s hurt and needs help, so he’ll listen to reason.” Mordecai emitted a low growl as Dr. Jack cleaned his injuries.
“How bad is it?” Lily asked.
“Could be worse. He’s gonna need a few stitches, though. We’ll numb him, sew him up, give him a tetanus shot. He’ll be all right.” She looked at Mimi, then at Lily. “The sewing part’s not pretty, though.
You can wait outside if you’re squeamish.”
Lily reached out to pat Mordecai’s big head. “I’ll stay, if it’s okay. Just in case he wants me here.”
“Sure.” Dr. Jack opened the refrigerator in the corner, which was full of medicine bottles. She selected a bottle and closed the door. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, how come you’re the one bringing Mordecai in? Big Ben or Jeanie usually brings him.”
Lily realized she hadn’t introduced herself. “I kind of. . . inherited Mordecai. I married Big Ben and Jeanie’s son, Benny Jack.”
“Benny Jack McGilly finally got married?” She squinted at a syringe as she filled it with medicine. “Huh.” She slipped the needle into a fold of Mordecai’s flesh. He didn’t even flinch.
“You’re good at that,” Lily said.
“I practiced that a lot in vet school ... giving shots so they wouldn’t hurt so much.” She scratched one of Mordecai’s ears. “Poor feller’s already hurting, no need for me to make it worse. Actually, y’all are lucky I was in this afternoon. I got called out to the Weaver farm at four o’ clock this mornin’ to help a cow in calf. I was so beat at lunch today I thought about not coming back to the office this afternoon. I do large animal calls in the mornin’, small animals in the afternoon.” She gave Mordecai another affectionate scratch. “Not that you’d really call ole Mordy here a small animal.”
Dr. Jack’s grin was contagious, and Lily felt herself miling, too. “So do any of the local farmers act surprised when they see the vet’s a woman?”
“Aah, I reckon they’d be surprised if it was any other woman, but my daddy was the county vet before me, and I used to go out with him on farm calls when I wasn’t any bigger than a minute. Daddy raised me by himself, so he never wanted to leave me alone in the house when he took off in the middle of the night to help birth a colt or somethin’. So I always went with him. I was helping deliver farm babies when I was practically a baby myself. People just always figured I’d take over Daddy’s practice when he retired.” She lightly touched Mordecai’s wounded foot. “He’s numb. Time to sew him up. ’Scuse me if I don’t talk during this part.”
Dr. Jack’s big hands worked deftly, neatly stitching together Mordecai’s torn flesh. Mimi was getting restless, so Lily walked her around the exam room, pointing out the posters of puppies and kittens.
“Okay,” Dr. Jack said, “one more shot, and ole Mordy’ll be good to go.” She looked down at Mimi as she went to retrieve more medicine from the refrigerator. “Is little doll face there Benny Jack’s?”
“Uh-huh,” Lily said, reminding herself to preserve the myth.
“Well, whaddaya know?” Dr. Jack cackled. “I wouldn’ta thought he had it in him.” Her smile faded. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I just meant —”
Lily smiled. “I think I know what you meant.”
Their eyes locked for a moment, in the straight-forward way that only gay people look at each other. I know what she is, Lily thought, but she’s still trying to figure out what the hell I am ... trying to reconcile the gaydar with the husband and baby.
Dr. Jack broke her gaze, rifled through a drawer, and produced a roll of bandages. “You’ll need to change his bandage in the mornin’. Be sure to check that there’s not any unusual discharge from the wound. If there is, call the office right away. He’ll probably be in some pain today and tomorrow ... you can slip in an aspirin in some hamburger meat, and that oughta help. If he seems to be doing okay, call me at the end of the week just to let me know how he’s healing up. We can also set up an appointment to take out the stitches.”
Their facades were back in place: professional and appropriately distant. “Thank you, doctor.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Dr. Jack lifted Mordecai down from the table and gently held his collar as he bobbled, three-legged, down the hall.
“Okay,” Dr. Jack said, as she sorted things out at the front desk, “Mordecai, you get a Milk-Bone.
Mimi, you get a lollipop, and you, Mrs. McGilly”— she banded a computer printout to Lily — “get the bill.”
Lily smiled. “Gee, thanks.”
Dr. Jack returned her grin. “My pleasure, Mrs. McGilly.”
As she wrote the check, Lily marveled at the direction her life was taking. She never thought she’d live to hear a butch — or anyone — call her “Mrs.” anything.
After Lily finally agreed to let Mordecai in bed with her, he dropped off in a fitful sleep. Lying awake while Mor
decai snored beside her and Ben snored in the next room, Lily had her first moment of enlightenment since Charlotte’s death.
She was thinking about the story Dr. Jack told, about going with her father on vet calls when she was a little girl. There was a picture book in that story —a picture book about farm animals, so simple that even very young children like Mimi could enjoy it. But the pictures of the farm animals could be framed by the story of the little girl and her father — and how the little girl wants to grow up to be a vet.
Lily had never written a book for such young children before, but she liked the idea of writing something for Mimi. It would be a lasting gift for her daughter — even if things in the courtroom didn’t work out.
She wanted to draw the animals in accurate detail, something along the lines of Garth Williams’
wonderful illustrations for Charlotte’s Web, but she hadn’t been to a farm since a field trip in first grade.